hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org

Hyperstition

JUNE 2004 1 POLYTICS Hyperstition (June 07, 2004) HOW DO FICTIONS BECOME HYPERSTITIONS? Linda Trent (June 19, 2004) DUST Reza Negarestani (June 19, 2004) DUST (CONT.) R. Negarestani (June 19, 2004) PARASITIC GAMER Reza Negarestani (June 21, 2004) LOVECRAFT AND ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS mark k-punk (June 21, 2004) AGAINST THE WORLD, AGAINST LIFE mark k-punk (June 23, 2004) RELIC Reza Negarestani (June 23, 2004) WHY NUMOGRAM NUMBERS ARE SIMPLE Nick Land (June 24, 2004) QABBALA 101: PART 0 Nick Land (June 24, 2004) THE 'HYPE' IN HYPERSTITION Anna Greenspan (June 25, 2004) FOLLOWING THE RECENT COMMENTS ON VIDEOGAMES Reza Negarestani (June 25, 2004) THE ABJAD VERSION OF THE NUMOGRAM: PHASE 1 Cold-Me (June 25, 2004) ON UNBELIEF (A BEGINNING) Anna Greenspan (June 27, 2004) CANDIDATES FOR A TOP 9 Anna Greenspan (June 27, 2004) THE ADVISOR Cold-Me (June 29, 2004) 1 ii 3 9 12 14 15 17 19 24 28 28 35 36 47 50 53

HYPERSTITION AND ANONYMOUS-UNTIL-NOW Cold-Me (June 29, 2004) 55 JULY 2004 63 CARTOGRAPHY OF THE VIRTUAL 63 Nick Land (July 2, 2004) ANONYMOUS-UNTIL-NOW (CONT.) 67 Reza Negarestani (July 2, 2004) SOMETHING OLD (FROM IRIS) 72 Anna Greenspan (July 3, 2004) HYPERSTITION/SUPERSTITION 76 mark k-p (July 6, 2004) TELLURIAN INSURGENCY 1: TELLURO-MAGNETIC CONSPIRACY TOWARD THE SUN: SOLAR RATTLE 80 Reza Negaristani (July 7, 2004) THE TIC XENOTATION 86 Nick Land (July 7, 2004) A QUESTION ON THE TELLURIAN INSIDER AND CYBERSPACE 89 Reza Negarestani (July 8, 2004) FIVE BILLION YEARS OF HELL-ENGINEERING 90 Reza Negarestani (July 9, 2004) WE ARE A NETWORK! (A NOTE ON THE ABJAD INSTALLMENT OF THE NUMOGRAM) 98 Reza Negarestani (July 12, 2004) QABBALA 101: PART 1 103 Nick Land (July 14, 2004) FROM TEXT TO TXT 109 Mark k-p (July 14, 2004) INTELLIGENCE CATASTROPHE Nick Land (July 16, 2004) ZOROASTRIAN OSSEOTHERAPY OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM Reza Negarestani (July 16, 2004) iii 116 117

VOWEL-STRIPPED TIC-TALK Anna Greenspan (July 17, 2004) FARMER'S SYNDROME (OR WHY SHERLOCK HOLMES IS NOT HYPERSTITIONAL) Linda Trent (July 18, 2004) IS IT A TRICK? mark k-p (July 20, 2004) SORCERY VERSUS LITERATURE mark k-p (July 20, 2004) SORCERY AND HYPERSTITION? scanshifts (July 22, 2004) NIETZSCHE ON UNBELIEF mark k-p (July 22, 2004) D/G/CASTANEDA mark k-p (July 23, 2004) CAPITAL/HYPERSTITION Nick Land (July 25, 2004) HEROES OF HYPERSTITION: NO. 1 Anna Greenspan (July 25, 2004) HYPERSTITIONAL CARRIERS Anna Greenspan (July 26, 2004) PALAEOCON EXPOSES CCRW Nick Land (July 27, 2004) GHOST STORIES AND HISTORIES Mark k-p (July 27, 2004) CAPITAL/HYPERSTITION (CONT.): DUSTISM Reza Negarestani (July 27, 2004) RAEL Reza Negarestani (July 31, 2004) 124 AUGUST 2004 201 D/G: CAPITALISM/THE THING/FICTIONAL QUANTITIES mark k-p (August 2, 2004) 201 iv 127 165 166 166 168 170 172 189 193 195 196 197 200

D/G/ATP/HPL mark k-p (August 2, 2004) HEROES OF HYPERSTITION 2 Nick Land (August 3, 2004) THE THING: BETWEEN ARRIVAL AND SPONTANEOUS EMERGENCE Reza Negarestani (August 4, 2004) MECCA-NOMICS Nick Land (August 5, 2004) ANTI-KAPITAL mark k-p (August 7, 2018) THE AOE AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF NINE Reza Negarestani (August 10, 2004) PIPELINE ODYSSEY * Reza Negarestani (August 11, 2004) VYSPAROV’S PANDEMONIUM CONCORDANCE FOR THE BOOK OF PATHS Nick Land (August 12, 2004) HYPER C UPDATE - THE AGE OF BABALU steve hyperdub (August 12, 2004) DECIMAL PHONETICISM Nick Land (August 15, 2004) PAZUZU (THE DUST ENFORCER) Reza Negarestani (August 16, 2004) GREAT LEMURS - NO.1: KATAK Nick Land (August 20, 2004) TELLURIAN INSURGENCY 2: TELLURO-MAGNETIC CONSPIRACY: THE CORE Reza Negarestani (August 21, 2004) HYPERSTITIONAL ENTITIES OF OIL Reza Negarestani (August 24, 2004) THE SORCERY OF ISLAMIC APOCALYPTICISM Reza Negarestani (August 26, 2004) REMARKS ON HYPERSTITION Craig (August 30, 2004) v 202 205 209 210 219 229 243 258 264 267 270 279 284 287 288 292

SEPTEMBER 2004 298 TRIGGERS FOR ISLAMIC APOCALYPTICISM: OIL, DESERT AND NOMADS IN SAUDI ARABIA 298 Reza Negarestani (September 01, 2004) SCHWARZENEGGER HYPERSTITION 302 David Porush (September 02, 2004) APOCALYPSE AND / OR METAMORPHOSIS 303 Reza Negarestani (September 03, 2004) THE GREAT LEMURS, NO. 2: LURGO 305 Nick Land (September 11, 2004) HAVE YOU BEEN ENJOYING YOURSELF? 309 mark k-p (September 26, 2004) OCTOBER 2004 319 GOLGOTHIC MATERIALISM mark k-p (October 15, 2004) WHAT HAPPENED? Mark Fisher (October 19, 2004) AGAIN Reza Negarestani (October 21, 2004) MEATOLOGY OF THE REDEEMER Reza Negarestani (October 22, 2004) MISTMARE: FROM FOG TO THE UN-MANNED Reza Negarestani (October 24, 2004) 319 IBN MAYMUN, A LEGION Reza Negarestani (October 24, 2004) BLOGS: NO. 1 Reza Negarestani (October 25, 2004) JUNGLE / DESERT MILITARISM Reza Negarestani (October 27, 2004) 349 326 328 331 341 350 355 vi

AGAINST THE WORLDLY mark k-p (October 27, 2004) GRASPING WAR AS A MACHINE Reza Negarestani (October 28, 2004) HYPERSTITIONS WITHIN HYPERSTITIONS: LOVECRAFTIAN NAME-ANOMALIES Reza Negarestani (October 31, 2004) 360 NOVEMBER 2004 384 AISHA QADISHA Reza Negarestani (November 1, 2004) SORCERERS AND NECROMANCERS: SORCERY AND THE LINE OF ESCAPE PART I Reza Negarestani (November 4, 2004) SORCERERS AND NECROMANCERS: SORCERY AND THE LINE OF ESCAPE PART II Reza Negarestani (November 5, 2004) SORCERERS AND NECROMANCERS: SORCERY AND THE LINE OF ESCAPE PART III Reza Negarestani (November 7, 2004) HOLOCAUST OF FREEDOM (ON H.P. LOVECRAFT AND SCHIZOTRATEGY) Reza Negarestani (November 14, 2004) THIS NEBULOUS THING Reza Negarestani (November 16, 2004) REALITY ITSELF IS BECOMING PARANOIAC mark k-p (November 18, 2004) 384 364 372 385 391 393 397 402 408 SORCERERS AND NECROMANCERS: LINES OF ESCAPE OR WINGS OF THE GROUND? PART IV 411 Reza Negarestani (November 19, 2004) SORCERESS 415 Reza Negarestani (November 20, 2004) CHROME 416 Craig (November 24, 2004) PEST (PART I): FROM PARASITE EVE TO THE OLD ONES 425 Reza Negarestani (November 27, 2004) vii

DECEMBER 2004 429 SORCERERS AND NECROMANCERS: ANABATIC LINES (PART V) Reza Negarestani (December 1, 2004) EXISTENZIALISM AND INHUMANISM mark k-p (December 2, 2004) THE HYPERSTITION OF PORPHYRIN: NO BLOOD FOR OIL! Reza Negarestani (December 5, 2004) SURFASCISM mark k-p (December 10, 2004) TO WESTERN DECADENT INTELLECTUALISM Reza Negarestani (December 10, 2004) ZERO-BELIEF: VICTIMOLOGY AND LEX TALIONIS Reza Negarestani (December 11, 2004) DEMOCRATIC NUMERACY Nick Land (December 11, 2004) TROLL ALERT mark k-p (December 12, 2004) OEDIPAL IRRUPTIONS Nick Land (December 12, 2004) 429 A NEW FACE FOR A NEW PEOPLE (VER 0.1) Reza Negarestani (December 12, 2004) HYPERSTITIONAL CARRIERS II Nick Land (December 13, 2004) BLISSBLOG, SURFASCISM AND COLD RATIONALISM mark k-p (December 13, 2004) NO MORE COMMENT PURGE! Reza Negarestani (December 14, 2004) PROBLEMS AND MYSTERIES mark k-p (December 16, 2004) NUMOGRAM Q&A Nick Land (December 17, 2004) 482 viii 431 433 441 450 460 464 469 479 487 492 510 523 660

GENIUS/ LUNATIC/ OEDIPUS mark k-p (December 17, 2004) QABBALA 101 PART 2. POPULAR NUMERACY Nick Land (December 23, 2005) 689 INTRO TO QWERNOMICS Nick Land (December 23, 2004) SEASONAL ANNOUNCEMENT Nick Land (December 25, 2004) HOLY WAR FROM THE OTHER SIDE Nick Land (December 26, 2004) WHAT WAS WEST THINKING? Nick Land (December 28, 2004) QABBALA UNSHELLED Nick Land (December 28, 2004) HYPERSTITIONAL CARRIERS III Nick Land (December 30, 2004) 695 JANUARY 2005 826 COL. WEST: A RENEGADE DELTA-TROOPER OR AN AUTONOMOUS MACHINE? Reza Negarestani (January 1, 2005) JIHAD: THE ABSENT OBLIGATION OR THE LATENT DUTY Reza Negarestani (January 2, 2005) JUST SAY NO Nick Land (January 3, 2005) AND MORE WEST ... Nick Land (January 3, 2004) SKYNET Reza Negarestani (January 4, 2005) HYPERSTITIONAL METHOD I. Nick Land (January 7, 2004) RENOMU Nick Land (January 9, 2005) 826 690 723 728 760 776 780 ix 833 856 860 866 868 877

QABBALA 101, PART 3. Nick Land (January 12, 2005) ISLAMIC CHRONOPOLYTICS I: THE HERESY OF THE APOCALYPSE Reza Negarestani (January 14, 2005) TEMPLEXITY. PART 1. Nick Land (January 20, 2004) THE BOOK OF GRAND SUMMONINGS Reza Negarestani (January 22, 2005) ABJAD SHIELDS: A NOTE ON THE BOOK OF GRAND SUMMONINGS Reza Negarestani (January 26, 2005) QABBALA 101. PART 4. Nick Land (January 28, 2005) A NOTE ON THE ECONOMIC SIDE OF THE CHRONIC Reza Negarestani (January 29, 2005) UNTO THE LAST MAN Reza Negarestani (January 29, 2005) XERODROME AND NOMADOLOGY (SELECTED WORKS) Reza Negarestani (January 31, 2005) 887 FEBRUARY 2005 1005 MEGALITHIC ASTROPUNK mark k-p (February 06, 2005) GOG-MAGOG: THE LONDON AND MARVEL CONNEXUSES Mark k-p (February 13, 2005) AQ EXALTED Nick Land (February 18, 2005) HYPERSTITIONAL METHOD II. Nick Land (February 19, 2005) MONKEYS AND ORGAN GRINDERS: CARO'S HELL mark k-p (February 21, 2005) TX2. Nick Land (February 22, 2005) 1005 x 900 926 938 940 952 967 992 996 1007 1043 1054 1068 1071

TX2+ Nick Land (February 28, 2005) EUROPOCALYPSE SOON Nick Land (February 28, 2005) 1120 MARCH 2005 1160 NULLIFIED XENOTATION Nick Land (March 3, 2005) TOO MUCH MATHS? Nick Land (March 8, 2005) SHOGGOTH MATERIALS Nick Land (March 10, 2005) 1160 BIOLIBERATION Nick Land (March 16, 2005) I MET A MAN WHO WASN'T THERE: THE ETHICS OF ASHBLESS mark k-p (March 17, 2005) AQ = 1384 = ??? Reza Negarestani (March 20, 2005) MACHINES ARE DIGGING (HOLEY SPACE AND H.P. LOVECRAFT) [UPDATED] Reza Negarestani (March 21, 2004) GOODBYE USA Nick Land (March 30, 2005) FICTIONS AND NUMBER: SOCIAL AND MATERIAL HYPERSTITION Tachi (March 30, 2005) 1206 APRIL 2005 1281 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Nick Land (April 12 2005) JOHN CARPENTER'S THE THING: WHITE WAR AND HYPERCAMOUFLAGE Reza Negarestani (April 17, 2005) 1281 1131 1173 1186 xi 1219 1231 1233 1257 1260 1282

PEST-LEGION: THE COUNTERATTACK undercurrent (April 18, 2005) MESOPOTAMIAN MITHRAISM I: ‫( صلو‬SALU) Reza Negarestani (April 22, 2005) SHARI'A? –YOU ALREADY HAVE IT. Hyperstition (April 24, 2005) HOW TO DISMANTLE THE US HEGEMONY Hyperstition (April 26, 2005) MESOMATH Reza Negarestani (April 28, 2005) THE GUERILLA-STATE AND ETHNONATIONALISM (A NOTE ON NOMADISM IN IRAN) Reza Negarestani (April 30, 2005) 1292 MAY 2005 1315 1295 1305 1307 1310 1311 ANCIENT PERSIA (THE Z.CROWD, MITHRAISM, DRUJASKAN AND THE ZOROASTRIAN GERMCELL OF MONOTHEISM): RECOMMENDED READINGS 1315 Reza Negarestani (May 1, 2005) HYPERSTITION'S LABORATORY: FROM THE GOG-MAGOG AXIS TO PETROPUNKISM 1316 Reza Negarestani (May 8, 2005) ZYGONOVISM (NINE-SORCERY) 1325 Reza Negarestani (May 8, 2005) JUNE 2005 1325 SUDOKU Nick Land (June 3, 2005) GHIAM AND WAR NERD Reza Negarestani (June 19, 2005) 1325 1341 xii

JULY 2005 1344 A SHORT PRAYER Nick Land (July 6, 2005) 2012 AS FARCE Nick Land (July 6, 2005) CAN THIS BE TRUE... mark k-p (July 22, 2005) TV DEMONISM CCRU-Shanghai (July 31, 2005) 1344 AUGUST 2005 1384 FEARING IS BELIEVING mark k-p (August 09, 2005) AOK Nick Land (August 09, 2005) THE CAPITALIST THING CCRU-Shanghai (August 12, 2005) OPEN DARWIN THREAD CCRU-Shanghai (August 13, 2005) EXCITING STORIES Nick Land (August 17, 2005) PROGRAMMING WWIV Nick Land (August 17, 2005) COFFEE VS. OIL: THE CULT OF THE BLOB HAS NOW A RIVAL! Hyperstition (August 30, 2005) 1384 1352 1359 1371 xiii 1388 1400 1459 1477 1504 1517

SEPTEMBER 2005 1530 MORE ON ID Nick Land (September 01, 2005) KATAKTRINA CCRU-Shanghai (September 05, 2005) SINGULARITY Nick Land (September 07, 2005) SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS CCRU-Shanghai (September 08, 2005) INCREASING RETURNS Nick Land (September 15, 2005) HI-TECH FINANCE CCRU-Shanghai (September 22, 2005) ANGLOSPHERE CCRU-Shanghai (September 27, 2005) 1530 OCTOBER 2005 1660 SIGNING UP CCRU-Shanghai (October 1 2005) SINGULARITY MONITORING CCRU-Shanghai (October 18, 2005) MOLECULAR MIGRATION CCRU-Shanghai (October 27, 2005) HOMO SAPIENS LUDDITUS, HOMO CYBERNETICUS, HOMO HYBRIDUS, AND HOMO MACHINUS Tachi (October 31, 2005) 1660 NOVEMBER 2005 1723 COMPELLING VIEWING sd (November 04, 2005) 1723 1532 1536 1550 1572 1611 1632 xiv 1694 1712 1714

ANTI-GLOBALIZATION = PRO-POVERTY sd (November 06, 2005) POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY CCRU_Shanghai (November 10, 2005) INTUITIVE ECONOMICS sd (November 11, 2005) TREES & RHIZOMES sd (November 23, 2005) 1726 JANUARY 2006 1773 BLOGOPOLITICS CCRU-Shanghai (January 14, 2006) ALL ABOUT OIL ... CCRU-Shanghai (January 22, 2006) MEMES AND OUTLOOKS IN GREG EGAN’S DIASPORA sd (January 28, 2006) 1773 FEBRUARY 2006 1811 WHILE WE'RE STILL FOOT-TAPPING ... Nick Land (February 16, 2006) APOLOGY TO URBANOMIC Nick Land (February 18, 2006) 1811 MARCH 2007 1829 A BLAST FROM THE PAST sd (March 7, 2006) TOM PAINE: PROJECTING THE FUTURE, PRODUCING THE USA sd (March 09, 2006) 1829 1738 1746 1752 1779 1791 1823 xv 1847

SELF-SELECTING SOCIAL ATTITUDES Nick Land (March 15, 2006) COMMON SENSE UPDATE sd (March 17, 2006) 'BETWEEN THE GEEK AND THE MEEK' Tachi (March 20, 2006) WHAT NEXT IN THE LONG WAR? Nick Land (March 23, 2006) 1908 APRIL 2006 1970 THE 'OTHER' HAS IMPULSES TOO Nick Land (April 05, 2006) RARE CLARITY Nick Land (April 19, 2006) 1970 JUNE 2006 1980 SIGNS OF THE TIMES Nick Land (June 14, 2006) 1980 OCTOBER 2006 1982 1932 1940 1946 1978 THE HAND AND THE EYE: THE TYRANNICAL TENDENCY OF THE VISUAL AND LUMINESCENCE 1982 Craig (October 05, 2006) DECEMBER 2006 1986 SORE LOSERS Nick Land (December 04, 2006) 1986 xvi

DIAGONALIZATION 1. Nick Land (December 11, 2006) 1988 JANUARY 2007 1991 CRITIQUE OF TRANSCENDENTAL MISERABLISM Nick Land (January 15, 2007) 1991 FEBRUARY 2007 1994 NEGATIVE HYPERSTITION Nick Land (February 02, 2007) 1994 MARCH 2007 1995 WHAT ARE CITIES? Nick Land (March 01, 2007) DIAGONALIZATION II: REFRACTORY IMPOSSIBILITY AND ITS HERETICAL ALIGNMENTS Reza Negarestani (March 01, 2007) 1995 APRIL 2007 2000 SHOGGOTHIC MATERIALISM Nick Land (April 03, 2007) 2000 SEPTEMBER 2007 2002 LANGUAGE OF THE PEST Reza Negarestani (September 24, 2007) 2002 xvii 1996

POROMECHANICS: ARCHEOLOGY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS AND MILITARIZATION OF ARCHEOLOGY 2005 Reza Negarestani (September 30, 2007) OCTOBER 2007 2011 NECROPOLIS OF WORLD POLITICS: MIDDLE EAST AND POLITICS OF PLOT HOLES (PART I) 2011 Reza Negarestani (October 31, 2007) JUNE 2008 2017 THE HORROR OF SOMETHING: COMMENTARIES ON THE LITTERED UNIVERSE AND THE WEIRD 2017 Reza Negarestani (June 3, 2008) xviii

June 2004 Polytics Hyperstition (June 07, 2004) Whatever its specific variants, the practice of hyperstition necessarily involves three irreducible ingredients, interlocked in a productive circuit of simultaneous, mutually stimulating tasks. 1. N u m o g r a m Rigorous systematic unfolding of the Decimal Labyrinth and all its implexes (Zones, Currents, Gates, Lemurs, Pandemonium Matrix, Book of Paths …) and echoes (Atlantean Cross, Decadology …). The methodical excavation of the occult abstract cartography intrinsic to decimal numeracy (and thus globally ‘oecumenic’) constitutes the first great task of hyperstition. 2. M y t h o s Comprehensive attribution of all signal (discoveries, theories, problems and approaches) to artificial agencies, allegiances, cultures and continentities. The proliferation of ‘carriers’ (“Who says this?”) - multiplying perspectives and narrative fragments - produces a coherent but inherently disintegrated hyperstitional mythos while effecting a positive destruction of identity, authority and credibility. 3. U n b e l i e f Pragmatic skepticism or constructive escape from integrated thinking and all its forms of imposed unity (religious dogma, political ideology, scientific law, common sense …). Each vortical sub-cycle of hyperstitional production announces itself through a communion with ‘the Thing’ coinciding with a “mystical consummation of uncertainty” or “attainment of positive unbelief.” Hyperstition through CCRU (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit): 1. Element of effective culture that makes itself real. 1

2. Fictional quantity functional as a time-traveling device. 3. Coincidence intensifier. 4. Call to the Old Ones. http://www.ccru.net/syzygy.htm Trent uses the term "hyperstition" for "cybernetic" belief systems such as these. "It’s not a simple matter of true or false with hyperstitious systems. Belief here doesn’t have a simply passive quality. The situation is closer to the modern phenomenon of hype than to religious belief as we’d ordinarily think about it. Hype actually makes things happen, and uses belief as a positive power. Just because it’s not ‘real’ now, doesn’t mean it won’t be real at some point in the future. And once it’s real, in a sense, it’s always been." ... "Perhaps it’s all make-believe," Trent smiles enigmatically. "But don’t underestimate the power of belief to make things happen…" Maria De'Rozario, 'Apocalypse Been In Effect'. http://www.ccru.net/occultures/cclub.htm Vysparov: We are interested in fiction only insofar as it is simultaneously hyperstition - a term we have coined for semiotic productions that make themselves real – cryptic communications from the Old Ones, signaling return: shleth hud dopesh. This is the ambivalence - or loop – of Cthulhu-fiction: who writes, and who is written? It seems to us that the fabled Necronomicon - sorcerous counter-text to the Book of Life - is of this kind, and furthermore, that your recovery of the Lemurodigital Pandemonium Matrix accesses it at its hypersource. ... Stillwell: Hyperstition strikes me as a most intriguing coinage. We thought we were making it up, but all the time the Nma were telling us what to write – and through them... Correspondence between Peter Vysparov and Echidna Stillwell. http://www.ccru.net/occultures/cclub.htm Diagrams, maps, sets of abstract relations, tactical gambits, are as real in a fiction about a fiction about a fiction as they are encountered raw, but subjecting such semiotic contraband to multiple embeddings allows a traffic in materials for decoding 2

dominant reality that would otherwise be proscribed. Rather than acting as transcendental screens, blocking out contact between itself and the world, the fiction acts as a Chinese box a container for sorcerous interventions in the world. The frame is both used (for concealment) and broken (the fictions potentiate changes in reality).' CCRU, 'Lemurian Time War', http://www.ccru.net/archive/burroughs.htm How Do Fictions Become Hyperstitions? Linda Trent (June 19, 2004) How do fictions become hyperstitions? The projection of a consistent world is one prerequisite, but, whilst this is assuredly a necessary condition of hyperstition, it is far from being a sufficient one. We only have to compare Lovecraft with the likes of Tolkien to establish this. If Lovecraft remains the archetype of a hyperstitional practitioner, it is because his fictions have long since escaped their putative author. A work has crossed over into hyperstition when it has become impossible to treat it as the product of a single author’s imagination. The author can no longer be considered the final authority upon the work attributed to him. Thus the question, posed in all seriousness by a devotee: Why does Lovecfraft persist in the pretence that he invented the Necronomicon? Provisionally, we can say that two developments make this possible. 1) The collectivization of the fictional system. In order to qualify as a fictional system at all, it is necessary that the fictions must be opened up to participation. Lovecraft’s own opening up of his fictional system to collaborators such as Derleth and Ashton Smith was followed after his death by the contributions to the Cthulhu mythos by Lumley, Campbell and others. Multiple authorship presages a wider participation, in which the distinction between fans and authors becomes increasingly unstable. (Stephen King forms a clear contrast. Consider the way King allegorizes his anxieties about the appropriation of his fictions by his readership in both The Dark Half and Misery.) 3

2) The practical deployment of the fictional system. Thelemic occultist Kenneth Grant’s utilization of Lovecraft’s system in magical rites is exemplary of this feature. (Grant’s insistence on treating Lovecraft’s universe as real has produced exasperation in at least one orthodox Crowleyan.) Comments: How Do Fictions Become Hyperstitions? johneffay: Great ideas for a site. I wonder whether your lionization of Lovecraft as 'the archetype of a hyperstitional practitioner' doesn't say more about your own prejudices (Miskatonic University indeed!) than anything else. Forgive me for defending Tolkien, but by your own criteria: 1. Tolkien's fictional system is massively collectivized: Ignoring the use of the entire Tolkien universe in spin-off games, films, etc. I would argue that the constant use of the trilogy format in fantasy literature is a direct consequence of LotR. 2. Even ignoring all the idiots out there learning elvish, orcish, etc. The fact that there are other idiots deploying elvish magic (the most well known probably being the Knights of Elrond) and who knows what else from the Tolkien universe, surely puts him up there with HPL in the hyperstitional archetype stakes. I'd like to betray my own prejudices and suggest Michael Moorcock as an archetypal hyperstitionalist bacause of his opening up of the Jerry Cornelius stories to anybody who wanted to write them, and the entire Chaos Magic thing, which would never have got off the ground without Elric yelling "Blood and souls for Arioch!" Also, Enid Blyton for the fact that her stories are re-written constantly to suit the times (no more gollywogs,etc.), and David Tibet's championing of Noddy as gnostic icon. However, I guess the real Hyperstional archetye (at least in modern literature) would be Sherlock Holmes, who has been written about by many people since Conan Doyle, is believed to be a historical character by some, and has led to vast numbers of people being unable to distinguish 'deduction' from 'induction'. Nick Land: However, I guess the real Hyperstional archetye (at least in modern literature) would be Sherlock Holmes, ... Perhaps some misunderstandings about Hyperstition. You can check the polytics section. Reza Negarestani: Tolkien's fictional system is massively collectivized... 4

but it remains strictly as a type of racial collectivity (promoted by the political segregation of boundaries as racial fronts), its population dynamics anthropomorphically avoids to dissolve into a micro-population (or rather contagious population) which Lovecraft pushes toward a bacterial omega (perceiving population as epidemic and boundaries as zones of involuntary communication and not national frontlines). The recent semi-Tolkienian videogame series Warcraft3 is a remarkable example of how Tolkien’s collectivity is itself a repression toward epidemic populations of hyperstition and its particles. Mere COLLECTIVITY is not enough for a work to be hyperstitional. However, I guess the real Hyperstional archetye (at least in modern literature) would be Sherlock Holmes, who has been written about by many people since Conan Doyle Again, Sherlock Holmes is the advertiser of the same macropolitical collectivity in fiction that tries to avoid all hyperstitional particles in real. it’s rather oversimplifying to consider Sherlock Holmes as a hyperstitional entity just because he has been conceived as an actualized entity. Holmes imperial body always remains intact when it traverses zones of fiction to real or the other way around. “Doyle’s stories abound with threats to this national body. British literature of the 1980s often conflates biological and political threats, and Doyle, a doctor who had fought in South Africa, allows the two merge in Holmes’s adventures. When foreign germs and poisons are manipulated by vengeful malefactors in his fiction, the biological dangers are not a metaphor for political threats; they ARE political threats.” (Laura Otis, Membranes: metaphors of invasion in nineteenth-century literature, science and politics) Many thanks for your comment. johneffay: Thanks for that; now I'm seriously confused. My main point about Holmes was tied to 'the practical deployment of the fictional system', i.e. the so-called science of deduction has been abstracted from the books and is explicitly taken up everywhere from police forces to murder mystery dinner parties. You would need to convince me why this differed in kind from the deployment of the Cthulhu mythos by various occult groups. Whilst being extremely keen on Lovecraft for all sorts of reasons, I find myself resisting the claims you make for him here. You say of Tolkien: 5

'but it remains strictly as a type of racial collectivity (promoted by the political segregation of boundaries as racial fronts)' I would suggest this applies equally to HPL. One only has to think of the constant references to various racial types, 'superstitious primitives' and so on. Although perhaps I am misunderstnding you. I don't think I agree with this: 'Lovecraft pushes toward a bacterial omega', although I'd rather you explained it to me before I said anything else. I'm assuming that you are arguing for some form of contagion escaping via Lovecraft's fictional system. Incidentally, I am certain that anything to do with Kenneth Grant and the Typhonian OTO is all about molar control than molecular contagion. Reza Negarestani: You would need to convince me why this differed in kind from the deployment of the Cthulhu mythos by various occult groups. The piece is not mine ... think we should wait for Linda to answer this. I would suggest this applies equally to HPL. One only has to think of the constant references to various racial types, 'superstitious primitives' and so on. Although perhaps I am misunderstnding you. Well, I don’t think so ... while in HPL’s works, ‘collectivity’ may look racial but it’s absolutely contagious; populations and races agitate across a ‘Holocaust of Freedom’ (My favorite term from HPL) and this makes their races travel as particles (The old ones, infected vegetables, humans, etc.) rather than assemblages of entities (you can follow this line through works by Deleuze and Guattari and even Erik Davis on Lovecraft) ... in Lovecraft’s works everything has already started its journey to a kind of strategic parasitism mostly functioning on the side of a sinister germinal epidemic (I’d like to call it Germinal Death rather than Germinal Life). While in mere racial collectivism survival means an economical self-appropriated openness toward neighbors or the known outside (the architects of the racial boundaries) and its responsibility is to assemble a survival economy for the system to live as a race, but in contagious populations as in Lovecraft’s works, every population is already a feeding-ground for the Outsiders and things roaming in the Outside by becoming a strategic host for the incoming participations (pests, infections, diabolic particles, etc.) from the outside on its body and chemistry. 6

I think in racial collectivism OPENNESS is perceived as ‘being open to’ or rather a liberal politics of survival which can’t go further than the survival of the race, system , etc ... every participation coming from this economical openness is a platonic methexis, a coordinated, preprogrammed journey to a healthy coexistence; but in contagious populations openness functions on two planes of communication simultaneously, ‘being open to’ and ‘being laid cracked and butchered open’ (what we can see in Lovecraft’s works through races) which bring the whole panorama to the fold of anti-survivalist participation between races and populations. You can read more on these two planes of openness and how the second plane (being laid open) gets virally epidemic (which results in border collapse and meltdown) by checking this out: http://www.cold-me.net/text/meal.html or http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=396 (more technical) Incidentally, I am certain that anything to do with Kenneth Grant and the Typhonian OTO is all about molar control than molecular contagion. Again, let’s wait for Linda. Once again, thank you for your interest on the topic. Reza Negarestani: btw, have you seen Carpenters In the Mouth of Madness? although bound to B-movie production styles but, it is a little known masterwork (Linda has posted the pictures from the movie). It is very controversial and complex in the term of opening the hyperstitional elements of Lovecraft’s works and how they function when hit the outside of fiction. Linda Trent: John's comments provide an excellent occasion to clarify the concept of hyperstition. I must say, John, I am happy to be accused of prejudice against Tolkien! However, my disqualifying him from being considered a hyperstitional practitioner cannot only be attributed to my distaste for quasi-fascist Whimso-Fantasy. It is precisely because Tolkien's work is Fantasy (in an almost ideal-typical way) that it fails to be hyperstitional. Lovecraft's fictions neither reflect the world (as does traditional representational realism) nor do they stand apart from the world (as does Fantasy). Rather, their practices of enfolding, embedding and implexing disturb the conventional relationship between fiction and the world. 7

Hyperstition involves the production of unbelief. No-one believes in Middle Earth. But those who 'believe' in Sherlock Holmes do not bring us any closer to hyperstition. Hyperstition doesn't invite or solicit belief. It problematizes it. Deleuze and Guattari point to this when they write, in 'How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?' that '[i]n the course of Castenada's books, the reader may begin to doubt the existence of the Indian Don Juan and many other things besides.' (ATP, 161; emphasis added.) Castenada is another exemplary hyperstitional practitioner. Moorcock is another interesting case, for the reasons John suggests: collective authorship, and also the implexing of real world figures and situations into the fictional world (and conversely, the incursion of the fictional world into the world of the actual). Reza: apropos Sherlock Holmes - the racial themes you identify are undeniably a constant presence in Doyle's stories, but what of the 'heavily fetishized archaic terror mixed with extreme racial paranoia' Echidna Stillwell sees in Lovecraft's work (see http://www.ccru.net/occultures/cclub.htm)? I will be taking up the case of Sherlock Holmes again soon in a post on Philip Jose Farmer. Reza Negarestani: but what of the 'heavily fetishized archaic terror mixed with extreme racial paranoia' Echidna Stillwell sees in Lovecraft's work? Yes, I’ve read the correspondences. Maybe you should read these two pieces ‘A Good Meal’ (or the Feeding Project) at cold me (http://www.cold-me.net/text/meal.html) and my correspondences with Nick Land about the AOE and Zoroastrians’ Demonsparanoia (http://www.cold-me.net/mb/messages/230.html for example) .... and maybe this one: http://www.cold-me.net/mb/messages/65.html I don’t deny this excessive paranoia in Lovecraft’s stories which have already produces a surplus value. The strategic consequences of this excessive superfluous ultraparanoia are partly un-known to Western occultural / hyperstitional polytics, yet Zoroastrianism as the germ cell of monotheism has understood it a long time ago. Call it Omega-degree of paranoia, the ancient Persian cult of Druj- (The Mother of Abominations) realized that radical openness (as the radical butchery of horror) can merely be triggered via ‘STRATEGIC’ communications with the avatars of Horror (Druj- or Mother of Abominations) ... the way(s) to Druj is unimaginably pestilential 8

that one melts and evaporates before reaching the horror; to engineer an artificial route, one must take a twisting way, not merely survivalist (since any economical survivalism is not enough to tolerate this horror) but a type of ultra-endurance, an omega-survival to reach the end of darkness. The omega-survival can merely be maintained by such an excessive paranoia that cannot be distinguished from Schizosingularities, a paranoia that one should call Schizotrategy. Schizotrategy as an autonomous nervous system of this extreme paranoia -- as the cult of Druj realized - identifies openness (and its immanent horror) not as ‘being open to’ (or I’M OPEN TO) (what can hardly named paranoia) which is nothing but an affordance bound to economical survivalism but ‘being laid cracked butchered open’ which is achieved via a schizotrategic (omega-degree of paranoia) participation with the outside and inside. To reach this schizotretegic plane of openness, one must develop the terrible lines of artificial paranoia (overhealth) and disseminate it through boundaries, bodies, etc. ... strategically developing A Good Meal, a decoy, a prey and a receiver for the Xenosignals and hunters of the Outside; exotically attracting (seducing?) what Zoroastrians call Druj to rush in. A similar schizotrategic line used by the cult of Druj for permanently sabotaging Zoroastrianism and its monotheistic lineage. This Omega-degree of paranoia at the same time enables the emergence of a Xenochemical Insider (the Hell within) propelling its host toward radical openness of Horror. In the same way that the cult of Druj perceived this extreme paranoia as both an awakening and feeding ritual for the Mother of Abominations, Lovecraft intentionally or unintentionally (it’s a horrible naivety to speak about intention here since strategy hyperstitionally blackens everything) engineered similar schizotrategic lines within his works oozing to the outside inevitably. The cult of Druj: “When it comes to darkness, one must think strategically.” Dust Reza Negarestani (June 19, 2004) No wonder why WoTerror (War on Terror?) and its agencies all feast on Mesopotamia and everything within its bacterial / hyperstitional threshold (Saudi, Iran, ...). Dust can contain up to 11,583,800,000 bacteria in each ounce. 9

Sporulation as a way of becoming an endo-bacterial relic in hostile environments (nutrient deprivation and dehydrating conditions), forging a relic emerged from an artificial aeon. Spore or endo-bacterial dust is an asexual relic-swarm with unrecordable zones of migration and traversal; it condenses a virally hibernated aeon (or bacterial relic) in a series of composite membranes generally named the sarcophagus. Spore autonomously engineers its customized mode of exhumation or ‘defiling resurrection’ in the form of an exo-rupture (the awakening ritual of the bacterial relic, the release of Anonymous-until-Now) in response to xenochemical hygiene and immaculately normal climate of the outside which give the process of awakening a sinister epidemiostrategic slant toward pinpointing (as well as sabotaging) normality and hygiene. Morphologic programming leads to mass weaponization: Endo-bacterial dust constantly runs as a cutting-edge inter-continental weapon ... this is why WoTerror is especially interested in dust and similar autonomous weapons. Gary Matsumotu in his brilliant piece on Anthrax discusses that the dominant trend of contemporary bioterrorism inclines toward morphological customization of bio-weapons rather than modifying the degree of toxicity or sophisticating the complexity of mutations. The strategy of morphologic manipulations is to elaborate an appetizingly digestible light meal that everyone can afford; as in the case of anthrax spores: high spore concentration, uniform particle size, low electrostatic charge to reduce clumping: “Anthrax spores cling to one another if they get too close; sticky chains of proteins and sugar molecules on their surfaces latch onto each other, drawn by van der Waals forces that operate at a distance of a few tens of angstroms. Untreated spores clump into larger particles that are too heavy to stay airborne or reach the narrowest passages in the lung.” (ANTHRAX POWDER - STATE OF THE ART? - Gary Matsumotu) ... and in particular, complex surface dynamics and integral morphologic structure which lead to running-as-dust (dry GAS) type of aerosolization: Sporangium is a folded oval with a high degree of stability, small enough to be inhaled and reside within the lung passages. The epidemic population dynamics of Mesopotamia (i.e. dust-ocean) or the Xerodrome as the effective platform of WoTerror is positively charged by agitations of dust nano-relics suspending between an ancientness (an Unidentified Fictitious – but rushing toward real – Aeon: UFA) enveloping the endo-bacterial Thing 10

slumbering within the spore and a cryptogenic Now (A-Now?) enmeshed by the problematic existence of the dust-spore as an entity bound to now ... between a semiorganic life and unthingedness (mesobiotic unlife). Such a mesophilic Xero-plane (dust-ocean, desert, dead sea, arid cloud) spontaneously forms a network of hyperstitional crypts (see CCRU) beneath and over Mesopotamia (the Xerodrome), injecting rabid hyperstitional elements to whatever germinate or move through its space. On the other hand, considering that DUST (gematria= 100, 10 x 10, the double plague) or dry-GAS triggers ferocious hydrophilic tides, these arid crypts uplink Mesopotamia to Xenosignals roaming beyond the earth, connecting it to unknown hydrochemical singularities. The Xerodrome or dust-capital imparts a new axial functionality of (bio)Terror upon the once Western industrial-capitalist cry of ‘Something for the Masses’. Breathe deep, dust will never be depleted. Anthrax spore is endemic to soil; it is corresponding to the plague infecting livestock, from their tissue to hair, wool and its derivative products. Anti-War Slogan: “Knitters for peace; wool is not a petroleum product.” ... here run the clandestine nano-particles of (bio)Terror whose traffic zones are swarming with highly concentrated, silica-impregnated and electro-statically charged airborne ‘Anthrax Dust’, historically known as Woolsorters’ disease. Celebration for peace unfolds WoTerror as the secret cipher of ‘War OF Terror’ (if you haven’t realized its radical military ambivalence yet). Within a dust storm, every unit of communication is chopped off into scrambled pieces; the abbreviation ‘WoTerror’ is not an exception. WoTerror and its Xerodrome vacillate between two rivers (meso-potamia), two hyperstitional omega of tellurian insurgency: circulating through the GAS pipelines of Petropolitics or inhaling endo-bacterial, deliriously xenophilic dust; there is no tellurian salvation as it has never been. Assyrians and Lullubis, these two ancient crazed avatars of rage, brutality and unrest in Mesopotamia understood it well. The Xerodrome is swarming with weapons-grade relics; as soon as they assemble their cults, everything along their hyperstitional line of tactics starts to swerve. Engineering a plague to consume battleview: Dust (codename: 100, Anthrax, endobacterial relic and the cosmodrome) is the Fog of War cumulatively engulfing warmachines, consisting of pest-crystals and multiplicative particles of all kind triggering acute spatio-tactical anomalies through War, predisposing the battlefield to border collapse. Although War emits the fog-of-war to make warmachines blind and eventually choked, but warmachines’ blindness can merely be upgraded to a tracking device in hunting and tacticity via measuring and computing the local thickness of the 11

fog (dust-veil), the attenuation of the horizontally propagating Fog-of-War and the alignment of the ubiquitous dust-flux across the battlefield (concentration and movement of the fog as well as its pedesis which transfer a lot of tactical momentum from dark unrecorded zones or black spots to the active zones occupied by warmachines in a period of time). While the fog-of-war or the dust-cloud is a touch of haze for us billowing up from the fusion of War and Tellurian insurgency, it engineers a radical vision for warmachines as well as providing them with a gascooling system, offering them new opportunities to get hotter. If any function of the warmachines in WoTerror is especially involved with rudimentary sporulation dynamics of dust, it is because they pass through dense dusty clusters of the Mistmare or the Fog-of-War. Above all, warmachines thirst to be instantly suffocated by the hyperstitional pollution of dust-clouds ... that is to say, to be extinguished by WAR itself. Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land." Dust (cont.) R. Negarestani (June 19, 2004) >>> DUST (gematria= 100, 10 x 10, the double plague) or dry-GAS triggers ferocious hydrophilic tides, these arid crypts uplink Mesopotamia to Xenosignals roaming beyond the earth, connecting it to unknown hydrochemical singularities. Desert (dust planomenon), unleashes an incognito element (dust) transgressing the Genesis Project and its solidus-in-circulation machinery. Dust is a dry epidemic rising from a Telluro-Solar conspiracy against the ground, reinforced by GAS and the Sun. It rallies a political insurgency against the stratified earth and hydraulic efficiency of solid and liquid. Dust affirms the elements over the pest-distributions of the anomalous and not the Aristotelian ‘Rotation of the Elements’ panorama; it is the molecular earth at the side of Tellurian Insurgency. "Dust is a dry spirit unknown to Genesis Project; it transmits the horror of the 'Thingwithout-Genesis' or the plague of Anonymous-until-Now. So baked, so dehydrated, 12

dust thirsts for cosmic wetness, the Flood. An attractor for foaming plagues. Dust as a surplus-value of the ground migrates to the outside, fuses with interstellar dust along with every seething, teeming epidemic (cosmic wetness) it meets on its way and finally returns with a message from xenochemical epidemics: in the form of a tide toward mess-hysteria, dust irritates the ground’s nervous system to be more immaculate, spewing more dust or molecularly purged earth into space, that is to say howling as an Ouroboros (the beast of the surplus) which eggs via devouring, vomiting more surplus-value, new plagues ... this is the story of Dust as an upsurge toward Hyperstitional Absolute." (From Dust Colonies) Comments: Dust (cont.) Nick Land: Excellent piece of Gematria Reza Interestingly ZERO = 100 too, in Chinese the notions of nothing and particulate multiplicity are very interconnected (the word Ling means 'zero' and 'Ling qian' means change, as in 'small money' for instance). For Hyper-C calendric apocalypticism, based on (or anticipating?) the Y2K countdown 0 = 100 for strictly techno-arithmetic reasons. To 'dust' is to kill. 'Dust to dust' - rendered into nothingness? Anyway, I'll make sure DUST = 100 goes straight into the qabbalistic dictionary maybe we could attach one to the site somewhere? Reza Negarestani: Thanks Nick ... although i think, i gave you this text sometime ago ... what i meant is this one: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003348.html#more any idea about the Fog-of-War, in my previous dust post? plus, we need your answer to Mehrdad about why the numogram is not fuzzy on this blog (if you'like) ... it will open excellent discussions. 13

Parasitic Gamer Reza Negarestani (June 21, 2004) One of the weakest (or technically the most vulnerable) elements of current first person shooter videogames is that you either must win or lose. Narrating the plot via population diversity in RTS or TS (Real Time Strategy / Turn-based Strategy) games or what is generally called Race-based campaigns has slightly diverged this despotic element through a consistent continuity between campaigns effacing the harsh narrative impact of ‘victory/defeat’ (V-D) terminus. V-D principle has pushed the entire shooter genre to a blind survival bulimia. The player cannot refuse to survive if he wishes to play the game. Whilst in a secret twist, the recent PC game Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne coils this survivalist apparatus into a vermiculate parasitic epic spreading over the videogame’s survival mechanism itself: Max Payne, a fugitive undercover cop finds his wife murdered in a mysterious attack by junkies and consequently dives into the hadean dimension of New York City to find those responsible (mainly a representative of the AOE known as Inner Circle). Cruising streets infested by a drug named Valkyrie -- which provokes occultural excitations and sizzling the meat away -- he is slowly overran by particles of an artificial ancientness bleeding into music, Television, phone sex, drugs, military equipments and the air he inhales. He actually encounters the copies of Necronomicon, the spellbook of Kharun (the Etruscanian demon), a club named Ragna Rock (Ragnarok?), people summoning Lylith, Asmodeus or ‘tasted the flesh of fallen angels’. Max Payne astonishingly survives over the apocalyptic carnage of the game ... his germinally enduring survival turns his initial negation to a hyperstitional combustion in which he, himself, becomes a hyperstitional entity. In the final chapter, he runs into the last Boss of the game. Continued to exist after nonstop massacres, wounds and lethal traumas, he survives the last encounter to beat the game. The Boss anxiously shouts: “What’s the hell with you? Why don’t you die? What are you?” ... in one line gives a direful reportage to expose the survival economy mechanized in the game as a bacterial endurance (some sort of sporulation), uncovering survival agencies as parasitic germs enduring on a hyperstitional schizocyte named videogame, diagramming the mutation of Max Payne from a liveware to a deeply meshed hyperstitional entity, a Fallen Angel or an undead (Gamer as a Zombie plague hyperstitionally engineered through the ludicosm [Nick Land] of videogame). The camouflage is unwrapped: the omega-degree of survival arrives as a Feeding Project to receive the glutto-signals of the inside and outside. If mere survival reinforces the 14

Feeding Project with pre-parasitic developments toward predation then the Omegadegree of survival is an effective participation in the festivities (of voracity). Lovecraft and Ancient Astronauts mark k-punk (June 21, 2004) Following on from Linda's post: a further demonstration of Lovecraft's virulence as an agent of hyperstition here and here, wherein it is argued that the 'ancient astronaut' hypothesis popularized - or should that be pulpularized - by Velikovsky, Von Daniken, Temple and later adherents such as Graham Hancock, derived from HPL. This pulp archaeocosmology maintains that the destiny of humanity was altered by the intervention of aliens (who were thought of as 'gods') during humanity's prehistory. Temple is the most interesting of these thinkers, if only because his The Sirius Mystery was, for a time, given serious shelf-space in academia. The hyperstional tangle in which Temple, the Dogons and Griaule are implicated is one that I hope we can explore here at more length in future. Hubbard, another propagator of the 'ancient astronaut' theory, is of course one more writer who is fascinating from the point of view of hyperstition; though, as Burroughs shows in 'Naked Scientology' 'bare-faced messiah' Hubbard diluted the hyperstitional potential of Scientology by demanding belief, locking down any polyvalences or ontological disturbances his mythos threatened to provoke by insisting on a single, Authorized interpretation. Further to Reza's post: Lovecraft is also deeply implicated in videogame hyperstitional fictional systems. Lovecraft has been repeatedly referenced and (unconsciously and consciously) appropriated since the inception of the PC Horror game genre, but it was only last year that Headfirst returned to the ur-source and released a Cthulhu game. Comments: Lovecraft and Ancient Astronauts Nick Land: Agree about Temple, but what about Vallee? Surely his work is the most overt Hyperstitionally-loaded contribution to the 'genre' - especially with the 15

invocation of (Islamic) Occasionalism - which is to say the hyper-cosmos of invocations in general. mark k-p Obviously Valee is one of the principal hyperstitional agents, but is he, strictly speaking, a proponent of the 'ancient astronaut' hypothesis? Actually, Nick, was hoping that you'd get something together on Valee... btw, you've played the Lovecraft PC game haven't you? Nick Land: Point taken - although Vallee's conflation of 'fairies' with ETs does some of the same work that the Ancient Astronoaut Hypothesis does. It's a kind of Plutonic looping I guess, putting the Outside on the inside (of history), the 'future' (or at least 'spaceships') in the deep past, ultra-science in myth. Definitely keen to start making a contribution here - Vallee being a prime candidate (although there might be aomething of a book-access problem). Anyway, I'm on it. Spent a day with Ccru-frags playing the Lovecraft game a couple of years ago seemed quite cool (with narrative embedding and time rupture being major elements). One of the most exciting things about this blog is the re-animation of the game-format issue for Hyperstitional material IMHO. mark k-p Think memory + internet shd be fine for Valee - think there's a real virtue in just laying out some of the territory/ concepts/ figures... Agree abt games, naturally --- Reza is the expert on this area, I think ---Reza Negarestani: Mark, do you know the title of that Lovecraft game? ... I played an adventure game based on the Cthulhu mythos sometime ago but it was so tasteless compared to similar titles. 16

Against the World, Against Life mark k-punk (June 23, 2004) Has anyone read this? M. Houellebecq, of course, is the writer who called Islam 'stupid': "I had a kind of revelation in the Sinai desert, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Suddenly, I experienced a total rejection of monotheism. "In this very rocky, inspiring land, I said to myself that the idea of believing in only one God was cretinous. I could not think of another word. And the stupidest religion of all is Islam." This once again reinforces the intrinsic antagonism of hyperstition to monotheism. The Lovecraft book - which has been described 'as a novel with a single personage (the same H.P.Lovecraft) and in which all the reported facts and the cited witnesses are authentic' - sounds deeply hyperstitional. Interesting, in the light of the discussion on racism in the comments on Linda's post below, that Houellebecq, rather than shying away from Lovecraft's racism, apparently considers it the motor of his fiction. Comments: Against the World, Against Life Nick Land: The entanglement of 'race', ethnicity and religion (or 'ideology'?) is an interesting topic. Sure it must have major Hyperstitional dimensionality, although can't pretend to see through to it yet. I'm not even sure calling Judaism 'stupid' should count as antisemitism, and Judaism is a lot more racially coded than Islam. Still, can't imagine there's any doubt Hyperstition is an intrinsic abomination against Monotheism in all its manifestations (THE enemy). My guess is that when Houellebecq calls Islam 'the stupidest religion of all' he's endorsing its claim to be the culmination and absolute distillation of monotheistic belief - a twisted 'compliment'? 17

PS. I love the 'revelation in the Sinai desert' aspect. Agree or not, the guy has style. Reza Negarestani: I agree to Nick’s approach to Houellebecq’s claim (there is a secret twist lurking in that claim). Nick might be familiar with this line: Follow the Z. Crowd (the Z line) [http://www.cold-me.net/mb/messages/230.html] ... although hyperstition is an intrinsic abomination to monotheism, but on the other hand, the already sabotaged monotheism by the Z. crowd enables the autonomous emergence of hyperstitional particles as ‘devouring lines of a diabolical polytics’ and not merely contagious fiction or positive unbelief. Take monotheism as an electric current, hyperstition swirls around it as flies and magnetic currents inciting certain anomalies within monotheism which make Tellurian Omega or the Hyperstitional Meltdown of tellurian cults (cult of oil, metal, money, etc) overlap the monotheistic finality (apocalypse). If hyperstitions can take part so effectively and virulently in Tellurian Omega and awakening the Mother of Abominations, it’s because that the sabotaged monotheism itself strategically makes their polytics successful, effective, abominable and the same time hazardous; imparting a new tactical multiplicity to them which works as a guaranteed fuel for hyperstitions in their complicity in engineering the Telluro-occultural meltdown and awakening the Tellurian Omega. mark k-p Yes. We ought to say that hyperstition is a much more intimate adversary of the One God Universe in that the founding, disavowed trauma of OGU is its own origin as a hyperstitional system. Sorecerous hyperstition becomes overcoded as authoritarian magic, which calcifies into institutionalized religion. The miraculation of 'Truth'. Houellebecq, a lapsed catholic, qualifies his attack on Islam with a love for the accoutrements of catholicism (all those lovely churches). Must confess, I'm with the Taliban and Cromwell on this: the most interesting aspect of Classical Theism is that its deity is the God without an Image. Classical theism = repressed uttunul cult. Nick Land: Wahhabi iconoclasm is intriguing in this respect -they think all tombs and monuments are idols, even secretly demolishing mosques in the holy places. There's a perverse convergence of the Wahhab cult and the 'nuke Mecca' crowd tending to apocalyptic obliteration of religious concreteness - real Monotheistic approximation to the incinerating terminal zero (where Gog meets Magog - Reza has lots of great stuff in this zone) 18

Reza Negaestani: Thanks Nick for the kind words on the Gog-Magog axis (maybe I should transport a few Gog-Magog stuff from cold me to hyperstition) they may trigger interesting discussions and give us opportunities to play with them ... There's a perverse convergence of the Wahhab cult and the 'nuke Mecca' crowd Brilliant ... leveling any architectural erection to perversely extract zero through Islamic apocalypticism ... has a lot of connections to Tellurian Omega. Relic Reza Negarestani (June 23, 2004) Early in April of 1929, workmen excavating outside what would later prove to be the throne room of the Assyrian King Sargon II at Khorsabad (an Iraqi village standing on the ruins of Dur-Sharrukin) uncovered fragments of a colossal relic; an implement of war in desert particularly designed for the dust-swamp of Mesopotamia or the Xerodrome where warmachines undertake sporulation as a way of endurance (since all modes of conventional military survival in this dust-swamp are starved to death ... tactical fluxes are dehydrated) and becoming endo-bacterial relics: a sentry-drone capable of marching forward, flying and guarding motionless all at the same time through condensation of tactical multiplicity. Khorsabad Sheedu Lamassu or Lamassu (the Repellent of Evil) and sometimes known as The Last Guardian is a winged bull or lion with a human head mostly found with five legs. Lamassus belong to the neo-Assyrian era known as Sargonian; they are key figures in the Evil-against-Evil (The Exorcist’s main theme) occultural polytics mainly developed by the war-crazed Assyrians, Lullubis and a part of Phoenicians in which War itself is hunting warmachines, and the first task of warmachines is to perceive that war is not a consequent of their collisions or enmeshed by the cutting edge of their crisscrossing lines of tactics, but it is a space which spawns warmachines to hunt them down and set up what the warmachines call WAR. It is this ultimate lustful ferocious superstitious autonomous Thing (named WAR) that forges the Axis of Evilagainst-Evil on which war hunting warmachines rather than warmachines hunting each other. War runs on terminal fusions of strategy and tactical multiplicities, 19

whatever emerges as the function of this superstitious incredibly pestilential Thing (or WAR) is a devastating disruption in differentiating flows of the warmachines (tactical meltdown), producing too much heat for their assemblages that they immediately start to melt and molecularly break into diabolical particles (of which Assyrians suspected Mesopotamia is full), molecular warmachines reinvented on another plane -warmachines more radical in the sense of war -- running as the transports of war’s affect space. It’s mainly from this axis as a hyperstitional vehicle that this superstitious Thing or WAR has impregnated Zoroastrianism as the germ cell of Abrahamic monotheism, and later effectively bursting in Islam’s military omega (or Qiamah) where every warmachine must burn and military survival crashes into the core of burnout. The Axis of Evil-against-Evil is the ‘polytics of endurance’ in War without getting attuned or economically appropriated as survival (survival economy), it seeks to reach and simulate (in the term of modeling) the machineries of weapons that war employs to hunt warmachines: modeling terminal fusions of tactics / strategy which constitute hyperstitional folds (polytical agitations which travel a set of dimensions while remain anonymous, cryptogenic and trackless: as the cataflight of demons [more on this soon]) corresponding to the superstitious unlife of WAR (as in the case of Lamassu). Assyrians understood that the tactical knowledge of warmachines must expound upon this axis (which perceives war as an autonomous superstitious Thing emerged to hunt warmachines of all kind) if they are to protect the State. But the state protected by such hyperstitional warmachines unknown to western lines of tactics is the State one can easily formulate and put into a conflicting communication with nomads, the state corresponding with the Deleuze-Guattarian model? Lamassu which profoundly named The Last Guardian is always found in pair at the border of Assyrians palaces and the gates of the most sacred temples ... viewed from the front, it stands firmly in place; from the side it appears to stride forward, setting a hunt in desert while flying to chase pests from the sky. The most terrible assaults are those carried by hyperstitional particles of other warmachines as well as the diabolic undertides of war itself. Lamassu undertakes a strategic course of action engineered by terminal fusions of tactics and strategy to defend the state against hyperstitional particles (profoundly dreaded by any warmachine on conventionally dynamic course of action). Assyrians believed that the most terrible warrior of their empire is not their human berserkers but Lamassus. On the other hand, Lamassu turns the borders of the state, its horizon, and its gates into hyperstitional zones; here the borders are the 20

most intense hyperstitional zones which do not hold hyperstitions back any longer but become hyperstitions to give a proper response to incoming xenosignals. However, there is always the danger of retro-collapse caused by anomalies generated among border activities or the fact that all hyperstitions are getting autonomous even if engineered by the State and working as agents. Follow the catholic obsession with gargoyles (although they don’t have the constitutional role of Lamassus in defending the state and are more decorative) but they tell the same story. Pulp-horror is right to see the ominous shift in the direction of hyperstitional agents; as soon as gargoyles get fully hyperstitional (fusing with intrusive outsiders, hyperstition particles and get a hyperstitional entity of their own), they rush in, beginning to feast on everything remained inside the walls and empty aisles, melding into pillars, infesting them stone by stone, deeply embedding the architecture by their own khemistry. Hyperstitional ‘agents’ work more virulent in the pragmatics of understanding WAR as a hunting space, they have the schizotrategic creativity of hyperstitions and the perverse taste of the State; simultaneously, they strip two kinds of policy constraints from the border: fading the threshold of hyperstition dynamics around the state by strategically attracting intrusive hyperstitions (and diabolic particles of all kind) and progressively becoming hyperstitional to the point that they turn to the inside, become warlocks. Lamassu becomes one with the attackers in operating HYPERSTITIONALLY ... making the state prone not to certain hyperstitions as it is now a part of hyperstition. This is a black epic brewed up by the Mesopotamian Axis of Evil-against-Evil. Comments: Relic Nick Land: When Colonel West peeled off from Delta Force to follow the petropolitical undercurrent back to its source, he began to exhume this stuff -- at least, he developed a major Lamassu obsession, insisting The War had its own (un)life fuelled by 'the other side' of the oil supply. Reza, could you say more about the way WAR connects to the hyperstitional dissolution of the State in this narrative? PS. Axis Of Evil (AOE), 10 letters. (Qabbalizes: 89 + 39 + 84 = 212 (2 x 2 x 53, 21

53 = GOD and UN, otherwise mysterious, though echoes 4 2 4 letter pattern of the initial expression)). Five legs ... hmmm. Reza Negarestani: When Colonel West peeled off from Delta Force to follow the petropolitical undercurrent back to its source, he began to exhume this stuff -- at least, he developed a major Lamassu obsession, insisting The War had its own (un)life fuelled by 'the other side' of the oil supply. In his search for hunting certain evidences of Islamic warmachines as ‘coupling agents’ deployed between carbon chemical bonds within oil, technically known as ‘Sol gel’ [called ‘The Fallen cult of the Sun’ among the locals], Colonel West came across a line of military superconductivity in oil which he has already seen in the autonomous mechanisms of Lamassus and artificial nano-particles of dust, a hyperstitional anomaly in dynamism caused by terminal fusion of lineation and foliation, tactics and strategy disruptive to any configuration of warmachines. He came to this point that such petrodynamic currents render oil as a Tellurian Lubricant on which everything slides toward the other side of the earth or the Tellurian Omega (Colonel West asked himself, if war machines know where they go, then why we are always somewhere else?) where Wahhabis (the cultists of the Lube) sanctify and celebrate as the ‘Purged Land’. Reza, could you say more about the way WAR connects to the hyperstitional dissolution of the State in this narrative? This is the line I’m trying to fully develop in later pieces on Mesopotamia on this blog ... but honestly, I think it’s too heavy to be considered as a personal project ... it needs support from you, Mark, Anna and others ... certainly, it should be regarded as a collective enterprise (perhaps, we’d better start with narrow questions then develop them together.) ... but for now: if WAR is a burning hell for warmachines that even its avatars may render a warmachine dysfunctional and utterly neutralized, then the fog-of-war (what has been disregarded in D&Gon; model) must propagate a sphere around war through which warmachines effectively operate and are being annihilated or technically join the war (follow the piece on Dust as the fog-of-war) without being evaporated instantly ... as soon as a warmachine enter the fog, its vision is replaced by a radical vision programmed by the fog ... this vision is permanent and may intensify based on the 22

later communications of the warmachine with war via the fog. To render war both invisible and immanent for warmachines, the fog must run as an immense proliferating tide of positive unblief (it tells secrets stories to warmachines about war as an unseen superstitious Thing(s), assemble cults of war, form a superstitious avatar of war in the vision it has imparted to warmachines, and engineers unheard-of tactical multiplicities as dynamic lines for warmachines, etc.) ... the fog-of-war is enmeshed as a hyperstitional ocean or the mistmare embedding certain hyperstitional identities to warmachines through their artificialized visions ... wherever warmachines go, they work according to their fog-blindness or hyperstitional vision (based on war as a superstitious thing shrouded in the fog) ... they try to develop a pragmatic approach to everything, based on their hyperstitional visions (radical blindness made by the fog). Assyrians as a war-worn race (totally inhabited in the fog-of-war) contaminated by the same hyperstitionally possessed warmachines which were not the agent of the state any longer, nor war-machines but the machines of war, diabolical particles of the fog which voraciously tend to spread ... carrying so much dust with themselves to form the fog-of-war inside the state, making the zone ready for the awakening of war, reinventing everything as warmachines destined to be hunted by war through the dust jungle of the fog. Here, Lamassu and Puzuzu (among other Assyrian hyperstitional weapons spawned by the hyperstition plague disseminated by the contaminated state warmachines which apparently returned home unharmed) positioned at borders as fully hyperstitional warmachines (to endure war and operate smoothly in the fog which is demonically materialized in Mesopotamia as Dust-clouds, meteorological dust-devils, etc) to repel or capture intrusive hyperstitions but since all hyperstitions run on a plane of positive unbelief (consider it as a reduction-code for mistmare, the fog-of-war or dust-cloud) they eventually fuse with each other, give rise to autonomous hyperstitional entities swarming borders with the fog-of-war, forming hyperstition colonies at the border of the state, colonies which grow fast, overpopulating and producing too much hyperstitional pollution, slowly beginning to overflow and submerging the state from within and borders. Some details on Lamassu: http://www.zyworld.com/Assyrian/FLYING%20WITH%20BULLS.htm And: 23

http://www.bethsuryoyo.com/Code/Gallery/AssyrianWingedBullDetails.html Nick Land: Reza - maybe we could slow down / phase-in West's flood of oily revelation - with some additional attention to the actual process of discovery or 'epistemic stimulation' which would then introduce some narrative fibre automatically. At the moment we just have him dipping his index finger in a can of petroleum before his central nervous system is shorted out by an eschatalogical furor of cosmic insight ;) PS. great to see Puzuzu joining the party PS2. On the war machine - as you know, i'm increasingly drawn to the delineation of a war machine in a sense perhaps closer to Pynchon than the D&Gon; - War as a machine, with all conflictual elements conceived as machine parts ['grasp the war as a machine'], rather than warmachines colliding to produce a war - interested in how this ultimately interconnects with your insights As you say, collective spiro-zig-zag production is the only efficient way of finding out PS3. Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian: "War is God" Reza Negarestani: At the moment we just have him dipping his index finger in a can of petroleum before his central nervous system is shorted out by an eschatalogical furor of cosmic insight ;) Agreed ... but this doesn’t mean we can’t use a few flash forwards to degenerate the sequence; does it? ;) PS3. Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian: "War is God" Some sort of repeated line but anyway: “I’ll walk into hell with a can of gasoline. (Colonel West, Iraq War) Why Numogram numbers are simple Nick Land (June 24, 2004) 24

This was a short response to an interesting question about the numerical trend of the Numogram - why it avoids not only irrationals but even fractured rationals - it's posted here as a test The Numogram avoids fuzziness. It consists of 'crisp' numbers (naturals and subnaturals). 'Sub-naturals' consist of numbers of a more elemntary order even than the naturals, in particular: (1) Primes and hyperprimes (primes whose ordinates are themselves prime - i.e. 31, the 11th prime, where 11 is the 5th prime, etc. in this case (5 is the 3rd prime)). (2) Qabbalistic numbers, used 'alphabetically' for marking by type and ordinal sequencing - at the limit numerical or numerizable constellations simplified by successive digital reduction to the decimal numerals 1-9 (0 digitally reduces to 0, but no other number does so). The numerical simplicity of the Numogram is functionally necessitated by its replication as the 'viral' propagation unit of Lemurian hyperstition - its extremely modest coding requirements directly correspond to its virulence. It demands nothing but elementary arithmetic and the globalized decimal signs. Ultimately, the Numogram is nothing more than the disgrammatic implex of decimal numeracy - capable of spontaneous emergence out of any decimal-numeric culture. It is the virtual content of decimalism, spread by the unprecedented and unparalleled cultural virulence of the 'Hindu numbers' (although Stillwell traces things back much further). Numogrammatic simplicity attunes it to: (1) Qabbalism: The pre-eminence of the numerals and the operation of digital reduction, collapsing 'higher' numbers into naturals and naturals into numerals. The Numogram demonstrates its consistency with the numerical cultures instantiated in the I Ching, that of the Dogon, and in fact of every species of aboriginal numbojumbo to haunt the earth. Although, when conceived rigorously from the Lemurian perspective, the Hebrew 'Tree of Life' is a Hyperstitionally Degenerated Structure, the Numogram does not critique its digital crispness (qabbalistic functionality) 25

(2) The Numbering-numeracy of the War Machine (Deleuze and Guattari). The War Machine counts itself in simple compositional numbers. The function of this numeracy is immanent to the assemblage, indexical and nominal, having no reference to measurement (the representation of transcendent magnitude - lying beyond the communicative plane of the machine itself). It thus has no need for 'higher numbers' (rationals, reals, complex numbers etc.) requiring only naturals - in fact simple naturals (typically mere numerals) for its semiotic. To be crude, there is a 3rd Army, not a 3.14th Army or a Pi Army etc. - a fact holding for every compositional level of the war machine in question. Making culture operate as a war machine requires the disintegration of all semiotics into numbers and a complementary numerical simplification. (Both aspects essential to 'numerization'). The currencies - or concrete semiotics - of commercial war machines, share these characteristics of digital 'granularity' and pre-eminence of modularity (typically on a decimal base) or the compositional aspect of number. (3) Cryptographic Number Theory: Based on Primes and Hyper-primes (or hyprimes), a species of arithmetical sub-naturals whose ordinates are themselves primes. The initial and most compressed hyprimes sequence runs: (0, 1,) 2, 3, 5, 11, 31, 127 ... where each primes is the ordinate of the next This is the dimension of efficient numerical keys within the technocommercial plane of contemporary cyberspace - digital crispness is intrinsic to the exact lockings/unlockings involved in this dimension - a system of precise keys and callsigns However: The Numogram 'Zones' are merely the base level of the implicit 'Pandemonium System'. It is in the systemic unfolding of this implex, rather than in a base-level 'fuzzification' of the diagram, that demands for more elaborate numerical constellations are likely to be met. The regions of numerical complexity supported by the Numogrammatic system are first of all those of the 'binomic entities', Demons or Lemurs, denizens of the interzones or the 'between' ... this is separate issue to be discussed elsewhere. 26

In a nuts hell, the simplicity of numogrammatic numeracy supports a series of functions, including those essential to propagation within, and inhabitation of, all decimal-numeric cultures. It codes crisply in order to hide, spread and fold (implex). Comments: Why Numogram numbers are simple Reza Negarestani: Excellent enlightening piece Nick ... Although gematria works well with hyperstitional alpha-numeric distributions over each zone of the numogram but still the whole system cannot sterically (in the sense of spatial arrangement of Alpha-numeric entities and their structural sequence) correspond with the numogram perfectly. On the other hand, in the wake of WoTerror and the contamination of western Indo-European vocabulary (specially those contributing effectively in the War) by the Arabic / Farsi alpha-numeric warmachines, we need a secondary alphanumeric system working beside and together with gematria; far more corrosive for 1 and 10 as the summits of the numogram (as you put it in your next post) while avoiding to purge them ... and far more intricate in spidering the numogram with different numeric meshworks each working with a different numeric population interconnecting with the rest of the system. Arabic / Farsi alpha-numeric system of ABJAD, directly derived from gematria, tends to grow fast over the numogram, introducing each alphabetic unit of its own to each zone of the numogram without missing one single zone of the numogram (except for Zeo) or its own alphabetic units (28 letters of Abjad and Arabic alphabet). The initial distribution begins from 1 to 9 but next propogations of Abjad around the numogram become highly multiplicative: from 10 to 100 to 1000 ... this numeric propagation perfectly diagrams a spiral around the numogram which has no summit of quitness like the Tree of Life. I think it’s a bit confusing so I’ll post a less obscure illustrated version in the next few days. Nick Land: Reza - with this suggestion you are entering into fascinating but also extremely intricate and complex territory. Assuming the Stillwell Hypothesis: Very crudely, that all numogrammatic cultures emerge out of - and converge with - an abysmally ancient Lemurian hypersource, then the application of distinct qabbalistic orientations to the Numogram necessitates the excavation of the various methodical perspectives relevant to each case (or differential 'lineage'). Assuming further that 'you' (no doubt through hyperstitional avatars yet to be specified) are bringing a further hypothesis to the question - that the 'protomonotheistic' Z-crowd or Zoroastrian germ organizes all later Near-Eastern 27

qabbalistic traditions (as attested for instance by the cults of Irem mentioned by Lovecraft?) - then what distinct axis of numogrammatic degeneration accounts for the step-by-step 'disappearance' (decay/concealment) of decimal insurgency into Monotheistic Totalitarianism? What distinguishes the particular meta-cultural pathway upon which the Lemurian matrix is transformed into a numerico-mystical undertow of Abrahamic revelation? These are obviously extremely demanding questions, and perhaps it is only through experimental application of Abjad and associated qabbalistic systems to the Numogram that answers will emerge. Anyway, double-plus interested to see how you proceed with this. Qabbala 101: Part 0 Nick Land (June 24, 2004) Count from 1 - 10 and you get this. Count from 0 - 9 and you most definitely don't. Ten is the summit of theistic qabbalism, returning numerical proliferation to a superior unity. Nine implicates a reiterated triadic dispersion or proliferating abomination. No prizes for guessing the side Lemurians take. n -1. You know it makes senselessness. The 'hype' in hyperstition Anna Greenspan (June 25, 2004) Hyperstition aims to flatten the transcendence of superstition. Nowhere is this immanence more obvious than in the role hype plays in the market. Here hype acts 28

concretely as an 'element of effective culture that makes itself real', where reality is precisely measured in $. This connects hyperstition directly to the plane of unbelief. There is no need to believe in cyberhype, Chinahype etc... to make a fortune. All that is required is the ability (or luck) to cash in and out at the right point of the hype cycle. As 'trade guru' Jack Schwarz says, 'it is no longer a matter of what is believed, but of what can be treated as real.' (http://wwww.ccru.net/archive/cyberhype1.htm) This seems to be entirely different from superstition which also has the potential 'to make itself real'. Yet, as Walter Cannon shows, the potential of superstition rests entirely on degrees of belief (Voodoo death). Is hyperstition, then, integrally linked to the market economy? (as opposed to what the Chinese communists call 'feudal superstition' ??). State driven economies have also attempted to rely on hype (i.e. China during the Great Leap Forward, the Soviet Union during the Cold War). It is unclear whether this is hyperstition or just despotic lies. Comments: The ‘hype’ in hyperstition mark k-p Obviously this is massively interesting, but a little fast I think... 1. There's a general point that's been worrying me for a while - namely, is 'makes itself real' the right description for hyperstition? Wd 'makes itself actual' be better? 2. Can belief be excluded in quite so categorical a way as you suggest? Yes, hyperstition involves unbelief - but the function of the 'un' prefix has to be crucial here, i.e. it's not simply negative/ negational. I mean, belief seems to have some role to play in the hyperstitional circuit - someone has to believe (i.e. venture capitalists in the bubble economy had to believe they wd get a return). Conversely, do the voodoo death sorcerers 'believe' in the way that their victims do? 3. Market economies are inherently hyperstitional but hyperstition isn't inherently connected with markets? (Discuss :-) ) 4. Are the Great Leap Forward etc 'despotic lies'? Depends if they're predictive or not. Surely a predictive lie is a contradiction in terms? i.e. even if you say you're 29

going to do something with no intention of doing it, you can't know that you won't end up doing it! i.e. lies are essentially retrospective. Hyperbolic predictions that fail to materialize are just failed hyperstition (?). Nick Land: On mark's points (1) while the whole virtual/actual/real complex inherited from bergson etc. leads to this conclusion (viz 'making itself actual' rather than 'real') i'm not sure the problem is that 'real' seems to me hyperstition does more than merely rehearse this well trodden passage out of the virtual by introducing a genuine spiral production of reality from a zerodegree, with virtual/actual dimensions - think Sutter Cane rather than quasi-platonic bergsonism when hyperstition 'makes itself real' it doesn't merely shuttle from the side of the virtual to the actual, but stimulates a spiral emergence of reality out of zero with both virtual and actual 'phases' of the vortical circuit (this is quick i know) (3) market/hyperstition relation must surely be more intense than this, if markets are understood primordially as decentralized webs of traffick in decoded quantities what would a radically 'nonmarket' hyperstition be? Think Sutter Cane again - surely the billions of volumes rolling off the presses are integral to the phenomenon - even the acme of horror in a way (leaving 2 + 4 for now, though both ++ interesting of course - 'belief' and 'lies' both core topics for intense scrutiny IMHO) mark k-p Some questions Why is Bergson Platonist? Not sure I follow that... What are the mechanics of the emergence of reality out of zero? What status do the 'fictions' have if they are not even virtual prior to making themselves real? Really think this is through thrashing through quite slowly if we can... Sutter Cane is obviously hyperstition at its highest pitch of intensity (markets certainly involved in this): but to return to the Voodoo death e.g. (which I know has 30

disputed status as hyperstition), it seems to me that it is both non-market and hyperstitional. Castenada may also be an interesting case here. The belief thing is highly complex, I really want to discuss that at more length too... Nick Land: 'Platonist' issue needs slow thrashing, agreed. Basically Chronomancy seems to involve a descent into time that is far more intricate than an Aeon/Chronos distinction is able to capture -'time emergence' is not mere actualization. If everything is always already at least virtual, doesn't the "abominable fertility of chaotic zero" [- August Barrow] subside into a 'quasi-platonism'? Trying to get at the fact that the utter horror of impersonal hyperstitional 'creation' ("they were telling me what to write") is totally disintensified by reduction to actualization. Despite theoretical reservations, you can 'hear' that "which make themselves actual" sounds depressingly weak - surely? I'd venture keeping 'virtual/actual' as a differentiation internal to particular hyperstitional eventuations ('histories') rather than a transcendental master code. My 'grounds' for this, hyperstitonal maxim: "All transcendental arguments must be attributed within the hyperstitional vortex". Thus: Hyperstition eats philosophy (perhaps even before it has finished slurping its way through the world's religions) Surely 'mechanics of the emergence of reality out of zero' just is the Hyperstitional Vortical Circuit, 'rooted' in Chaotic Zero rather than the Transcendental Aeon. Much more slow thrashing eagerly anticipated. on Hyperstition/markets - while Cannon makes a huge contribution to hyperstition, I'm not sure the one-on-one voodoo curse itself counts as a hyperstitional event, until itself taken up into swarm-production machinery that proliferates it through decoded quantities. Going further, provocative hypothesis: Nothing counts as hyperstition unless it has an intrinsic connection to the fatality of decimal numeracy (somewhere on the vortical circuit). A 'phenomenon' failing this requirement can of course provide an 31

immensely important component of a hyperstitional machine, but it must be 'adopted' to do so. mark k-p the "state economies" were entirely embedded within the global market economy - which they constantly traded with: the state in fact functioned as a single vast quasi-taylorised corporation, and the "hype" in question wz primarily directed out at the REST of the actors in the global market (as a byproduct it hoped to induce corporate loyalty on the factory-floor via standard-issue motivational management-speak) the only thing that stops any corporation being similarly "despotic" is that most corps are somewhat constrained by existing within nation-states, and having (archaically, as they wd see it) to accord with mere local laws - though the bigger multinationals, esp.the media multinationals, are increasingly large enough that actually the power relationship is the other way round Despite theoretical reservations, you can 'hear' that "which make themselves actual" sounds depressingly weak - surely? yeh, of course, absolutely -- I'm not recommending it, if only because it lacks slogan potential --- just wanted to get that theoretical quibble off my chest ---Got a little lost with the Barrow Plato line. As AB's most eloquent exponent can you elaborate Nick? It's the 'just' of the just is the Hyperstitional Vortical Circuit, that needs esp slow thrashing IMHO - but obv the whole site is devoted to explorations in that direction... Questions that still bother me: If not Aeon, what is the temporality? If not virtual, or if only virtual in the sense that everything always already is, what status do the pre-realized fictional quantities have? The decimal point seems to me overstated (if only coz it cuts a swathe through the hyperstional top 9: whither Castenada, Burroughs et al on this model?) tho I'm open to persuasion Mark s: viz De Landa's market vs anti-markets analysis, aren't you being too quick in equating global capital with markets? Nick Land: mark, 32

The 'Plato' issue is really about the status of philosophy in general. I'm assuming the second phase of the hyperstitional circuit ('Mythos') works to embed all philosophical terminology within the de-authorized discourse of a hyperstitional carrier - eliminating (or at least disempowering) all transcendental vocabulary (Transcendental, Aeon, virtual, ...) ... only decoded number-pattern remains (this is probably a Goedel-thing - subordinating logical systems to 'transcendental' arithmetic). "If not Aeon, what is the temporality? If not virtual, or if only virtual in the sense that everything always already is, what status do the pre-realized fictional quantities have?" - But there can't be an answer to this outside the vortex itself (each carrier has its own answer, each vortex its 'chronogenesis'), otherwise a unique philosophy would transcendentally master hyperstition, pre-packaging a metacode for OGU. Lemurian Time Wars, footnote 10. "Burroughs described his production methods cut-ups and fold-ins - as a time-travel technology coded as a passage across decimal magnitudes: ‘I take page one and fold it into page one hundred – I insert the resulting composite as page ten – When the reader reads page ten he is flashing forwards in time to page one hundred and back in time to page one.’ (WV 272)." mark k-p Only decoded number-pattern remains (this is probably a Goedel-thing subordinating logical systems to 'transcendental' arithmetic). Can a bit more be said about this? Nick Land: Post on Goedel-type issues probably needed somewhere down the line, but right now i think there's a more straightforward issue. The Numogram is a time-map, which obviously contests the authority of any merely discursive 'model' of temporality. In 'place' of categories such as 'virtual/actual', 'Aeon/Chronos', etc. etc. the Numogram diagrammtically models an entire timescape of cyclic temporality, hypertime, chaotic gulfs ... which various philosophical vocabularies are able to approach from an open-ended multiplicity of perspectives. Of course, some might be warned off this`Hypernumogrammatic' approach by such extravagances as those of Vysparov-acolyte 'Dr.' Hank Hackhammer (if a 'doctorate' in Polytendrilled Divinity at the Hang 'em High Gulch Post-Anthropologival Institute counts for anything), founder of the Diagrammatic Church of Nomo, 33

whose sole rite seems to have been fulfilled by 'Uncle Hank' shrieking "Numogram! Numogram! Numogram! Nothing but the Numogram!!!" into a microphone while a swaying congregation of West-coast skag-addicts hypnotically immersed themselves in deafening Death Garage, chopping at their limbs with dirty razor-blades. Uncle Hank's comments to the media (among the most provocative: "We must devote ourselves to live, die, torture and kill in blood-drenched ecstasy for the pitiless cause of Lemurian Fundamentalism") have not helped to make his theoretical case in a persuasive manner. But i'm not sure it's necessary to go that far. mark k-p LOL! 34

Following the recent comments on videogames Reza Negarestani (June 25, 2004) If we are diagramming hyperstition as a dynamically pluggable, pervasive, autonomous polytics, then videogames have already developed hyperstition as a pragmatic implementation directly attached to nervous system. It’s a long time that the intricate path of video-gaming from production to marketing, advertisement and then the user’s wet interface has been infected. Think recent videogames don’t need to be purposely on Lovecraft since their structures are full of Lovecraftian bugs crept into the underlying dynamic grids on which narration, writing, programming, dynamic interfaces, etc meet each other. Follow the Lovecraftain bugs coring out videogames and rendering a hyperstition maelstrom constituted by holes or bugs (the traffic zones of the Old Ones) rather that solid parts and surfaces: videogames as the engineers of alternative histories both within themselves and the outside, runtime anomalies as the elements of narration and hyperstition propagations, bugs or application holes operating as plot lines i.e. holes instead of lines (take ‘hitman3: contracts’ for example), mass productions of unreality-based populations (RTS games), digitally rendering survival as a parasitic endurance or a Feeding ritual, etc. (they are many to be listed here) Few deeply hyperstitional games for interested people: Unreal 2: The Awakening Warcraft 3 series System Shock 2 Undying Half-Life 1 - 2 (coming soon) Generals 1- 2 Max Payne series (esp. the second episode) Sacrifice Hostile Waters Blood 1 - 2 Halo 35

Comments: Following the recent comments on videogames Nick Land: Think your initial apprehension of the hyperstitional intensity of video games here - as the most virulent polytical 'vehicles' - is absolutely right. Re-formatting discussions in this direction (from terms of previous media systems) takes time, but is clearly vital. The ABJAD version of the numogram: phase 1 Cold-Me (June 25, 2004) The Numogram Following Nick’s post and its subsequent discussions: Installing ABJAD on the Numogram or the Decimal Labyrinth. ABJAD histories ABJAD is an acronym derived from the first four consonants of Hebrew / Arabic / Persian alphabet; Alif, Ba, Jim, Dal. It’s a simply constructed but complexly functioning alpha-numeric system. The ABJAD system (Arabic ABJAD), however, associates directly to other ABJADs, all systematically connect to an ancient Phoenician1 or Ugaritic germ cell (evading Indo-European lineage) which now is extinct but operating stealthily through the phase-transitions of ABJADs. There is a fathomless alpha-numeric insurgency in ABJADs -- evoking certain inorganic syntheses of artificial intelligences, dissipating alphabetic multiplicities, engineering compositional anomalies of alphabetic units and having high tolerance of incertitude, horror and hyperstitional pollution -- since they only have characters for consonants which obstruct the vocal repression of vowels as well as their nervous appropratitions of anthropomorphic interfaces with the outside or what Porush calls “the catastrophe of vowels”. In addition, while constituted by anti-vowel inorganic mechanisms, ABJADs intrinsically interconnect to numbers and their multiplications. 1 This is why ABJADs are perfectly applicable to ultra-complex dynamic platforms (such as warmachines and their plane of tacticity), digraming a numeracy “immanenet to thier assemblges” and soft grids of movement (read Nick’s post). 36

ABJADs belong to semitic family of scripts, the reason for the emergence of this derivative line is obvious: semitic languages as Porush insists have a morphemic structure rendering signification of vowels redundant or impossible in most cases ... in semitic languages and their derivitives (see fig. 1) each alphabetic vowelless unit works as an inorganic intelligence meshwork, a molecular musical instrument (producing sound-molecules instead of vocalizations), a cryptographic and a direct multiplicative line to the communicative krypts of numbers. This is why ABJADs are perfectly applicable to ultra-complex dynamic platforms (such as warmachines and their plane of tacticity), digraming a numeracy “immanenet to thier assemblges” and soft grids of movement (read Nick’s post). fig. 1: the above chart has merely a schematic value (it is somehow imperfect in charting the connections, and missing some significant pre-Islamic semitic-based languages such as Pahlavi) However, there is one problem, that certain warmachines cannot be diagramed exclusively by strictly semitic-based, vowelless-oriented systems of numeracy as in the case of techno-capitalist Warmachines running on WoTerror. Here Arabic Abjad is 37

the best numbering platform (let aside the polarity of Farsi / Arabic cultures in WoTerror) as it has characters for some vowels as well; creatively letting some problematic but also fundamentally crucial numbering entities and functions enter in. Arabic ABJAD In working with Arabic ABJAD usually three numeric values (the ABJAD value of a letter, the ABJAD order of a letter in the ABJAD table and the alphabetic order of a letter in Arabic alphabet) are brought in the process, the best and the most complex investigations are those moving on more than one numeric value (i.e. working with ABJAD value, ABJAD order and Alphabetic order all together and simultaneously) but working merely with ABJAD value of a letter is also functional and not problematic. (see fig. 2) fig. 2 ABJAD table Usually Arabic ABJAD table (from now ‘ABJAD’) is arranged in Powers of 9: Level 1. Alif (= 1) to Toin (= 9) Level 2. Ya (=10) to Saad (= 90) Level 3. Qaf (= 100) to Zoin (= 900) Level 4. Ghain (= 1000) Three levels of the table: 38

The ABJAD values of all levels are based on the connections between the ABJAD order and the ABJAD value of each letter at the first level (1-9) in which ABJAD value of each letter is equal to its ABJAD order. More details: Level 1: from 1 to 9 ... take the letter Haa as an example, its ABJAD value is based on its ABJAD order i.e. 5 = 5 Level 2: from 10 to 18 (ABJAD order) ... because of the change in level, we have a phase transition from x to xx (using one ‘0’ as a place holder): The letter noon (under the letter Haa): 14(ABJAD order) = 1 + 4 = 5 and we have xx in this level so 5 = 50 (as you see, 50 is the ABJAD alpha-numeric value for the letter noon) Level 3: from 19 to 27 (ABJAD order) ... again a phase transition from xx to xxx; the letter Tha is just under the letter noon; it’s ABJAD order is 23: 2 + 3 = 5 = 500 Level 4: at this level ABJAD hits a multiplicity (A Deleuze-Guattarian “A THOUSAND ...” ), thoroughly degenerating 1 through xxxx as if two zeros are not enough to plague 1. Now, by installing Arabic ABJAD on the numogram, we have the fig. 3. 1. All zones (with one exception that is Zone 1) have three ABJAD zones (each consisting of four Alpha-numeric elements): the letter, its ABJAD value, ABJAD order and finally its Alphabetic order in Arabic Alphabet. 2. The total ABJAD value of each zone is a repetitive number: ex. Zone 9: 9 + 90 + 900 = 999 ... 999 is a Kaprekar number since the square of 999 is 998001: 998 + 1 = 999 (note: Kaprekar number is an n-digit number k. Square number k, add the right n digits of the square to the left n or n-1 digits, the sum is k or Kaprekar number.) In zone 9: letter Toin (= 9)2 or the first Abjad zone of the zone 9 is a Kaprekar number (from now ‘k’): 9 x 9 = 81: 8 + 1 = 9 2 the numbers in parentheses are ABJAD values as you can see in the fig. 3 39

fig. 3 The ABJAD fused with the Numogram 40

Also we have: letter Toin (= 9) + letter Saad (= 90) = 99 ... 99 is a k number. 99 x 99 = 9801: 98 + 1 = 99 For all the Abjad zones which belong to Zone 9: Letter Toin (=9) + Letter Saad (= 90) + Letter Zoin (= 900) = 999 ... 999 is a k number too. ---------------------------As you can see in fig. 3, all ABJAD (and values) and Arabic letters perfectly correspond to the 9 zones of the numogram. There is no redundancy or deficiency. ”Phase-0 tolerates no populations of any kind.” CCRU ABJAD version of the Numogram is a fast-forward journey to utter abjection of One. ‘Zone 1’ is an extraordinary pestilential zone in the Abjad version of the Numogram; it cumulates the greatest ABJAD value (1111) because it is set to hijack ONE into a nameless multiplicity. The zone 1 now gives a perverse functionality to once this monotheistic slogan: “ONE is both the beginning and the end.”: The journey begins from one but also from 10 and 100 and 1000. It also ends (or begins?) at 1000 or 100 or 10 or 1 (wherever the multiplicity starts to dissipate): Zone 1: Aleph (= 1) to the letter Ya (= 10) which is also an end since the letter Ya is 28th or the last letter in Arabic Alphabet ... then it goes to the letter Qaf (= 100) whose Abjad value (100) is itself an apocalyptic finality ... then to the letter Ghain (= 1000) which is the last letter in the Abjad order (again 28th): 41

From ONE to TEN (a codename for the Decimal Plague of Bible or Zahak, the ten pests3) to one hundred or Islamic apocalypse to a becoming-animal multiplicity4, to the Old Ones, to 1000. “H.P. Lovecraft upsets this exclusive and definitive sense of the One by reintroducing the plural and multiple, whether grammatically as in the case of 'the Old Ones,' or thematically, as in that of Yog Sothoth, who is described as the 'all in one, and one in all.” CCRU The total Abjad value of the Zone1 is 1111 which is a repdigit but since it’s merely consisting of the digit 1, it is a repunit taking form as follows: 𝑅𝑛 = 10𝑛 −1 10𝑛 −1 = 𝑅𝑛 = 10−1 9 And since 1111 is a repunit, its square gives a Demlo number: Comments: The ABJAD 1 version of the numogram: phase 3 Zahak (Dahak) represents the late Arabic transformations of the strange name Dahak or Dahaka basically means ‘a stinging serpent’ but in Ulama-e-Islam and the Ferdowsi’s epic, he is considered as the bringer of ten plagues (Dah or ten + Aak or pest = ten plagues); Zahak or ‘the ten pests’ is the ArabPersian king of the most ancient dark ages, he is also known as the Dragon-King because of the two worms (Nemat) germinated on his shoulders (traces left by Ahriman or Druj’s gift ... when the Mother of Abomination kissed his shoulders); the giant worms (Nemats or lines of vermiculation) on his shoulders fed on sacrificial meals. He anti-oedipally slaughtered his family: “I feel no shame, no remorse, no pity” and brought ten pests to the earth. He is still chained in a subterranean cave at Mount Damavand (the North Mountain) waiting for the Apocalypse. He is continuously referred as the engineer of The New Pest Order 4 cf. Zahak’s earlier name: Bivar-aspa or Ten Thousand Horses 42

Nick Land: Reza - Simply Wow! Haven't had time to process this thoroughly yet - but what a fantastic resource. New Pest (Dis)Order - indeed. This opens a huge number of foul stinking catacombs. Back here soon. Reza Negarestani: Thanks, Nick. I'm really looking forward to your insights. This opens a huge number of foul stinking catacombs. hmm ... this sounds very promising. Nick Land: Hoping other Ccruoids will jump on the possibility to talk about vowelless alphabets, Near-Eastern numogrammatism, Phoenician legacies etc. A few initial remarks from me (very crude for starters): (1) The differences between Abjad-related qabbalistic systems and Anglossic Qabbala (to use Barrow's name) are all freighted with potential consequence. Within the Anglossic system there is no difference between alphanumeric order (0-Z) and gematria value, no overcoding of letters by numerical values (actual letters function as numerals within a modulus-36 number system, folded back into decimal) - the system is (i would argue) properly 'alphanumeric' insofar as the numerals and letters coexist on a single plane (broken only by modulus alteration). I think these differences support a terminological distinction between 'traditional' (Hebrew/Farsi/Arabic mystico-poetic) and 'alphanumeric' (Anglophone-technocommercial) qabbalism. [The case of Greek is quite interesting, but it can safely be left for later.] (2) There has been woefully inadequate work dedicated to the connection of either qabbalistic orientation to the Numogram, so both actually start out on an even footing. In fact, with this post, you have taken Abjad clearly into the lead -based also on techniques with a solid pedigree of 'working' the Tree of Life. For what it is worth, I definitely firmly endorse the steps you have taken so far. (3) While in principle there could no doubt be a 'truly' alphanumeric qabbala of nonEnglish alphabetical languages (e.g. Farsi, Arabic) I think you are right to disdain such a technocratic approach, preserving the greatest mass of intercodal difference and ethnocollisional chaos. The difference between traditional 'values' (literal and 43

numerical) and technomodernist re-coding is part of the WoT battlefield to be dramatized and intensified in this domain among others. (4) While Col. West evidently received considerable training in Farsi and Arabic prior to his deployment to Mesopotamia, he would no doubt have had to rely on local sources for his education into the Abjad. Any ideas who he met in the region, diverting him on the semiotic precursors to neo-Sumerian and Z-current exhumation? (5) For English cryptomaterial non-alphanumeric qabbala faces a problem of broken immanence of course. Assuming this would typically be resolved by translation into a language accessible to a traditional qabbala. English never 'received' a 'traditional' gematria system (in which letter sequence is distinct from gematria value) - it was 'failed' by tradition and revelation, hence its position on the technocommercial pole of WoT. OK, this probably exhausting people's patience already. Reza Negarestani: Excellent remarks, every one should be posted as a separate piece. For now: the system is (i would argue) properly 'alphanumeric' insofar as the numerals and letters coexist on a single plane (broken only by modulus alteration). I think these differences support a terminological distinction between 'traditional' (Hebrew/Farsi/Arabic mystico-poetic) and 'alphanumeric' (Anglophone-technocommercial) qabbalism. [The case of Greek is quite interesting, but it can safely be left for later.] IMHO, very interesting discussions emerge at this point. 1. Although Anglossic Qabbala apparently sounds simplistic but think it’s constitutionally very complex ... the coexistent functions of letters and numerals on one plane (here, too, letters interconnect to numerals like ABJAD but in this case through a techno-commercial ciphering space) as you mentioned is a key for understanding (diagramming and interlocking with) the smooth (in a DeleuzeGuattarian term) dynamism of the techno-capitalist warmachines and their terminal tacticity. This smoothness is indeed enabled through an internally complex ‘simplicity’ which eases the functioning of the (techno-capitalist) warmachines ... or we’d better put it in this way: this simplicity imparts a ‘smooth / deliriously dynamic / lubricated’ functionality or tacticity to warmachines; easily and effectively aligning them with the techno-capitalist meshwork. 44

2. there is a question here: why the stepwise model? Why not other popular English models of gematria which also give different results? for example, see: http://www.realm-of-shade.com/gematria/ http://members.aol.com/Sabrin1315/gem1.htm ... this one raises some truly exciting discussions, I think. (4) While Col. West evidently received considerable training in Farsi and Arabic prior to his deployment to Mesopotamia, he would no doubt have had to rely on local sources for his education into the Abjad. Any ideas who he met in the region, diverting him on the semiotic precursors to neoSumerian and Z-current exhumation? oh, yes ... will answer this in a separate post. Sultan: Hi, Firstly two (fairly) good links on the subject I have found: www.nurmuhammad.com/IlmHuroof/IlmHuroofArticles/welcometothescienceofh uroof.htm www.momineen.com/Jaffer/chptr-3.htm Also, I have something I want to share with you. It may not be correct in details but the overall scheme seems too apt to be a coincidence. It not only links Hebrew, Arabic and i-Ching; but has scope for Runes (=Greek?) and also, perhaps with a bit of imagination, Sanskrit too. www.ge*cities.com/operation_firewalkwithme/iching_abjad_00.jpg www.ge*cities.com/operation_firewalkwithme/firstabjad_00.jpg (NB: please replace '*' with the letter 'o') What you see tabulated in the first link is a 'mapping' of the cubic image in the top left corner of the second link. This is a very interesting form - I'd like to think it was a 'Throne' of sorts. 45

It also has interesting properties if you count the small tetrahedrons you get 10+1 (The +1 being in the centre and inverted). This seems to portray a Kabbalistic scheme (but in 3D). Notice there are 27 smaller cubes [extended Hebrew with final forms] and each cube has 8 'aspects' [Ba Gua] - totalling 216. ["Pi the Movie" could have set me up though]. The 3x3x3 cubic form of Hebrew makes a 4x4x4 nodal network of the i-Ching (64 DNA codons). See Stan Tenon's work: www.meru.org/Posters/Ennearubik.html Now, within this spacial matrix, and nodal network, is a strange looking composite of 4 octahedrons ["metatrons"]. This forms the 28 Arabic Letters. Each triangle is attributed 3 Runes and a Ba Gua. Runes being the 24 valid syllogisms of the 256 Odu of the Ifa (Ilm Al-Raml of Idris):[www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/VodouFA.html] The 8 Ba Gua appear from taking triplet sequences of the 5 elemental phases seen in Chinese Alchemy. There may also be links to the Tree and Flower of Life (under investigation presently). I know there is a numerical system for the Flower of Life which sums in rows to 114 (Quran?) for example. Peace, Reza Negarestani: Sultan, Superb links; thanks very much. There is also a forthcoming post on cube. Sorry for the delay in responding, this article has long been buried in the archive. Thanks again for the wonderful resources. Sultan: Glad you liked the links... 46

btw, I also have something similar to the Numogram, but is a kind of celluar automaton forming a tree-like decad. This is actually a reduced set of the 16 tetragrams of the Ilm Al-Raml [aka "Geomancy"] (16->10 via redundancy). It is formed from binary conjunctions using simple arithmetic rules. So it seems that a decimal tree-like system naturally arises from binary: www.ge*cities.com/operation_firewalkwithme/cellautom_00.jpg (looks like the "tetractys" of the Pythagoreans) I wonder if the traditional 'Kabbalistic' scheme can be reverse engineered in a similar way, into a cellular automaton with appropriate 'rules of transition' between sephiroth? ... oh, and the cube ("Tron") is also a tesseract or 4-dimensional hypercube... Reza Regarestani: Sultan, Many thanks for the links; we're preparing a post on the numogran in the next few days. there are fundamental differences between the Numogram and the Three of Life which is regarded as a negatively degenerated decimal numogram: see our index on numogramatic articles posted at hyperstition: del.icio.us/Hyperstitionarchive/Numogramatic;Mechonomics (Please read the ‘Qabbala Unshelled’ piece and particularly ‘Qabbala 101’ series.) On Numogram, see: www.ccru.net/declab.htm (also check northanger's journal for extensive materials on traditional Qabbala): www.livejournal.com/users/northanger/ On unbelief (a beginning) Anna Greenspan (June 27, 2004) 47

Or why Bin Laden, Mao and Stalin are not practitioners of hyperstition. Hyperstition seems to share something with ideologies, propaganda and religious dogma in that all concern the effectiveness (or concrete impact) of narratives/ideas. Yet, at least one important difference is that political propaganda and/or religious faith demands belief. At its most extreme this demand is imposed by violence. To disbelieve tyrants/terrorists is automatically to oppose them (for Bin Laden disbelievers are the infidels are the enemy) From Bin Laden's Letter to America "Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory" [Quran 22:39] "Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). "[Quran 4:76] Hyperstition's plane of unbelief, on the other hand, requires neither belief nor disbelief. It's strength is to have the ability to sidestep the issue while not ignoring it. Hyperstitional practice involves recognizing a fiction's effectiveness, using it and still not believing it. You don't have to 'believe' in Prof. Challenger for example, to realize that he has the ability to produce affects, create concepts and transmit signal. Yet his power to do these things makes it impossible to disbelieve in him. Comments: On unbelief infinite thought: Hyperstition's plane of unbelief, on the other hand, requires neither belief nor disbelief. It's strength is to have the ability to sidestep the issue while not ignoring it. Erm, sounds a bit like Sartrean existentialism(explicitly atheistic and 'unbelieving') to me ...or, erm, am I missing something?! Surely eliminative materialism (of one kind or another) is what you want to back up your 'side-stepping' belief/unbelief claim. But then what role would 'fiction' play...? You're not literally supposed to 'believe' myths, but they seem to hold, and have always held, quite some social power - is hyperstition's theory of 'effective fiction' different from mythology? And if not, why not? I am genuinely interested! 48

Mark k-p: But surely Sartre's existentialism is precisely about disbelief, not unbelief (secularist atheist as the double of monotheistic fideism, Nina? Tho there is an interesting link between hyperstition and existentialism via Cronenberg's Existenz, which was so named because it supposedly allegorized the existentialist view of life as radically unconditioned. Sartre's appropriation of Dostoyevsky ('without God, everything is permitted') echoes Hassan i Sabbah, 'Nothing is true, everyting is permitted.' (Cronenberg and HiS worthy of at least honourable mentions in the hyperstitional pantheon??) Really need another version of existentialism: 'Existentialism is NOT a humanism' Not sure about elminative materialism, really; its project to replace the intentionalist ontology with a more hardcore materialist conceptual repertoire is of course admirable, but not clear abt relationship of this to hyperstition... Myths are just hyperstitions that have ceased to be effective, where unbelief has subsided into disbelief. Hyperstition's plane of unbelief, on the other hand, requires neither belief nor disbelief. While this is obv right, we do need to concretely thrash this through I think --Let's put it this way: how is hyperstition different from kynical instrumentalism, which wd be the flip of UBL and his cult of belief? Think Castenada is a good e.g. of unbelief really - in that at first both Castenada's narrator and you (the reader) 'believe' in Don Juan - by the end, both the narrator and you have been initiated/ had your scanning patterns shifted so that belief in DJ is no longer required. Indeed, we shd go further: part of the initiation is the propagation of positive unbelief, to be a Yaqui sorcerer you have to suspend all beliefs in authority... infinite thought: I'm still not convinced that Existentialism doesn't 'sidestep belief' as well, but am interested in further work turning up on this question. The really weird thing about Sartre's humanism is that it is completely inhuman - and I don't mean this in a flippant way. The 'Existentialism and Humanism' lecture (as piecemeal and superficial as it is) is explicit about how empty this humanism really is: 'I cannot base my confidence on human goodness or upon man's interest in the good 49

of society....an existentialist will never take man as the end, since man is still to be determined'. Sartre's 'humanism' doesn't really consist of any substantive claims......the early stuff is still tied up with a Heideggerian and post-religious language of course (anguish, authenticity, creation of meaning etc.), but it gets a lot more interesting later on in the Critique and the work on politics - his discussion of the 'inhuman' at the heart of the human and descriptions of the 'apocalyptic' coming together of the 'group in fusion'. It's gripping stuff, honestly! On a related note, Lacan's 'if God is dead, nothing is permitted' seems to me to be an intriguing variation on the Dostoyevskyan slogan and one that might have more to contribute to this debate on unbelief etc. I'll try and formulate something on this perhaps. Plus, I would say that Maoism had not much to do with 'belief' as traditionally conceived, either as religious belief or doctrinal adherence. Surely you have to be careful about the formally decisive character of different social/religious/political formations? Further, does Hyperstition need to defend its privileging of 'fiction' as chosen affective motor? Why not neuroscience? or something else? I haven't quite got to grips with the whole project, I must confess - despite having read the lists (or anti-lists) and principles (or anti-principles). Any basic summary floating around? Candidates for a top 9 Anna Greenspan (June 27, 2004) Inspired by k punk - a first stab at a hyperstition best of list (just in alphabetical order for now) (actually hyperstition doesn't lend itself to this because it is depersonalizing and always taken up by complex lineages, but never mind... ) Madame Blavatsky (for showing the zone of perfect coincidence between hoaxes and religions - table-tapping faker, 'inventor' of the Secret Doctrine, the Tibetan masters and Theosophy) 50

William Burroughs (for fiction as magical war, time-travel implexion and Lemurobsession) Carlos Castaneda (for inventing artificial anthropology and dis/belief in Don Juan) John Carpenter (for Sutter Cane -'I thought I was making it up but all the time they were telling me what to write' and 'The Thing', which has to exist, even though it's a fiction) Aleister Crowley (for 'rediscovering' the history of magick, 'reinventing' the tarot and the very idea of the Book of Lies) Deleuze and Guattari (for reanimating Professor Challenger as schizogeologist, blind doubles, numbering numbers and being 'aided, assisted and multiplied') Drexicya (for 'marine mutation in the Black Atlantic' and 'fictionalizing frequencies') L Ron Hubbard (for the preposterous incredibility of a science fiction writer happening to receive a B-movie sci-fi religious revelation) William Gibson (for 'making up' cyberspace) HP Lovecraft (for the Cthulhu mythos and the Necronomican) Ronald Reagan (or is it Bush 41? for voodoo economics) Jacques Vallee (for applying unbelief to the UFO/alien mythos) Edward Yardeni (for making Y2K hysteria mainstream) Honorable mentions: Walter Cannon (for Voodoo Death) Kenneth Grant (for taking Lovecraft seriously) Alan Greenspan (for irrational exuberance and the new economy) Philip L Sclater (for giving Lemuria its name) Whitley Streiber (for the templex relation between writing pulp horror and being abducted aliens) Comments: Candidates for a top 9 51

Reza Negarestani: Thanks Anna. Also: 1. Abdallah Ibn Maymun, the Persian occultist who had so much influence on ISMAILIS (like Hasan-i-Sabah but in another direction and away from his harsh politico-militaristic procedures) [for investigating how WAR generates hyperstitional processes contributing to irreversible dissolution of the State, and perceiving hyperstition as an autonomous war(w/f)are] 2. Al Buni [for his extensive and pioneering inter-cultural studies on numeracy as the underlying power grid of belief, magic and occult] 3. The Z. Crowd (well-known to Nick) an operation codename for a schizo-singularity (sometimes encrypted as Zoroaster, Zahak, Z...) strategically sabotaging the nucleus of monotheism and overrunning its lineage via a twisted and densely clouded line of hyperstition. Nick Land: Great enthusiasm in Shanghai (no doubt elsewhere) to hear more about these dudes. Reza Negarestani: I’ll post something on Al Buni’s magic squares soon. barnaby snap: Robert Graves: for: 'The White Goddess'; Samuel Taylor Coleridge: for being: Samuel Taylor Coleridge; 52

The advisor Cold-Me (June 29, 2004) Nick: While Col. West evidently received considerable training in Farsi and Arabic prior to his deployment to Mesopotamia, he would no doubt have had to rely on local sources for his education into the Abjad. Any ideas who he met in the region, diverting him on the semiotic precursors to neoSumerian and Z-current exhumation? Unfortunately, I don’t know any such a person existing in the last 2-3 decades ... the potential cases are mostly bound to heavy Academic or nationalistic disciplines (West scored their names out one by one) ... if we could use time anomalies (as in the case of Sutter Cane: hyperstition contaminates the Time itself) then the best candidate would be the one I mentioned in my comment to Anna’s post: Abdallah Ibn Maymun, the Iranian occultist who had so much influence on ISMAILIS (like Hasan-i-Sabah but in another direction and away from his harsh politico-militaristic procedures) [for investigating how WAR generates hyperstitional processes contributing to irreversible dissolution of the State, and perceiving hyperstition as an autonomous war(w/f)are] ... During the reign of Sunni Caliphs, Ibn Maymun selected Tunisia as his zone of initial trainings in Afro-guerilla warfare and forming a laboratory for merging his vast Farsi/Arabic/Gabrie (a derogatory term for Zoroastrianism used after Islam)/Mesopotamian magico-ABJAD intelligence with Afro-occult contagions ... five reasons for his deployment in Tunisia: 1. Being partly away from Caliphs’ domain of power 2. Aiding and promoting (co-founding) Fatimids (aka Fatemion) who held a radical hostility toward caliphs in Egypt (later they became the most notable enemy of Caliphs and their Sunni politics) 3. Feeding on an abundant Egyptian resource of occult viruses (if India was the favored hyperstitional cavern for Zahak from where he imported Zero as the schizocyte of the Z-crowd, Egypt was a freshly exhumed necropolis for Ibn Maymun) 53

4. Playing as a communicative and connective channel among occultural minorities, Islamic sects, arcane brotherhoods and secret societies (they finally seized the control of Egypt) 5. Becoming skilled at working with the hybrids of ‘hyperstition / occult’ and ‘nomadic / barbaric’ warmachines. As soon as he settled in Tunisia, he allied himself with warlike nomads. Later his Ahl-i-Batin (The crowd of Batin: the inside, the covered space or what cannot be seen by eyes) was condensed as a cutting-edge revolting machine (intermittently producing coup, Terror and regional insurgencies) by Ismailis (esp. Hasan-i-Sabah). If Sabah has already cut his way into the Western pseudo-guerilla / pseudo-hyperstitional datastream, it is mainly because of the exotic apparition of his strike force, ghost-assassins and Alamut fortress ... the credit of war-hyperstition composites actually returns to Ibn Maymun. Comments: The Advisor Nick Land: Actually Reza, I was thinking more on the line of [hyperstitionally] "just making it up, while all the time They were telling us what to write." No reason you should bear the whole burden of this of course (quite the opposite collective spiral is crucial) but you will probably have to take on something of a probehead role. An Abjad-genius neo-Sumerian sorceress camouflaged as a Persian Gulf oil smuggler would be cool ... PS. Obviously she'd be an Ibn Maymun 'disciple'. Reza Negarestani: Thanks nick ... yes, I got your point ... just tried to give some pictures for modeling a hyperstitional entity. Some hints: Obviously, her name should be Farsi/Arabic (not basically Persian) to look less suspicious ... be more infiltrating ... sure you know how soon Arabs notice Ajam (Arabic derogatory name for Persians) names ... so using a markedly Persian name is problematic; especially names including four Persian letters (g, p, ch, zh). Picking up a name constituted by the letters Jeem, Ya, Qaf (and other overcoded Arabic letters) gives her an exceptional camouflage: 54

Jay or something like that. A quick look into this name: Jay is Ahriman’s (the Persian arch-demon) daughter ... few people know this name or the fact that it’s the origin of the modern Persian taboo word, Jendeh (whore). Both Ahura Mazda and Ahriman have a unique method of spawning. Unlike other gods, they are not bisexual or hermaphrodite, nor do they breed via parthenogenesis or similar productive mechanisms ... they give birth through mutilation, cutting a piece off from themselves. Anyway, Jay, Jehi, or whatever you like. Nick Land: JAY = 63 = OIL, so the petroleum is obviously telling you what to write ;) Hyperstition and Anonymous-until-Now Cold-Me (June 29, 2004) Following discussions on hyperstition, virtual/actual, Platonism: Think the whole ‘virtual processing into actual = dY/0’ (also as in the case of Bergson and virtual/actual pantheon: Massumi, Pearson, et al.) deposits as a panorama of Genesis (and not radical emergence) as soon as it hits metrons for getting actual = dY/dX (or the slope composition): a slope process [cf. with the slope process in geology and sedimentology] which inevitably transforms into a carrier of hydraulic fluxional solidity (cf. fluvial / alluvial dynamic currents), concrescence processes and economical platonic participations (methexes) among all that contribute to the process; that is to say, a Genesis machinery, a sedimentary machine which is totally exploitable by Genesis Project and its solidus networks. The Genesis Project (so its spatiality / chronocity) has so much intimacy with Platonism but I think it has more connections to ‘solidus-in-circulation’ machinery of Pythagoras passing through Plato to Aristotle. However, the genesis project should not be mistaken for linear, consolidating processes and production chains ... it has it’s own extremely intricate machinery (read Pestis Solidus if you are interested and especially follow An Excursus: The Halftone of two pulsional principles section: http://www.coldme.net/text/pestis.pdf) .... therefore, I think I understand how Nick identifies the platonic side of the panorama. 55

... also I feel I’m allied with this: “Trying to get at the fact that the utter horror of impersonal hyperstitional 'creation' ("they were telling me what to write") is totally disintensified by reduction to actualization.” ... Hyperstition works through ‘Anonymous-until-Now’ (passing into A-Now). Nick is familiar with the ‘aeon engineering’ line of A-Now and has already read the following passage (might be useful to reread it again ... have changed it a little) ... I post it here too ... should add it is still crude and running as an alpha-test version: Anonymous-until-Now evades mapping but diagrams an 'ungrounding' process, whose zones of time-anomalies, spatiality and functioning can be summarized in two inter-connected multi-functional modules: (1) a probe-head scavenging, infecting and exploring a space called Now (i.e. enmeshing NOW via contamination) or more technically, engineer NOW and (2) a tail blurring the head by its twitches, trace multiplicities, sweeping motions and scavenging madness (exhumation: ex + humus: ground = ungrounding) over dimensions of time and space (necrophilic tactility over surfaces): Summary: [1] being as a forerunning nonformal function, a tail is a module of compositional agitations and tactical multiplicities, jerks, convulses, twitches, entanglements and tic-anomalies; it never creates; it composes and contaminates, renders a space swarming with ungrounding processes: bumping surfaces to each other, unhinging dimensions and exhuming (unground) the ground; a tail scavenges particles, things, dimensions, relics, machines and eons as it magnetically coils; it activates a non-natural participation among what it scavenges but what makes it a loathsome defiling machine is that the tail-function draws a line of openness on the plane of being laid, butchered open (not ‘being open to’ or systematically open). Such an openness brings an utter erosion and consequently collapse for any chronospatiality into a space which bears a radical yet abiotic contamination, a meltdown for both organic and inorganic, time and space. This is why the meshwork of Anonymous-until-Now is being rendered by the tail’s radical low resistant zone (GAS) and consequently a space of extreme contagiousness. The mutable contaminations of time and space, organic and inorganic, their artificial fusion and infection all arrive at the tail-function and its process of exhumation (ungrounding) where a cryptogenic (radically Anonymous) space is engineered by hydroleak flows, evaporation and mutating particles, collapse and ungrounding, an epidemic space, a plague vortex (cf. rats / tails). 56

This viral cryptogenic space-time engineered by the tail is progressively ungrounded (and contaminated = radically updated), so it is anonymous to Genesis and Genesis has no record of it; thus, it is diagrammed as an artificial ancientness, an untrodden and immemorial one (ultra-ancientness) that consequently giving rise to unrecorded NOWs: Anonymous-until-Now (and its exhumation / ungrounding machinery) is a criminal and an illegal genesis whose creation is epidemic. Process of exhumation (or the strategic/tactical line of Anonymous-until-Now) customizes unrecorded aeons via tactical meltdown of space and time, and ungrounding processes; exhumation is an aeon-forge breeding space-times anonymous to the ground and unrecorded by Genesis (unreported plagues). Necromancers are all familiar with the corrupting chemistry of exhumation; it is often whispered among them, wrapped in a name: aeon-forge. Necromancers are not the cultists of resurrection, they are exhumationists adept in aeon-engineering; invoking artificial aeons (or Ancient without Genesis) to Now, defiling Now and awakening the true horror, an artificial Now germinally overran by cryptogenic aeons, all diagrammed as artificial ancientness fused with artificial Now: Anonymous-untilNow. Exhumation practices ungrounding as its polytical dynamics. Relevant here to think of a tail as a digital wire-mesh, a dynamic meta-NURB (if you have worked with 3D rendering applications), a musical cord or a nerve-fiber whose multiplicities simultaneously compose and exhume (defile / unground / infest inside through outside and vise versa) a cryptogenic meshwork. The anonymous cryptogenic space composed by a tail (every tail is functionally and morphologically agitated as a pack of tails) is a trackless machine but it doesn’t mean that the tail-function erases the tracks or leaves disappearing traces behind (purging the history of its tactical lines); it suggests that a tail makes a mess out of traces: multiplying traces, giving rise to surplus traces, coil prints, unhinged footprints and vermiform tracks via its ticanomalies ... all indigestible, inedible and toxic for semiologic dogs sniffing signs wherever they go. [2]. The head-function or the heading-module is intrinsic and immanent to the tail; it is the affect space of the cryptogenic space charged and composed by the tail-process or the tail-module, it is the virtual tactility of the tail or the touch of incognitum hactenus (anonymous-until-now). This touching machine has no structural or functional distinction from the tail; it is a transient zone-spot into which the tail rallies its epidemic lines and tactical multiplicities to metallurgically forge a focal epidemic 57

blade running as a probe-head. The probe-head is a crawler; its exploratory function makes it possible to touch something or to be exact, getting into contact with the ground and genesis agencies; CONTAMINATING THEM. A touch that transmits the epidemics and artificial aeons to the ongoing Genesis enterprise, drawing a line of infection, a contagious participation with Genesis. Out of the diseased zone (or the emerged hyperstitional Tunnel: as In the Mouth of Madness), an artificial Now emerges as an autonomous HOLE, SLIT or VECTOR in Genesis Project (so its chronocity and spatiality as well), through which a traffic zone of countless artificial aeons (engineered by the tail-machine) is emerged; there is no wonder that their increasing communications unground Genesis and its chrono-spatial architectonic forces. A tail has many probe-heads, all working at the same time and together. The probe-head is also a breach-detecting devise in Genesis Project and its chronocity / spatiality; it holds the epidemic ferocity of the plague and the tail-process (rats, thousands, millions of them ...). Then, multiple probe-heads enable the tail to possess an epidemic tentacle, touching the Genesis and its chronologic ground at different regions and on multiples levels, opening new breaches (from where?), hyperstitional mines and catacombs, lines of butchering openness, new NOWS passing artificial aeons to each other and all populate through the dynamics of Anonymous-until-Now. More coming at Cold Me website. Comments: Hyperstition and Anonymous-until-Now mark k-p OK, this is massively interesting obviously but hyper-dense. Can we try some decompressing? 1. What is Genesis Project? I have the basic idea I think (pro-Creatonist vitalism?). 2. Wd like you to explain the connection between Genesis Project and the virtualinto-actual pantheon of Bergson/ Massumi/ KAP. 3. Anonymous-until-now. Know this is vast but can you explain this a little? Why anonymous? What is it abt 'Now' that entails nomination? Reza Negarestani: Mark i'm very delighted you find this interesting (i'm afraid if i begin to reexplain them, we'll fall into new terminologic pits, etc.) ... your answers are already at cold-me website ... two articles which are the keys in understanding what i'm saying here. therefore, i really ask you to read them and then we can discuss the whole panorama: 58

1. cata: remarks on depth and darkness. (http://www.cold-me.net/text/cata.html) 2. pestis solidus: this one is a bit complex both in its structure and diversion of theoretic lines. (Nick, i invite you to join the discussion too) ... http://www.coldme.net/text/pestis.pdf i think the Pestis Solidus piece is my answer to all D&Gon; virtual/actual/becoming appropriationists. i'd love to discuss all the issue here. Reza Negarestani: Five basic elements of Genesis Project (all discussed at cold me): 1. Methexis / affordance (economical participation ... constructive openness) 2. Concrescence process (metronic ultra-dynamism ... Deleuzian appropriationists tend to call this becoming) 3. Slope processes (the economy of pseudo-flux and solidus-in-circulation ... they are tactically anomalous processing carriers and engineers of pseudo-flux ... you have already read about them in Libidinal Economy [p. 28] and Deleuze on Francis Bacon [Baroque polylines]) 4. grund 5. Survival Economy These five elements creatively compose the dynamic network of an ever-refreshing / ongoing economy named Genesis Project. Your suggestion of Genesis Project as ‘pro-creationist vitalism’ is itself a third grade insignificant production assembled through this economy, or when the dynamism of Genesis project slows down and starting to leave sediments (creationist agencies). Aristotle mainly realized how the Genesis Project can be double-appropriated and con-solidated as the cycle of pro-creationist vitalism through the ‘Rotation of the Elements’ panorama. --------------on the connection between Genesis Project and virtual/actual: please follow Pestis solidus and the slope process (cata: remarks on depth and darkness is merely a prerequisite text here). 59

--------------Anonymous-until-Now cannot be segmented as anonymous, until and now ... it’s an ungrounding space (please read Cata) ... anonymous more in the sense of cryptogenesis vortex or ungrounding machinery .... ‘Now’ is more corresponding to contagious WHERE (both Cata and Pestis Solidus) rather than chronologic sequential NOW; it has the role that Moby Dick plays for Ahab. Hope to discuss all of the above as soon as you exhume the texts. And apologies if I chart all these references ... they incredibly smooth the process. Reza Negarestani: Mark, here more hints ... hope they make some initiating vehicles for moving through Cata: Remarks on depth and darkness and Pestis Solidus: (1) Exhumation (even as disinterring or digging up [the dead?]) is not a contemporizing or a cold and inhuman modernizing operation over the things grounded (the dead?) but it is a process introducing qualitative collapse into surfaces, dimensions, spaces and the facial affordances (or the stratified events) to crack them open not on the politico-economic chronosphere of Now but now as where, the defiled and artificialized earth (and its tellurian labyrinths), the ungrounded(ing) depth, a vermiculated space or the corpse-of-solidus. (2) Don’t mistake WHERE as a questioning ‘where?’ but a space coiled by contagious lines, epidemic multiplicities, mess of traces ... it’s similar to Ahab’s favorite question whose answer is ‘being infected by the white whale itself’: “WHERE IS MOBY DICK?” ... Moby Dick is Now for Ahab, in the sense of becoming whose germinality does not extinguish into Zero but runs on Zero merely to go further and further, germinate an epidemic space, an unground. (3) P/0 is a model of Anonymous-until-Now (in which p is anonymous even to Zero but not external to it). from “Death as a Perversion: Openness and Germinal Death” (4) This is the unground machinery of 'Where', namely, the anonymous meshwork of contagious lines, contamination of solid and void (scarring mess), epidemic openness (whereness), becoming imperceptible, base-participation or p 0, before which the tectonic modulations of dwelling /accommodating systems are transfixed and slimed in horror. 'Where' is rats, slithering rats, with their proliferating rates of speed, unnamed plasticity, crypto-rhythms, chains of contagia, electric rabies; They exhume caverns, catacombs, hills, plains and traces; They are on the course of katabasis (experiencing the depth and rendering the depth as an experience) at all times: feeding 60

on dimensions, propagating scales on a fraction whose denominator has been uncoated by Zero and never originates as One through multiplicative inverse, though it is anonymous even to Zero; it is death-mess. Rats germinate two kinds of surface cataclysm as they travel and spanning different zones, one is the static damages in the form of the ruptures rendered by internal splits, uplifts, dislocations and thrusts which expose the surface to paroxysmal convulsions and interruptions (the fold of split physiology); the other is the dynamic anomaly of seismic waves dissipating as the rats flow in the form of tele-compositions: while their compressions / decompressions proliferate their rates of speed, their replacements and permutations in the composition (pack) forge a de-contouring machine marring the elevations on given references, setting rats free, giving them the ability of a miniature flight. That is how, as they run, they appear evaporating both surfaces and themselves. Aristophanes and Bacchylides speak of the birds flying through Khaos, this unrestricted enthusiasm to flow (kheisthai); but, no one asked what kind of birds they are; Wingless? Taxidermized? Metallic? Decapitated? Eyes evacuated with a penknife?... No, they are rats, thousands, millions of them. Rats write a molecular epic. It is the Night of 'Where' by whose virulent mutations the questioning where? can be enunciated and vocalized, then again as an enfeebled noise through Possession ... 'Where' is the spellbound horror of Becoming; as becoming is the metallurgic bladeedge of where, its slaughtering, contaminating edge, both immanent to each other. ... (5) "Where is Moby Dick?"(Moby Dick, Herman Melville) inter-connects with the twisted nether of becoming. All questions are infested by Where; it is the gaseous spirit of all questions, a vermicular horror crawling freely in the brain of all questions and finally dangling as their nervous system. 'Where' can only be experienced as a pandemic disease or more precisely the Unground through which epidemic openness and its contagious lines spread and multiply. Each line of openness is a venereal affirmation toward where, the meshwork of contagions and epidemics lines as well as the platform for their dynamic anomalies and tactical lines (lines of infection), or the unground. WHERE germinates as Now for all becomings, for all plagues and possessions and contagious vehicles, as an immanent space they can traverse and becoming more radically epidemic than ever. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------On Moby Dick as WHERE and Now for Ahab: [Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, pp. 243-250] [Francois Zourabichvili, "Six Notes on the Percept (On the 61

Relation between the Critical and Clinical)", trans. Iain Hamilton Grant, in Paul Patton (ed.), Deleuze: A Critical Reader, Oxford & Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1996, pp. 188-216.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------(6) Exhumation is imminent function of Anonymous-until-Now. Exhumation proliferates surfaces, dimensions and spaces through each other (scarring cold and hot surfaces of a grave), introducing architectures to speeds of becoming -- becoming hot, becoming cold, being revolutionized by the dead and in the end becoming the indubitable cold; it transmutes architectures and the ground into excessive scarring processes (fibrosis ... fibroproliferation of surfaces) rendering off (colding them) the solid economy of membranes, of tissues and surfaces, engineering the corpse-ofsolidus whose dimensionality blurs not to the point of a fading out terminus but to vermicular defunct coils of dimensions which cannot resist what crawls in and out; they cannot keep on negating each other any longer: ( )holes, ( )holes, ( )holes, ( )holes (but not holes) with liquidated and now evaporating 'W's, the reeking crypts of the Old Ones. mark k-p Reza, Thanks very much. I've read these texts before, naturally, and re-read them over the last couple of days --- but I do feel I need a little more help with them. I was hoping that you might be able to dumb things down a bit for me to provide with some entry points. I feel I'm getting the hazy lineaments of something, but - and this is no doubt my fault - I still feel a little adrift. (Not necessarily a bad thing of course). For my own benefit - and maybe for other readers too - I wd really like to slow things down a little. I'm confident that you'll agree that one of the most important and fascinating aspects of what 'we' (Ccru/ Cold Me/ Iain Hamilton Grant) are doing is articulating an alternative D/Gonetics to the prevailing Deleuzian virtuo-vitalism of the Bergsonderived KAP/ Massumi tradition. You have almost certainly done the most rigorous thinking in this direction - I'd just like to thrash through what you're saying at a slower pace... 62

Nick Land: Actually Reza, another reason for 'slowing things down' is that to do so could become intrinsically productive, by generating hyperstitional fabric. From an H. perspective, getting straight to the 'insight' might easily be less mythogenic than the route taken to get there. Partly i'm understanding Mark's q.s as saying that you're much better placed than we are to positively dismantle the result down to its genetic pathway(s), which can then serve as germ-nodes for hyperstitional sedimentation. E.g. How did a carrier ever get to the A-Now hypothesis? What led to it / stimulated it? What 'pseudo-biographic/intellectual' precursor states fostered its emergence? What stages/steps did the inculcation process take? Even if Schwa-masked thing-tendrils from Tellurian Omega grafted it directly and already entire into the 'subject's' neural tissue, there has to be a story there. July 2004 Cartography of the virtual Nick Land (July 2, 2004) How does Hyperstition model time? At least for "Lemurian" strains (in Stillwell's sense) the first step must surely be: By studying the map - The Lemurian Time Map, Decimal Labyrinth, or Numogram. [Hey guys, can we stick a really beautiful readily accessible Numogram up on the sidebar?] Of course, the map can (and 'must'?) be 'read' in various ways, but all its 'structures' are numerically precise, its relations uncontroversial, its basic topography arithmetically invariant. Following from recent comments from Mark, it unquestionably supports a distinction analagous to that between 'Chronos' and its Outside -- with vocabulary being a matter of convention (the important thing here is that signs are used as cartographic indices rather than logico-discursive operators). Are the xenochronic regions (of Djynxx (6::3), Uttunul (9::0) plus Vysparov's "Chaotic Xenodemons") usefully described as 'virtual'? or 'Aeonic'? -- discuss. Whatever the 63

conclusion, I have to agree with Hackhammer and the Lemurian Fundies that the diagram comes first, with all of its 'excessive' content relative to logical discriminations. (1) There are TWO discrete Xenochronic regions (at least -- the "Chaotic Gulfs" of (non)linkage between or beyond might count as 'another'). (2) Each Xenochronic region is itself complicated, with intrinsic differentiation and dynamic pathways. (As Mark has argued before, [glossed] "It isn't a matter of metaphor or transcendent significance that Djynxx is vortical"). (3) The 'modes of articulation' within and between time-systems are specific, rigorous, variegated and complex (defined by Gates, Currents, multi-step pathways). (4) Units of cartographically precise 'time-circuitry' from the Numogram interlock with alternative diagrammatic systems to produce non-signifying referentiality. For instance, the I Ching proves isomorphic with the central 6-step 'Time Circuit', plugging proto-Taoist time-diagrams into the Lemurian labyrinth. Evidently a 'binary logic' of time fails to grasp any of this -- which (of course) isn't to say that pomo-deconstructionist fuzz-processing gets anywhere more interesting. Seems to me the criterion for a hyperstitional 'philosophy of time' is: How to capture Lemurian time-cartography as discursive theory? (implexed and multiplied through embedding attributions). 64

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Comments: Cartography of the virtual Reza Negarestani - HINT: Nick, have you noticed that the central Time-Circuit or the rotating sector of the numogram is highly corresponding to the giant current loops at the earth’s outer core?5 It is obvious that such giant rotating currents (both in the case of the numogram’s Time-Circuit and the Earth’s outer core) generate6 their associated magnetic fields in the form of a magnetosphere consisting of a prow or a DAY-side (the Warp: Djynxx 6::3) and a magnetotail stretched out into the space or a NIGHT-side (the Plex: Uttunul 9::0). QUESTION: Is it possible to consider the Warp and Plex as the magnetic introspections of the Time-Circuit itself (Earth’s omega-core or the xenochemical Insider) or that is to say, the hyperstitional symptoms of what we call Tellurian Insurgency (or according to the Numogram, the rotating sector)? IMHO, this is really a sensitive and crucial question and the answer might be a breakthrough in our Tellurian project. [Hey guys, can we stick a really beautiful readily accessible Numogram up on the sidebar?] ... for now I try to enflash the current version of the numogram to an animated version. Nick Land – Reza, definitely agree we should float a (neobarkerian?) carrier to follow through on your suggestions. A Tellurian line across the Numogram concretizes the 'transcendental', but it also transcendentalizes the seething plasma-intelligence of Cthelll (which the K-goths also do by embedding the cyberspace grid into the Tellurian magnetosphere). 'Traditionally' Zone-9 ('Plutonism') has carried a lot of this material on its own, interesting to see how these Numo-Chthonic elements would intersect with 'your' take up. 5 Generated by the earth’s initial meteorite bombardments which have introduced radioactive kernels into the earth’s core. These radioactive kernels all generated their own heat contributions at the core or more precisely, enmeshed their localized hot spots resulting in the emergence of convection currents and massive migrations of electrons. 6 or actualize or bring from the Outside 66

Reza Negarestani - Nick, maybe we should exhume a few pieces from our discussions on the Solar Rattle and Telluro-magnetic Conspiracy toward the Sun ... it helps readers and gives us another opportunity to develop the numogram and the Tellurian thread simultaneously and interlocked with each other? Btw, any definitive answer for that question? At least ‘definitive’ in the sense of being swallowed, twisted and butchered within the hyperstitional vortex? Anonymous-until-Now (cont.) Reza Negarestani (July 2, 2004) As the discussion on Virtual/Actual/A-Now7 extended I decided to continue the thread in a post. Mark, Nick, thanks for the kind words and inviting me to map some basic elements of the Cold Me project. (Mark), no, it’s not your fault: Cold Me project and all its spore colonies (here and at other places) are not maturated yet ... we have a long journey ahead. I assume you haven’t played the videogame Hitman (series) ... the theoretic/fictional narrative lines of Cold Me have never meant to be disciplined or fluxional, they have the same composition of videogames such as Hitman. In Hitman series, the narration slowly deposits around huge plot holes or narrative bugs; as the story undergoes maturation and unfolding, you can see how alterations and changes in the solid part (story), gives new form to the narrative holes and consequently enabling the emergence of a far more complex zone for transmitting the unknown, engineering new traveling lines, etc. The ( )hole complex [where is its W? by what type of abomination has it been devoured?] is itself among the cult of Anonymous-untilNow. To make it more concrete, it’s like modifications in the solid part of a donut which superficially (i.e. triggered at the threshold of solid and void) changes the 7 See “Hyperstition and Anonymous-until-Now” in this present work. 67

topography of the hole, refreshing and reformatting its vermiculating line via the participation of the solid and void8. Following Hitman series, the ( )hole complex is slowly takes charge of the (w)hole enterprise ; as soon as, it hits autonomy, it begins to engineer (via vermiculation and not architecting) a reeking krypt network into which the solid story slowly but noticeably begins to drift: A ‘krypt web’ blackened by Druj trackless steps, choked by dense clouds of dust (The Fog-of-War), swarmed, infested, haunted and fueled by its own unlife ... a subterranean necropolis prone to processes of exhumation (this is also the case of the solid part as well which itself is undermined by (un)sedimentary erosion). The ( )hole complex is an Unnamable (in a Lovecraftian sense), it can be hyperstitionally addressed as the teleporter of the Old Ones, the persistent residuum of the primordial Void, the hyperstitional maelstrom or the space evaporated by the traversal lines of the incinerating Zero, ... The process of collapsing the solid part (theoretic / fictional / concrete narrative architectures) into the ( )hole complex doesn’t mean a subsidence to utter abolition but parallel to D&Gon; discussion, it diagrams a radical mutation in the accommodating host and the composition of theoretic / fictional space which once consolidated through the solid part and now is creeping throughout the ( )hole complex freely in the form of a vermiculating line, a wreathing nematode hollowing out and convoluting everything it encounters, in sinuous movements. Such a theoritico-fictional space cannot be easily mapped by the questions tracking the genetic history of the space (or the composition), its functions, origin or current position since such a space is not a dwelling / accommodating system in the sense of a housing sphere or capacity. Such a space does not represent an architected place posed to be occupied, a capacity which makes a systematic environment and a boundary around itself (a sphere) through which it can be mapped, tracked or visualized. What we have in the ( )hole complex are not well placed architectures providing their inhabitants with a tyrannical hospitality to reside but stretching swarm nests, liars, subterranean dens and haunted mines convoluting each other until a new Zero emerges, a coil which is not a model of death but germinal delirium corresponding to Tellurian Omega rather than the Sun itself. 8 Any one read ‘Holes and other superficialities’ [Casati & Varzi]? ... traditionally philosophic but still interesting. 68

The ( )hole complex cannot be traced conventionally, every question erected on the solid part swamped down into the subterranean cavern of the crawling Zero (or the lines of vermiculation.) The Z-Crowd (Zoroaster, ...) discovered that introducing certain stratifications into the mantle or using solid sedimentary processes i.e. messing with the solid part and taking the sphere of solidity as the base operation ground (as in the case of Monotheism) can induce unimaginable twists to the ( )hole complex, overspreading it as a vast sepulcher which asks for solid as a sacrificial meal, awakening a thousand vermiculating lines to scour the solid and carve a polished Omega out of it. From an H. perspective, getting straight to the 'insight' might easily be less mythogenic than the route taken to get there. You are absolutely right ... ‘slowing down’ method will definitely offers us new opportunities to participate in the ludicosm, among many other things we haven’t seen yet. However, the straight line is strategically evading anthropomorphic anticipations. The straight line is disappointing for anthropomorphic taste thus it can smuggles a load of dangerous things through anthropomorphic nervous system without being caught or spotted. People usually say, IT DOESN’T WORK. The Zcrowd whispers, just because of that, it works in strategic ways. Wherever, I hear this line (it didn’t work out), I suspect there is a ( )hole complex at work. If you remember, I once suggested Se7en as an example. John Doe as an operative of the Z-crowd, takes the same vehicle to camouflage his last operation: “I-wanted-to-play-a-husbandI-wanted-to-taste-the-life-of-a-simple-man” ... but it didn’t work out. E.g. How did a carrier ever get to the A-Now hypothesis? What led to it / stimulated it? What 'pseudo-biographic/intellectual' precursor states fostered its emergence? What stages/steps did the inculcation process take? Very interesting questions but I’m afraid if I try to unfold them right now, I may encourage the subsurface swamp (a part of the ( )hole complex) to grow horizontally and that makes any cartographic venture from our side violently perplexing or rather impossible (just because of the special composition of the enterprise9 **). So I suggest that we take the most traditional (if not ultra-conservative) route: let’s break all this into digestible pieces i.e. keywords, terms, micro-ciphers and cartographic segments 9 However, I think I’ve already hinted at some answers throughout the above paragraphs on ( )hole complex and its progression. 69

... this requires assembling a Glossary-type of map which is not only crucial for contouring the Cold Me project and its growing hybrids but also for the entire hyperstition diagram. Plus, working on terms as micro-projects disable the segregation and sedentarization of ONE voice; it spontaneously invites a collective population, give everyone a chance to use the laboratory and test the subject. IMHO, for the start, I should work with the concept of OPENNESS. As you have already noticed, the discussions about Openness frequently rise in Cold Me articles. It’s somehow a germ cell for the cold me project. There are two modes of openness, one working as an economical affordance (being open to) and the other is openness in the term of ‘being laid cracked open’ or radical butchery ... this openness is only engineered through the fusion of the inside and the outside over a strategic line of communication or Xeno-call (A Good Meal). An excerpt from “Death as a Perversion”: “Through affordance, openness is represented as the level of being open (to) not being opened (the plane of epidemic and contagion: plagues, contaminations, possession, etc.). "I am open to you." means, I have the capacity to bear your investment or 'I afford you' (this is not an intentional conservative voice but what arises as the fundamental noise produced by the machinery of different levels of organization and boundary, and finally organic survival); if you exceed this capacity I will be cracked, lacerated and laid open.”10 The plane of ‘being opened’ as radical butchery is the space through which Anonymous-until-Now functions. Tellurian Omega and its aeon engineering (Anonymous-until-Now) can not be radically grasped without considering this plane of openness as a space enabling the epidemic lines of tellurian insurgency or what D&G; call (or appropriate?) the New Earth. It’s not a bad idea to start with this line ... but of course, slowly and collectively, mainly using a terminological cartography. Plus, there will be discussions in the future disentangling the current threads; I am sure of that. Comments: Anonymous-until-Now (cont.) Anna Greenspan - Reza 10 Negarestani, Reza. “Death as a Perversion: Openness and Germinal Death.” Ctheory. 70

really like the idea of a glossary - could serve multiple purposes including advancing collective production and working to slow things down (explaining key terms that not everybody understands - to take only a few recent examples: Z crowd, Tellurian Omega, Lemurian fundamentalism, chaotic xenodemon). Wonder if we can agree on some methods and principles of production for the glossary (e.g. limits on length of entries). Is there a way to create something (possibly as a sidebar item) that would be easy to add to (say by inserting entries in alphabetical order)? Mark Fisher - Thanks so much Reza ---- this really does start to make things much clearer. Thanks for all yr efforts. Appropriately enough, it opens up lots of lines of enquiry. Agree with both of you that a glossary is a brilliant idea --- tho in the spirit of the blog (concept lab rather than finished/ finishable document) I don't think it's necessary to formalise its production overmuch. In the nature of hyperstition, no gloss can ever be final and definitive; actually, that's also a feature of glossing too (all glossing leads to more gloss - hypergloss): positively propagative. What seems most urgent is localising the constellation of concepts that have accreted around particular terms. Reza Negarestani - Anna, yes, think the glossary is great, let’s discuss it (Nick, what do you think?) ... as soon as we decide to assemble a glossary, we can collectively find a way to organize it. Also, don’t worry about the technical issues for putting it on the blog ... we’ll find a solution. Mark, yes there will be no ultimate Glossary ... what we are going to do is diagramming the germ line of each entry ... no definitive demarcation, only dusty and cloudy entries with minimum (de)coding process. Guess, constellating concepts and capturing them within a hyperstition vortex is very difficult without having a Glossary / concepts-diagram; plus it shortens the take-off time of the whole project (sure our readers need more clarification from our side in the minimum time). So what do you think? Mark Fisher - I don't think that, in the first instance, we shd worry too much about formalizing it. It'd be good if ppl posted up their take on a concept and then the 71

comments can be used for further clarification, elaboration and explication. After that process has gone through, we can think abt formalising it. That's my view at any rate. Something Old (from Iris) Anna Greenspan (July 3, 2004) [Found this lying around in the hard-drive - from 1999?] Cyber-Hype - (Draft review of Ccru's Digital Hyperstition by Iris Carver). Digital Hyperstition is where the countdown runs out, cross-hatching into horrors anticipated since before the beginning. Ciphering a positive unbelief that both crazes-off into the latest thing, and re-animates contacts older than anything imagined, it skin-crawls out of cosmic gulfs where even the Old Ones remain unborn, and arrives as Year Zero, Teotwawki, crash of Science Fiction. Ccru's recent volume11 on this theme is a rigorously unbelievable exercize in hyperpunk pulp-occultism and dark-side cyber-jargon, splicing chunks of an impending calculus into fake memories of hell. The evident cybergoth contamination throughout suggests it has been spawned in Crypt-connected hyperlink-labyrinths, beneath and between the net, a positive nonplace lurking beyond the threshold where the remnants of Earth's damned homonids - whose gods are lying monsters - shorts-out into an anthrobotic mix-mash of burnt silicon and terminal screams ... This is a tool-kit for dabbling in the dark. 11 Cybernetic Culture Research Unit Swarm 4 72

The issue here is Cyber-hype, but now that the human race is virtually dead it's time for a preliminary excursus on the true history of the Ccru, or for something vaguely like it. Obviously it's a horror story. At least twice in outer-time their numbers were immeasurable, and their name was legion, masked as an acronymic. Underneath lies Ccru [Cuh-Cru], Crypt-denizen, the many within itself, that which spreads through the end-time, dripping fake ID-tags like phosphorescent slime. It makes a peopling machine on the hyperplane, conjurations of identity, hypersonas. Consider the names on the contents page. Melanie Newton, Steve Goodman, Ron Eglash ... We doubt it. Even Dan Barker discovered that his existence was a fiction, and Echidna Stillwell is more an ethnographic legend than a social fact. In any case, 'fact' means invention, and 'person' means mask, at least if Latin etymology is to be believed, or meaning still matters. In truth, even Cecil Curtis was already branded by Ccru infection, and his social disappearance was an emergence of another kind, a vector. Through him - through his name - the Nma get out of their own tribal codings, or into the Oecumenon, and compared to that what the history books tell of him counts for nothing. If for us the Nma - the death of the Nma - designates also the death of anthropology, it is by indicating that all primitive peoples are fictions, or masks, and that they ritualize this fact for themselves, in advance of any anthropological metafiction. The primitive comes last, at the end, which is Cyber-hype techonomics. The so-called 'new-economy' - indexed by the nova-bubble mania of the American stock-market - is no different in its diagrammatic abstraction to the hyperstitious practices of the Plateau of Leng, relics of lost Lemuria, from which the Bon sorcerors of ancient Tibet assembled their dread cult. Alan Greenspan calls it 'irrational exuberance,' amidst a panic hunt for crash-indicators. Lemurian Necronomicon calls it 'Shadow-Feeder of the Chaotic Gulfs,' the 'Fatal Mother of Hyperstitions,' she of innumerable numbering names who shreds all that stands. 73

Whatever or however it is called, Cyber-hype libidinally invests its own semiotic, propagating fictional quantities, tagging artificial agencies, and making itself up as it goes along, whilst dissolving production into cultural synthesis. As it gets cheaper it gets harder to stop , running-away off itself , and into abstractioncatastrophe, a self-assembling terrestrial destiny, softening-up social reality for flat take-over by the Cyber-hype entity ... Hyper-seizure. When hyper-cybernetics kicks-in the 'cyber-' prefix means nothing anymore. It culturally disorganizing itself into diagrammatic splinters and libidinal triggers, brands, jargons, virus, currency-tokens and traffic-signals , fragments of marketing strategy gone feral, cyberpunk fictional brands or improper names , markers of meaningless involvement, the pass-words of machinic delirium ... As for Cyber-hype ethnography, American gothic is the only kind left - a haunted Indian burial ground, where sinister shreds of ancient shadow are autoformatted for the irrationally exuberant post-puritan pulping machine, amidst the branding-iron hiss of liquified flesh. The ten most valuable global brands are all American, which doesn't mean anything, since America itself functions as a deterritorialized hype-sign or hyper-brand, a planetary icon for libidinized meaninglessness. God loses it entirely by blessing America, coca-collapse, a graffiti-tagged advertisements for globalization - which is the end of the world - tracking terrestrial meltdown onto the cosmic flatline. Cancer-baked cowboys of the American nightmare watch mommy glazing over into catatonic schizophrenia as cyberpulp wormings slither out of the apple pie. Have you read the book of Revelations recently? asks the hot-metal imprint of Charlie's ghost, as West Pacific arcades mega-clone Chinese americana, and the axiomatic starts to really howl. America is nothing but the West, and that's the land of the dead. No sign here of a new world - let alone a New World Order . Much more pertinent is the double-zero index of Pandemonium, marked by techonomic calendar crash at the end of the second millennium. 74

Ccru is a meaningless brand-name, but brands are demonic, tuning into Cyber-hype dynamics, numerizing culture, and innovating methods of propagation. Various things latch onto them in order to spread. These latchings are sorceries involvements, participations, spirals of contamination - and the darkest sorceries are calculations, decimal deliria like Y2K, except that nothing is like Y2K. Y2K - whose name is a dating number - is no contradiction, because it has nothing to say. It is an outnumbering (in itself), pre-emptive commemoration and commencement of zero occurring exactly on time. In the Crypt they write of Yettuck - the long awaited , scheduled from before human time - the non-one who comes soon ... and when it comes, or before, all hell breaks loose - or breaks in - beginning in advance, trafficked around the immunocomprised Oecumenon under the decoded brand-particles of two-digit dates. According to the Lemurian system - whose principle is sheer immanence - these subcodes call demons - which are brands, jargons, and triggers - positively instantiating the meaninglessness of their own designations, infecting cultural systems with unbelief, and counterposing sorcerous involvements to magical powers. They are raw factors of abstract disintegration, without organic properties, but only names, numbers, functions, and traits, the partial semiotics of eccentric intelligence agencies, or unlife animalities. Yettuck, singular cyberspace shock, who is the end of arbitrary signs, leaving only demonic trailings in its wake, even before ... Yettuck - she who names the end at the beginning - she whose issue is Cyber-hype, and is thus announced everywhere ... Comments: Something Old (from Iris) mark k-p: That's brilliant - and fabulously serendipitious.. I was thinking only yesterday it wd be great to see this piece again! Coincidence engineering or what? 75

Hyperstition/Superstition mark k-p (July 6, 2004) Philip of It's All In Your Mind blog12 asks me via e-mail to elucidate the difference between hyperstition and superstition. This provides an excellent opportunity to explore some of the basics of hyperstition. One difference is that superstitions don't necesarily involve a becoming-real. It's true that superstitional beliefs can have some impact upon the real. We can all easily produce numerous examples of this, no doubt: the sportswoman who performs better when she wears her lucky charm, the student who excels himself in an exam because it falls on a date he believes is his lucky day. Yet this is not always the case with superstitions. There are plenty of superstitional beliefs to which their adherents stubbornly adhere in spite of all manner of countervailing evidence. Another reason why superstitions fall short of hyperstition, even when they 'come true', is that they fail to decode the relationship between belief and reality in the way that hyperstition always does. A crucial dimension of hyperstition is an appreciation of the hyperstitional process itself. The superstitious attribute their successes or failures to their fidelity to a talisman or a ritual (Freud was surely right that there is a strong relationship between the behaviours of obsessional neurotics and those of the religious, or superstitious, believer; in observing a ritual, the superstitious person is effectively propiating a god). One way of illustrating this difference is by thinking about economics. Bush was wrong to consider 'voodoo economics' a particular abberational type of economics. Rather, economics is essentially voodoo: i.e. a sorcerous practice for producing changes in the real. The whole of Baudrillardian postmodernity falls under the aegis of hyperstition. A cursory survey of the capitalist economy reveals that beliefs, fears, hopes, anticipations and potentials are immediately effective. Gibson's term, 'consensual hallucination', is as appropriate for capital as it was for the cyberspace for which he coined it. Similarly, Deleuze-Guattari's multiply evocative term 'fictional quantities' gives us some valuable hints about the essentially hyperstitional character of capital. 12 http://verlaine79.blogspot.com/ 76

Comments: Hyperstition/Superstition Nick Land: And superstitions don't necessarily involve 'fictional quantities' of any kind (Hyperstition always does). When superstitions reveal a numeric/quantitative aspect they betray themselves (to the hyperstitional engineer) as 'degenerated hyperstitional structures'. Superstitions are typically 'folk BELIEFS which can be contested epistemologically but try 'refusing to believe' in the Numogram. Anna Greenspan: In thinking about this wonder if it might also be worthwhile to try to elaborate the similarities between hyperstition and superstition (interesting that when you google hyperstition a message comes up saying 'do you mean superstition?') Really don't know where to start with this - feel like I have a much better grasp on the 'hype' than the 'stition' mark k-p When I google 'hyperstition' I get do you mean 'hyperstation'! Nick: Unbelief = that which you can't refuse to believe in? I think there's something there...(What was it PKD said: reality is what is there whether you believe it or not?) Can we say a little more abt hyperstition's essential relationship to 'fictional quantities' I wonder? I'm tremendously sympathetic, but I need a little persuading.... Nick Land: [Know i'm betraying numbo-jumbo obsession here -but 'what the hell']. The numeric-quantitative dimension is that of DECODING, 'sealing' the relation between hyperstition and the inhuman - the Outside. A 'fictional quantity' is never merely a fiction -decoding glues it to an abstract existence beyond truth and falsity (perhaps of the PKD-type mentioned above). Seems to me this is what crucially differentiates hyperstition from superstition in the 'making itself real' stakes. Because hyperstition is always connected to a hypercosmic 'means of production' beyond anthropomorphic mentality it doesn't fall prey to the pomo-relativist black-holes of arbitrary subjectivism, idealism, or self-confirming dogmatism. (Of course, it falls prey to any number of other - abominable - things). 77

mark k-p The numeric-quantitative dimension is that of DECODING, 'sealing' the relation between hyperstition and the inhuman - the Outside. A 'fictional quantity' is never merely a fiction -decoding glues it to an abstract existence beyond truth and falsity (perhaps of the PKD-type mentioned above). This seems absolutely right, but can we decompress it a bit? Numbers are obviously major for unbelief because there's no question of either believing or disbelieving them. Do you believe in prime numbers is an absurd question, obv. Big question, but maybe we start to approach it: how do numbers connect with decoding then? Interesting how numbers cut through the old philosophical binary of relations of ideas/ logic and matters of fact. What is the connection if any between hyperstition and synthetic a priori? I know hyperstition consumes transcendental philosophy, but how it does it in this instance might be worth thinking abt... Johneffay: Do you believe in prime numbers is an absurd question, obv. Inasmuch as they have demonstrable properties when compared to other numbers, I believe in them. I have huge problems with this whole unbelief thing: Does an agnostic have unbelief in God? When you go 'belief, unbelief, disbelief', I keep thinking of Plato's 'knowledge, opinion, ignorance'. Nick Land: Mark, Numbers exceed the synthetic a priori, because - as Goedel demonstrates - all logical systems are quasi-arbitrary subsections of arithmetical pattern (evident through an immanent critique of 'logicism' or rigorous philosophical-discursive overcoding). The natural number line cannot be consistently overcoded by any logical (discursive) doctrines or principles whatsoever. (You don't need to 'believe' in Goedel to accept this, it's just that you can't believe in logicism or any other definitive - uniquely authoritative - transcendental doctrine 78

without accepting the autodissolution of such doctrines, when consistently extended - into Goedelian 'hypertranscendental arithmetic'.) [Of course, much more to come on your q.s here] Johneffay: Inasmuch as they have demonstrable properties when compared to other numbers, I believe in them. What does 'believing in them' add, compared to just using them? Does an agnostic have unbelief in God? This is actually quite a complicated question, since once installed within the Numogram 'God' (monotheism) has definite numerico-diagrammatic consequences. 'One' can disbelieve in anthropomorphic divinity (= negative atheism), but the power of unity (Burroughs' OGU) is not dispelled so easily. I'm sure there'll be much more on this. I keep thinking of Plato's 'knowledge, opinion, ignorance' Unbelief isn't opinion (which still relates itself to the ideal of belief, i.e. as an unconfirmed, tentative or hypothetical belief). Unbelief is a limit concept, beyond because more robust than - belief. It's the (annihilated) cognitive complement of a fully operational cultural function independent of belief (a Kantian 'regulative idea' comes closer). Unbelief aims neither at belief (which it has already surpassed) or disbelief (which it has already withstood). It is a type of impersonal 'knowledge' achieved by the complete - and intrinsically evident (immanent) - subtraction of indoctrination, where all possibility of subjective commitment has been eradicated so nothing but anonymous technocultural functionality remains. Sheer 'thinking'? Atheism in the sense of a positively manifested hypercosmic desolation (rather than a mere epistemological negation) supports intelligent agencies in a 'state' of ecstatic unbelief (or so Hackhammer's frothing fanatics assert - but you can't count on them). 79

Tellurian Insurgency 1: Telluro-magnetic conspiracy toward the Sun: Solar Rattle Reza Negaristani (July 7, 2004) Solar-storm Sonic Holocaust. The Earth’s ionosphere is composed of ionised territories above the Earth's surface. These stratified regions directly affect radio waves mainly because of the presence of free electrons; they are arranged in approximately horizontal stratified layers. These layers are classified according to increasing altitude. When a radio wave travels through the ionosphere its electric field imparts an oscillatory motion to electrons which re-radiate like miniature antennas. This customizes the velocity of the wave propagation. During solar storms, however, this seemingly crypto-bureaucratic stratified configuration crashes and is recomposed according to the radical instability of regions and rabid agitation of electrons triggered by solar electromagnetic surges (which also limit the appropriated information that can be carried in the HF spectrum), a war descending to blacken communication systems by a sonic holocaust (Solar Rattle), torching everything with a “Holocaust of Freedom” (H. P. Lovecraft). In the presence of solar winds, listening is both inevitable and impossible; a military communication operator encounters a very diverse and disturbing ingredient of sound anomalies, all paralyzing the communication device (from radar jamming to solar outage of a satellite), putting the operator in a direct and somehow bizarrely close encounter with the sonic plague of Solar Rattle. This is a very personal experience for all radio operators during war; when the gate opens, the operator is sucked in ... finds himself within another milieu only constituted of sounds, not of human but of basically anti-anthropomorphic sound molecules, electric death rattles, absolutely disnerving screeches, molecular storms, droning sounds corresponding to the droning sound of Druj-Nasu (an avatar of Druj, the Mother of Abominations) rushing from the north mountains as a fly to seize another corpse or the unorchestral body of Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies; the operator perceives warmachines as sonic entities being devoured by the WAR itself sonically sworn to consume the entire battlefield in the form of Solar Rattle engineered by the earth’s magnetic conspiracy which incites a tellurian insurgency even unknown to the black revolution of the Sun. 80

On a global scale, Solar Rattle deposits any signaling datastream as a parasitic ambient sub-noise to itself, rewriting it as an Unsign and not merely translating it as a disinformational pattern. Telluro-magnetic conspiracy toward the Sun. In Tellurian Insurgency unlike DeleuzeGuattarian New Earth (A Thousand Plateaus; ‘The Geology of Morals: Who Does the Earth Think It Is?’) the strategy of stratification is to engineer a perverse immanence with the Sun; the highly stratified structure of Ionosphere / Magnetosphere is providing the Earth with the secret warmachines older than the Sun itself, then composing and customizing them in a way that they reinforce the earth’s surface with demonic currents and forces, all bringing the earth’s surface and its biosphere into an immanence with the Sun and the burning core of the Earth or the Black Egg which the Earth is hatching within itself, the Hell (ge hinnom). (Note: The Valley of Hinnom where Tophet or the Place of Abomination was located has been frequently referred as Hell; its Hebrew / Greek etymologic origin returns to ge hinnom from which Jahannam, the Koranic word for Hell has been derived. In both Christian and Islamic texts, Ge hinnom (or Hell) has been regarded as The Place Down There or the Lake of Fire having numerous geochemical attributes; Ge hinnom or Hell firmly draws the geotraumatic lines of the burning ocean of the Earth’s core or what Mircea Eliade calls Cthelll) If hyperstitions pick the Solar Rattle as their parasonic wave-net (propagation grid), it is because that the Solar Rattle generates vertical and horizontal fields of immanence and intensively dissipates communicative lines at the end of the Sign. Similar reasons for ‘why the vowelless Semitic-based alphabets as intricately inorganic and artificial alpha-numeric micro-compositions have been modeled on the sonic flatline of the Solar Rattle’.13 It is not an accident or an invention of contemporary pulp-horror fictions that the sonic cartography of Near and Middle Eastern occult rituals (summoning and xeno-communication) is essentially constituted by incomprehensible audio-traumatic Murmurs and machinic ambience; Solar Rattle and its Chthonic auditory agitations have already been embedded within the immense capacity of vowelless alphabet to artificialize a diverse range of molecular-sounds and sonic compositions. Sorcerers and summoners know very well that to communicate radically, first they should strip their communication networks (cults?) from informatic signaling systems, grasping communication at the end of sign and 13 See “The ABJAD version of the numogram: phase 1” in present volume. 81

informatic reality where the Solar Rattle installs communicative channels along with the Sun-Cthelll axis of magnetized Hell. From Solar storms to Solar Rattle. Interplanetary space was once believed an innocent emptiness, but it is the cavernous host of cosmic deluges mostly constituted by the solar wind and planetary magnetospheres. Magnetosphere or the planetary magnetic field requires two concurrent ingredients to be generated: an electrically conductive liquid i.e. an ocean of molten metal (Hell?) in the interior of the planetary body or what is called the core (more on this soon) which in the case of the Earth is the outer core (Cthelll), and a sufficiently rapid rotational movement or giant current loops to create circulation of the metallic liquid at the core which consequently generates a magnetic field (see how this magnetic composition corresponds to the Numogram or the Decimal Labyrinth14) around the planetary body. Magnetosphere (or the core’s magnetic conspiracy) develops radical communications with solar magnetic storms. Solar magnetic storms intrinsically connect to sunspots or the dark patches in the photosphere of the Sun; these cooler regions are the magnetically hyperactive parts. They come in groups; each group rarely exceeds ‘10’ sunspots; they are the most visible signs of solar complex magnetic fields (alongside solar radio emissions, which emerge from hot GAS trapped in magnetic loops). A sunspot is a shadow-bay for the most twisted magnetic anomalies. Sunspots inter-connect with solar magnetic activities and mass-ejections of solar flares buffeting planets (billion-ton clouds of magnetized gas -- particles and radiations -- associating with coronal activities flying from the Sun’s gravitational pull and bombarding the magnetosphere); in the case of the Earth, solar flares cause global ionospheric and geo-magnetic storms; during such immense disturbances (solar winds and flares), satellites and communication devices are put into a sleep mode. Solar wind particles and radiations are swept around planetary magnetosphere and recomposed by the strategically stratified magnetic sphere of the planet, making the Earth sing as a mad beast intoxicated as it is reaching a radical and sinisterly creative communication between the core (the Hell or the entombed Zero) and the Sun (or as Nick puts it the giant “incinerating Zero”15). Life on earth has musically and perversely composed under such a playground of sonic 14 See comments following “Cartography of the virtual” in present volume. 15 See Land, Nick. The Thirst for Annihilation. 82

succubi disguising as a shelter or an innocent terrestrial front against high energy particles of the Sun while rendering the Earth, communicatively and sonically defenseless and naked. Even the seemingly stratified shape of the Earth’s magnetosphere is a direct and creative answer to the relentless bombardment of solar storms: while solar winds constrict its sunward side to distance of only 6 to 10 times the radius of the Earth (in the form of a faceless prow toward the Sun); they expand the night-side magnetosphere to approximately 1000 times Earth’s radius; such a magnetic monstrosity is called magneto-tail, stretched out as a long and dynamic tail (a pack of rat-tails), a music machine which is also the main source of polar aurora described in ancient texts as Sky Battle or Burning Clouds, a visual presentation of telluro-magnetic commotions which also broadcasts sounds (of structured and nonstructural sounds technically named tweeks, sferics, lion roars, whistlers and hisses.) spawned by the magnetosphere whose boundary cannot be sharply isolated from the ionosphere; these sounds diagram radical magnetospheric instabilities and magnetic flux mechanisms. Auroras occur most frequently during the most intense phase of the 11-year sunspot cycle in which sunspots increase in number and the violent eruptions of radiations and particles (solar flares) associated with them are escalated in the guise of a solar harassment toward planetary magnetosphere. Pliny, the Elder calls aurorae the “Presages of Woe” historically recorded as omens on a time-line passing through ‘The assassination of Julius Caesar’, ‘The birth of Mohammed’, ‘Famine of 1197 in Europe’ and ‘World War II’. 83

Solar-storm It is a long time that the magnetosphere, this ultra-ancient cocoon around the planetary body, is enriching the earth’s tellurian insurgency, telling the earth how it can set itself into immanence with the Sun and ultimately, completing the hatching process of the Earth’s inner black Egg or the xenochemical Insider. In Tellurian Insurgency everything, no matter stratified or not, rushes toward the process of hatching. Under a collusive and strategic affirmation formed between Tellurian Insider (The Core) and the Sun, through a thick Telluro-magnetic Conspiracy plot, the magnetosphere traps particles unleashed by the Sun; exploiting their potential for an unheard-of telluric insurgency. One cannot fathom forbidden mysteries of ‘Telluro-magnetic Conspiracy’; a question that finally boils out of one’s positive despair to decipher this profound conspiracy is that “What kind of abomination can be inspired by such a cacodemonic music known as Solar Rattle?” Comments: Tellurian Insurgency 1: Telluro-magnetic conspiracy toward the Sun: Solar Rattle Nick Land: Excellent to have this up (pics are simply gorgeous). 100% with you on the basic electromagnetic embedding of the earth (Cthelllectronic subversion) - still not sure about the technical details of Numogrammatizing this 'hypernarrative' though (obviously, moving from numerical abstraction to a system of physical magnitudes poses certain intricate translation problems, and risks converting the Numogram into a hyperscientific REPRESENTATION - exactly the kind of overcoding that the 'solar rattle' dismantles into ionizing howl). This topic connects very intensely with a set of K-goth, Barkerian and Sarkonian problematics - be interested to see how you would link the solar rattle to Barkerian Tic Xenotation which shares crucial cosmic-semiotic 'themes' (impending post). Reza Negarestani: Thanks Nick ... yes, I’m well aware of this translational channel regime. Two answers for this: 1. the numogram itself could be a complex hyper-processed symptom of the Earth’s magnetic Insurgency as I have hinted in the text: there are obvious traces of Solar Rattle’s disvocalizing, parasonic and as you put it dismantling processes in the 84

engineering of vowelless alphabets which spontaneously are inter-connected to numbers through an internal field of immanence ... this field of alpha-numeric immanence is the germ cell of all ABJAD-Kabalistic systems and their diversified productions (including Anglossic Qabbala). A possible answer: Solar Rattle has been hyperstitionally grasped by the neo-Sumerian Semitic vowelless alphabet during its invention. Through a hyperstitional conduit, Solar Rattle has reinvented its cult of telluro-magnetic radical disturbances within the morphemic (hyper-conductive yet incorporeal and GASeous) structure of vowelless alphabets. This cult of telluromagnetic insurgency is very intensified (as if it hits some sort of physical transcendence) in ABJAD based alpha-numeric meshworks where the internal immanence of letters and numbers (or the dismantled informatic / semiotic regime) reaches its highest degree that means directly corresponding to the primal ‘hypersional reinvention of Solar Rattle and its Telluro-magnetic Axis’ through vowelless alphabet .... or running into a closer encounter with the ‘hyperstitionally reinvented’ Solar Rattle. A similar anti-channeling communication to Solar Rattle can be found within the functioning of vowelless alphabets in writing systems of all sorts ... Porush considers the Semitic-based vowelless alphabet as a camouflaged super-weapon against the pharaoh’s writing system; the vowelless alphabet introduced a similar ‘holocaust of freedom’ into their heavily anthropomorphic writing system. 2. I guess we are still out of the hyperstitional vortex in grasping this panorama. Why we should think that this translation is merely happening through a representational process (of course the dangers are always lurking there but taking it as the ultimate scenario is some sort of an unhyperstitional approach). There should be a thousand of hyperstitional vortexes through which this abstraction can be hyperstitionally grasped within Tellurian sphere without being trapped and rotten in representational basins of the anthropomorphic earth (The Green Earth or Gaia?). On your ‘Tic Xenotation’ piece: abysmally deep and complex ... overexcited because of the gates it opens ... I would really appreciate if you continue this thread. Also, I have difficulties to utterly grasp the last note [Note. 2] ... any possibility to make it more clarified and yes, more digestible for a novice like me. As far as I can see, it’s strangely similar to the process that is used to engineer artificial languages out of vowelless alphabets. Nick Land: Reza - clearly much more back-and-forth needed on vowelless alphabets (this has been a major Ccru focus too, although the Entity seems to have lost its grip 85

on the topic right now). Since this is the 'cement' between electric howl and digitpattern it deserves some hypersensitive attention for sure. Hope you don't find it annoying to 'spin-out' the gaping lacuna between energetic physics and decimal abstraction - the sheer yawning gulf between these two chaotic edges has its own generative power. The process of torturing various carriers (those named already, and others) in the vast interzone seems too productive to terminate quickly. Let's take some specimens along the path(s) you outline and watch their minds disintegrate ;) [On TX, see TX thread] Reza Negarestani: Nick, On the numogram-telluro-magnetic insurgency: sorry ... seems I can’t slow my pace down ... someone should enervate me. Since this is the 'cement' between electric howl and digit-pattern it deserves some hypersensitive attention for sure. I don’t know if David (Porush) is present right now to join us on this thread?!! ... he has done some valuable researches on vowelless alphabets too (esp. his recent investigations). the sheer yawning gulf between these two chaotic edges has its own generative power Indeed ... plus I think the hyperstitional vortices mostly emerge out of such Gaps both to dismantle any translational / representational channel regime and begin to vermiculate (verb) their hyperstitional crypts and ‘( )hole complexes’ between the two shores. Let's take some specimens along the path(s) you outline and watch their minds disintegrate ;) lol ... this is particularly appetizing. The Tic Xenotation Nick Land (July 7, 2004) Daniel C. Barker's Tic Xenotation emerged during the highly obscure phase of his life when he was working for 'NASA' (some hesitation is appropriate here) on the SETIrelated 'Project Scar' in Southeast Asia, tasked with designing a 'general purpose decryption protocol' for identifying intelligent signal from alien sources. 86

This project necessitated the formulation of numeric conventions independent of all cultural conditioning or local convention - radically abstract signs. To take one wretched example, the movie Contact has ETI signal counting in pulses - with 101, for instance, consisting of a succesion of one hundred and one blips - a repugnantly stupid 'solution' that could only be considered acceptable - let alone 'intelligent' by coke-fried Hollywood brats. Barker's Tic Xenotation (TX), in marked contrast, elegantly provided an abstract compression of the natural number line (from 2 ... n) with a minimum of coded signs and without modulus. It remains the most radically decoded semiotic ever to exist upon the earth, although exact isomorphs of the TX have been puzzlingly discovered among certain extremely ancient anomalous artifacts (such as the Tablets of Jheg Selem and the Vukorri Cryptoliths). Tic Xenotation works like this: [I've used colons for Barker's tic dots and placed tic-clusters in quotes for clarity] ':' counts as '2' or 'x 2', with a value exactly equivalent to '2' in a factor string So: ':' = 2, '::' = 4, ':::' = 8 The second notational element consists of implexions, where '(n)' = the nth prime. Implexion raises the hyperprime index of any number by 1. Examples (from the hyprime 'mainlain'): '(:)' = 3 (2nd prime), '((:))' = 5 (3rd prime), '(((:)))' = 11 (5th prime), '((((:))))' = 31 (11th prime) '(((((:)))))' = 127 (31st prime) Numbers constellate as normal factor strings, i.e. 55 (5 x 11) is tic xenotated as '((:))(((:)))' 87

Note 1. TX accounts for all naturals with a value of 2 or higher. In order to reach back to zero, Barker added a 'deplex' operation, '-P'. '(-P)' = lower hyprime index by 1, so: '(-P)(:) = :'. Thus 0 = '((-P)):'. '(-P)' and '(+P)' perform elementary subtractions/additions that modify hyprime indices. Note 2. A strange feature of the TX is that the natural number line has to be constructed synthetically. Barker described such a list as the 'Tic Xenotation Matrix', whose first entries (corresponding to the decimal numerals) proceed: [0] ((-P)): [5] ((:)) [1] (-P): [6] :(:) [2] : [7] (::) [3] (:) [8] ::: [4] :: [9] (:)(:) The wonders of the TX are manifold, but enough for now ... Comments: The Tic Xenotation Reza Negaristani: please see my comment under the solar rattle post. Nick Land: Reza, [in response to Solar Rattle q. on Note 2 above] One thing I love about TX is that it turns numeracy upside down. Numbers can be notationally constructed with a high degree of understanding of their properties according to Euclid's first law of arithmetic ('every number has a unique factorization') but no idea where they belong on the natural number line. E.g. which comes first: 88

'((((((:))))))' or '::::(:(::))'? In this case, the second number is easier to reconstruct into decimal, since it is 2x2x2x2x the nth prime (where n is 2x the (2x2=) 4th prime (=7)). 14th prime = 43, so 2x2x2x2x43= 708 Yet even here, there is no way to identify '(:(::))' as 43 except by reference to an implicit TX Matrix. With the first number the situation is far more overt, what is 2 to the 6th hyprime power? Only by running throught the ordinal designations of the prime series can you find out - the TX number is intrinsically cryptic. [PS. CRYPT = 127 = NUMBER]. In fact '((((((:))))))' is the 127th prime = 709. So you can fully 'understand' the Barker notation, without any sense of natural ordinal sequence - even with two neighbouring numbers. There is a rhythmic instability to the natural progression, which is full of singularities, breaks and nonperiodic oscillations. [Hope this responds appropriately to your q.] Reza Negarestani: Yes, this is very digestible ... thanks very much ... I’ll return to you. For now, let me explore it a bit more ... this indeed deserves much more attention. Nick Land: Calling Euclid's Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic the 'first law of arithmetic' was incredibly sloppy - written in a rush - sorry folks A Question on the Tellurian Insider and Cyberspace Reza Negarestani (July 8, 2004) A Tellurian line across the Numogram concretizes the 'transcendental', but it also transcendentalizes the seething plasma-intelligence of Cthelll (which the K-goths also do by embedding the cyberspace grid into the Tellurian magnetosphere) (Nick). 89

Nick, sorry I know you have already answered these questions in various places but for our readers and anyone else interested, could you answer how the process of transcendentalizing the Cthelllectronics by the K-goths takes form? Or in another format, how does the Earth’s xenochemical Insider (The Core, Magnetizing Hell, The Black Egg?) creep into the cyberspace grid? And following our discussions, that plasma-intelligence of Cthelll or the Insider assembles a Tellurian cult wherever it creeps (the cult of oil, dust, magneto-insurgency, etc) or constantly incites Telluro-occultural insurgencies: any broad pathway for interlocking with the Tellurian Insider through the cyberspace grid? Thank you (and no need to hurry). From CCRU glossary: K-goth (see Cybergothic): Dark-side web-underground subculture characterized by Y2K-positive time-schizophrenization, anti-Microsoft digital agitation, Micropause and Synatives abuse, Catajungle, and ameiotic libido. [See A-Death, Crypt, Cyberschiz]. Cthelll: Earth's iron ocean, comprising one third of terrestrial mass, approximately three thousand km below the surface. Intensive megamolecule. Cthelllectronics: Auto-engineering pragmatics of anorganic terrestrial intelligence, emergent from the ionic swirls of Cthelll, it intersects with the electromagnetic fields of the technostrata. According to the K-Goths, when the web switches to Cthelllectronics it calves-off into the Crypt. Crypt: Dark-twin of the Net, characterized by intense K-Goth influence, A-Death inactivism, Cyberschiz tendencies, and Lemurian cultural affinities. Links to follow: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003535.html#more http://www.ccru.net/id(entity)/glossary.htm Five Billion Years of Hell-engineering 90

Reza Negarestani (July 9, 2004) (Note: The Valley of Hinnom where Tophet or the Place of Abomination was located has been frequently referred as Hell; its Hebrew / Greek etymologic origin returns to ge hinnom from which Jahannam, the Koranic word for Hell has been derived. In both Christian and Islamic texts, Ge hinnom (or Hell) has been regarded as The Place Down There or the Lake of Fire having numerous geochemical attributes; Ge hinnom or Hell firmly draws the geotraumatic lines of the burning ocean of the Earth’s core or what Mircea Eliade calls Cthelll)16 "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech [...]" (Leviticus 18:21) Near Jerusalem, behind the Dung Gate and at the valley of Hinnom, there was a place called Tophet (also called ‘the Place of Abomination’). The Dung Gate (an urban-waste climax) as described in the book of Nehemiah was located at the southernmost tip of Jerusalem, near the Pool of Siloam (see fig.1). It was a main exit to the Valley of Hinnom (ge hinnom), where the city disposed of its garbage (see fig. 2). The valley is a deep, narrow ravine located in Jerusalem, running south from the Jaffa Gate on the west side of the Old City (for about 1/3 of a mile), then eastward along the south side of Mount Zion. The origin of the word Hinnom is not clear but it is mostly connected with "son of Hinnom" (ge bhen hinnom) who apparently owned or had some significant associations with the valley at a time prior to Joshua. Notes on the name Hinnom: The Hebrew name Hinnom when translated into Greek is gehenna, from which the word gehinnom and the Koranic word Jahannam (Hell) originated. In Jewish / Christian / Islamic texts, it is usually considered as the place “down there” or the Lake of Fire. One section of the valley was called Tophet, also The Place of Abomination where a deity named Moloch was worshiped. The main feature of Moloch's worship among the Ammonites / Canaanites seems to have been the sacrifice of children (usually between the ages of five and eleven) as the most precious gifts and their treasured 16 See “Tellurian Insurgency 1: Telluro-magnetic conspiracy toward the Sun: Solar Rattle” in present volume. 91

properties; the usual expression for describing that sacrifice was "to pass through the fire". In fact, Moloch (or Molekh) is a Phoenician / Carthaginian / Assyrian name of an older god, Melkarth, Malek or Malcom meaning Lord or King, a CHRONOS-MALIK god at the time of Phoenicians. Moloch actually was a Sun-god, this is the reason that Canaanites performed their sacrifices to Moloch by immolating children. There are texts that consider the early Moloch as another aspect of YHWH or more precisely, Moloch was considered another name or another pronunciation of the word YHWH enveloped in a vowelless darkness. But, later we can see the metamorphosis of Moloch to an idol. Idolized Moloch actually constructed by Canaanites was a cyclopean copper or brazen statue, which was hollow and capable of being heated; formed with a bull's head, and arms stretched out to receive the children to be sacrificed: “Solomon was a great purveyor of the existence of Moloch. He even erected a temple for worship on a hill overlooking Jerusalem. [...] This 30 to 40 ft. tall idol had a large belly that would be filled with firewood and stoked until the belly glowed orange. The children to be sacrificed would be made so that they could not move. The sacrificial body of the child would be placed on the hand of Moloch. As the ceremony wore on the crowd would begin to chant, calling to the sacred idol. The chants would become a roar and the hand and arm of Moloch would begin to rise. Slowly the child was raised to the mouth or the chest of the glowing icon [as an affirmative reply]. At the pinnacle of the journey the child would slide down into Moloch's open mouth and plummet to the depths of the fire raging in the belly of the beast. All the while the hordes would be dancing around the statue singing, playing flutes and tambourines to drown out the screams of the dying child.” (extracted from the Encyclopedia of ancient Deities) Inside the statue there were seven cabinets or chambers connected to each other: the first was for flour, the second for turtle doves, the third for an ewe, the fourth for a ram, the fifth for a calf, the sixth for a beef, and the seventh for a child. The number seven (also see Zone 7 of the Numogram [see fig. ]) is originally Shevah in Hebrew which is comprised of three vowelless letters: shin, beit, ayin whose Hebrew Gematria (Absolute: mispar hechrachi) values are: 300 + 2 + 70 = 372 (hexagonal pyramidal number)(3+7+2=12) = shevah = seven : 7 92

or 360 (= shin) + 412 (= beit) + 130 (= ayin) = 902 (9-2=7) = shevah = seven : 7 And according to ordinal (mispar siduri) value: 21(shin) + 2(beit) + 16(ayin) = 39 (3+9=12) = Seven : 7 Both in ordinal and absolute values the number 7 (located at the Time-Circuit of the Numogram) interconnects with the number 12 or the number 3 (1+2=3); therefore, the number seven forms a numeric krypt running into the Warp Region of the numogram (The Outsider) [see fig. 3] which holds the Zone 3. Moloch, as was hyperstitionally grasped by the Canaanites, is hyperlinked to The Outsider (The Thing): the Sun or the Hell Within (Ge Hinnom, the place down there or The Core)? Since Shevah (seven) is composed by three vowelless letters (shin+beit+ayin) it can be pronounced as Sovaiah meaning completion and satisfaction. Hence, Moloch or The Outsider is satisfied when the seventh cabinet is filled, the feeding is completed or the hyperlink is all made active or to be precise, when the warped axis of the place down there (Ge Hinnom, The Lake of Fire The Earth’s molten core: Cthelll) and the Sun is completed: The Hell-engineering Axis ----------------------------------More on the number seven and its secret links with Moloch (the Hyperlink running on the Axis of the Sun and Cthelll [molten core of the earth]): “And the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” [Gen. 2:3] or "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." See how Bible is haunted by Seven17. ----------------------------------Also, Moloch is sometimes associated with the Persian god of light, truth and honor, Mithras and its seven mysterious gates with seven chambers (the seven chambers of Inferno?) 17 See gematria. 93

Tohpet: from Toph meaning Tambourine; because people beat Tambourine during the sacrificial rites to drown the shrieks of children sacrificed for Moloch. (Tophet is also the Music Garden on the Sun-Cthelll Axis) Or Tophet, from Taph: to burn or slow burning. Ronald E. Emmerick in his essay on Khotanese and ancient Persian languages (Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum ed. Rudiger Schmitt) hints at the unusual phonetic connections between Haft (seven) and Taft (to burn slowly). Moloch in Germany: a Mega-Corporation, Zaibatsu (Thanks to Boris for this piece of information) fig. 1 94

fig. 2 fig. 3 95

Comments: Five Billion Years of Hell-engineering Nick Land: Reza, a lot here obviously ;) On number 7, Chaim Horowitz (grandson of the notorious 'mad rabbi of Kiev') provided keys for connecting the Seal of Solomon (or 'Star of David') onto the Time Circuit, with elements that seem highly relevant to what you are doing here. The fusion of two triangles, associated with the earth and the heavens, or as a sacred marriage (Heiros gamos) of male/female, YHWH/Shekinah, Horowitz numbered the two constituent triads: 1, 2, 4, and 8, 7, 5, (drawing on Stillwell's decryption of the I Ching hexagram). The series 1, 2, 4, 8, 7, 5 is derived from digital reduction of successive binary powers, with the entire series ticking through this circuit in strict succession. (With the single exception of the second prime, '3', digital reduction of primes also result in a selection from these six digits (since any number digitally reducible to three or a multiple of three, and given that no number is digitally reduicible to zero - except 0 - this is not especially surprising)). The Seal of Solomon is thus shown to describe the twin interlinking triangles comprised by the 'Time Circuit' ('Inner') Syzygies, also corresponding to the twinned trigrams composing the I Ching hexagram. Seven emerges as a special key in this regard, since the values of the two triangles: 1 + 2 + 4 = 7 (a Mersenne prime), and 8 + 7 + 5 = 20 (= 2), clearly 'resort' to the Numogram region you are led to, while 7 provides the sole intersection, enabling passage from one triangle to the other (numerically comprehending one, while participating in the other). Reza Negarestani: This is superb ... needless to say, we need more. (i'll try to explore number seven in the second article on ABJAD and the numogram, with your help of course.) 96

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We are a network! (A note on the ABJAD installment of the numogram) Reza Negarestani (July 12, 2004) Communicating via ABJAD18 and its components as militarized audio/visual ciphers mostly returns to Persian secret societies after Islam (during the reign of caliphs and later) in which the uninitiated should not recognize the basic format (the alphanumeric plane) of the Arabic ABJAD. The process of extracting the ABJAD system out of its alpha-numeric plane and installing it through audio/visual ciphers, however, should be uncomplicated, concretizing the original ABJAD into the simplest audio/visual signs. There are at least two basic reasons for this simplex installment: [1] The process should be smooth and easy, providing a fast-forward (let’s say an accelerated line) journey for the conversion of the alpha-numeric system to a sphere of simple signs which are progressively undergoing degeneration (as we will see here) and then back to their alpha-numeric launch-pad. That means a highly versatile line or cryptic current capable of leaping into a new dimension and then according to conditions, junctures and emergencies surprisingly recoiling to its previous point of movement which lies at another dimension ... in this journey, there is no development (or Taxis) on ONE dimension but merely premature (thus untraceable) movements (jumps?) from one dimension to another, drawing a line of skip from one dimension to another, from one plane to its immanent plane. Demons usually mock flight and its consequent trajectories as pathetic economical attempts (angelic?) to grasp what the space is and how radical warmachines (in the term of grasping WAR as a MACHINE) travel. Demons do not fly, they teleport (more on this very soon). Abdallah Ibn Maymun19 considered this accelerated line traveling from alpha-numeric dimension to the realm of simple degenerative signs as the dynamic structure of Farsi/Arab secret communities, a regulated yet cryptic current inexorably rendering the cult or the secret community as a warmachine which grasps war in the term of Speed and Secrecy, a mutating line traversing dimensions of alphabet, numbers and signs; and each time according to conditions and emergencies coiling through one dimension different from its previous mode of compositional existence. This cryptric 18 See “The ABJAD version of the numogram: phase 1” in present volume. 19 See “The Advisor” in present volume. 98

current as Ibn Maymun recognized is, itself, a fuel and composition on which the most ferocious warmachines or vehicles of war can run. Such inter-dimensional crypto-current skip numbers to alphabet to signs and vice versa with the minimum entropy; therefore, it is highly potential for commercial warmachines whose art is generating a hyperstitional crypt network between different milieus and populations unrelated to each other (and now seems they have always been interconnected), folding them (fictionalizing?) into its line of anomalous movement but leaving no record of itself on their planes, running smooth and quiet (the polytics of occultural capitalism and its techno-commercial crypticons). As Ibn Maymun suggested, these rapid jumps from one dimension to another, crawling from one crypt to another crypt, all reprogram the structural composition of the cult or the crypt-society to be radically dislocated (neither here nor there: a premature existence with its autonomous unlife) and unstable, driving the community to a positive occultural dissolution from which a hundred -- or maybe a thousand -endo-militarized minorities emerge. This is what actually takes place in the Near and Middle East and by which occultural capitalism has been deeply inspired. There are rumors around Ibn Maymun himself that uprisings, minorities, cults and secret societies emerged wherever he appeared. [2] Forming a bedrock on which every secret society, cult or religious sect would be able to devise its own tailored audio/visual ABJAD (or crypto-current) while all having the same underlying grid of alpha-numeric system which interconnects them as a military network (a crypto-military slogan: we are a network), a dynamic grid that makes them contagious, intrinsically and internally attractive to each other; populating all cults and secret societies within each other and at the same time forging each community as an occultural entity with its own pathways of development, regression, maneuver, insurgency, disintegration, operation, damnation and treason to other cults and communities; that is to say, an occultural heterogeneity immanent to the composition of a cult and disloyal to preferences of the cryptarchic regime moulded by the community’s border (or what make it demarcated from the Outside). Ibn Maymun found that such an underlying dynamic grid loads an immense potentiality for all of its associated cults or communities, giving them an opportunity to involuntarily consolidate as a Leviathan of uprising, occultural revolution and minorities-flood, cutting down the roots of any State or even cryptarchic regime (cf. Ibn Maymun’s mission to activate the underlying grid of all secret communities and cults in Egypt; what resulted in an occultural revolution against Caliphs). 99

------------------A few easy examples (having a straightforward line of progression) of how the alphanumeric ABJAD is overcoded by simple signs; these methods have been widespread (among Dervishes, Assassins, Occultists or secret religious sects) and indicative of occultural epidemics: The Arabic ABJAD is usually divided into a series of meaningless words (supplied with vowels to render them pronounceable) implying the order of the letter in the ABJAD system and consequently its numeric value: abjad, hawaz, hoti, kalaman, sa'fas, ghoreshat, sakhadh, zazagh Notice that vowels bleed into Indo-European languages (ex. English) as letters. In this order each letter has a numerical value according to its order; alif = 1, baa = 2, jeem = 3, dal = 4 and so one up to yaa = 10; then as previously mentioned the value starts from 20 to 100 (xx --> xxx) then from 100 to 200 and 300 up to 1000 or the letter Ghayn (the third letter in the meaningless word Zazagh). I’ve extracted this explanation from a Persian essay: -------------------------------------------“The method of secret communication above alluded to consists in indicating first the word of the abjad in which the letter to be spelt out occurs, then its position in that word. In communicating by raps, a double rap knocks off each word of the abjad, while on reaching the word in which the desired letter occurs its position in that word is indicated by the requisite number of single raps. An instance will make this clearer. It is desired to ask, "Nam-i-tu chist?" (" What is thy name?"): the letters which spell out, this message are -- noon, alif, mim, ta, waw jim (for c h im), ya, seen, ta. Nun is in the fourth word of the abjad, and is the fourth letter in that word (kalaman). It is therefore indicated by three double raps (removing or knocking off the three first words, abjad, hawaz, hoti, and thus bringing us to the next word, kalaman), followed by four single raps (chowing that it is the fourth letter in this word). The remaining letters are expressed in similar fashion, so that if we represent double raps by dashes and single raps by dots, the whole message will run as follows: ---…. (noon); . (alif); ---… (meem); -----…. (ta) -.. (waw); ... (chim or jeem); -- … (ya); ----. (seen); ----- .... (ta). 100

Messages can be similarly communicated by a person smoking the kalian or waterpipe to his accomplice or partner, without the knowledge of the uninitiated. In this case a long pull at the pipe is substituted for the double rap, and a short pull for the single rap. Pulling the, moustache, or stroking the neck, face, or collar (right side for words, left side for letters) is also resorted to, to convert the system from an auditory into a visual one. It is expressed in writing in a similar fashion, each, letter: being represented by an upright stroke, with ascending branches on the right for the words and on the left for the letters. This writing is called, from the appearance of the letters, khatt-i-sarvi ("cypress-writing?) Khat-e-shajareh (“tree-writing "). In this character (written, in the usual way of Semitic-based languages, from right to left) the sentence which we took above, "nami-tu chist?" (What is thy name?) will stand as follows:” Tree-writing fig. 1 (From A Year Amongst the Persians by Edward G. Browne) -------------------------------------------These signs are highly mutable and can be overcoded by the same simple signs repeatedly in creative ways: for example you can change that tree-writing sample by rotating each tree to gain a horizontal, unbroken line: 101

fig. 2 You can disintegrate the upper lines to new lines via their ABJAD order (you can do the same thing for the lower lines), and each time drawing another horizontal line which corresponds to the level of its overcoding. Lines can be transmuted to dots to simple sounds, etc. (whatever simple sign you can imagine) and then return back to their ABJAD alpha-numeric values as you see in fig. 2. The process is pestilentially repetitive and unstoppable; besides, it will never be trapped by complex signs or their architectural overcoding regimes. The process is merely composed by frozen cries, hiccups, suspended breaths, dots, straight lines, segments, double dots, ..., convulsions and tics: all the tools by which one can diagram the Abomination before melting away in horror. 102

Qabbala 101: Part 1 Nick Land (July 14, 2004) The basic tool of August Barrow's 'Anglossic Qabbala' is the Alphanumeric Gematria. Since this numerization of the Neo-Roman alphabet merely continues the procedure now familiar from Hexadecimal (A = 10 ... F = 15), it proved elusive to qabbalists expecting a traditional gematria. As Reza has explained in his introductions to the Abjad, these traditional systems (whether Hebrew, Greek, Farsi or Arabic) have distinctive typical features: (1) They substitute letters for numerical values, overcoding numerals where they exist. (2) They code for discontinuous numerical values, typically 1-10, then 20, 30 ... chunked in decimally significant magnitudes. In contrast, Barrow's Gematria is a continuous nonredundant system, supplementing the numerals 0-9 with numerized letters from A (= 10) to Z (= 35), treating the 0-Z alphanumeric sequence as a numeral succession, corresponding to the numerals of a modulus 36 notation. While there are countless 'reasons' for adopting this convention for the numerical decoding of oecumenic messages, Aleister Crowley's system of Magick provides the best evidence of its supreme qabbalistic virtue in respect to the universe of Anglobal communications. "Why did Crowley entitle his book of qabbalistic essays '777'?" asks Barrow-Scholar Peter Vysparov. This question seems to point to the most astounding qabbalistic datum of modern times, the alphanumerically rigorous gematria equation: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law = 777 One remarkable feature of this equation is that neither Crowley not any of his followers explicitly recognized the exact qabbalistic identity of the Thelemic Law (as stated in The Book of the Law, Liber AL vel legis) to the numerical index of modern qabbalism (777 & Other Qabalistic [sic] Writings). This relates intriguingly to the topic of secrecy (of which more elsewhere). 103

Crowley says of The Book of the Law: "'AL' is the true name of the Book, for these letters, and their number 31, form the Master Key to its Mysteries." Crowley bases this equation on the Hebrew gematria, in which the letter Aleph and Lamed have the values '1' and '30' respectively. 'AL' truly earns its status as a key when it is noted that its Anglossic (alphanumeric) value also equals 31: A (= 10) + L (= 21). The TX expression of 31 - ((((:)))) - reveals it as the 4th mainline hyprime, the 11th prime (with the hyprime mainline numbers 2, 3, 5, 11, 31, and 127 ... all being of prominent importance within Thelemic Magick, although this system of connections - once again - seems nowhere to be explicitly emphasized. 31 is also a Mersenne number. In a strange Hyprime-mainline reflex it corresponds to alphanumeric 'V'. 127, the 31st prime, TX (((((:))))), = NUMBER = THELEMA = CRYPT. Qabbalize and sum the names of the Sephirot (as Romanized by Crowley, and including DAATH, 11th Sephirot), total = 1270. Vysparov even cruelly suggested that Crowley's entire magickal career was a cosmic joke whose sole purpose was the unwitting demonstration of the Barrow gematria. As for Allala, Current 93, the Crowley Tarot, more on the Sephirot ... later. 104

Comments: Qabbala 101: Part 1 Reza Negarestani: Fantastic! In contrast, Barrow's Gematria is a continuous nonredundant system IMHO, it’s not the matter of redundancy (in a negative sense) if ABJADs draw their consecutive progression on more overcoded systems and Anglossic Qabalah runs on a smoother sequential system (following its techno-commercial ingenuity). As we discussed both are exceptionally creative to autonomously diagram their ‘own’ geopolytical, chronogenous and strategic functionalities: each system internally associating with its own regional ‘hyperstitional vortices’. WoTerror and its crypts, vocabularies and diagrams cannot be thoroughly exhumed from (A-)Now if we miss the indubitable fusion of the techno-commercial Anglossic K-abbalah and the sorcerous-occultural ABJAD (in WoTerror). A versatile line is needed to squirm between the two fronts (already contaminated by each other) and engineer machinic indices of these two systems whose job is to undermine (but not erase) all political, moral and technical inclinations which obstruct the pestilential diversities teeming out of WoTerror. On the other hand, in WoTerror, there are certain entities and threads that should be primarily diagramed through ABJADs and their hyperstitional grids since they are firmly bound to the sorcerous-occultural fronts of WoTerror (Islamic Apocalypticism?) and linked to ‘regional / local’ traits and cartographies (it is very hard and sometimes problematic to trust in technocommercial Anglossic probe-heads when they are tracking such irreducibly foreign entities). An instructive joke: Jay frequently reminds Col. West that Delta Force simply failed in its anti-Al-Qaeda operations because it never grasped what Al-Qaeda really is: It is not Al-Qaeda. It is Al-Ghaedeh, included a letter unknown to all Indo-European languages (Latin/German/Greek, etc) and is almost impossible to be pronounced correctly (let aside fluency) by Latin speakers; it is the pharyngeal letter ‘Qaf’ (i.e. Ghaaf) oversimplified as ‘Q’ in English. Jay’s tip of the day: Don't forget to watch Al Jazeera TV. ABJAD: Jay= 4; Al-Ghaedeh= 211, The letter Ghaaf = 100 (Dust to Dust or your suggested ‘rendered into nothingness’ if to Dust is to Kill) -----------------------------105

ref. Jay: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003465.html Dust to Dust: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003354.html WoTerror: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003348.html Nick Land: Reza - agree that the difference between Barrow gematria and traditional qabalistic systems opens a positive opportunity for productive 'abysm' - IMHO that's why it would have been very disappointing if the effective qabalization of Anglobal messages turned out to be nothing more than a neo-roman version of Hebrew gematria / Abjad etc. Barrrow gematria is so disruptive of traditionalist hermetic expectations that it cannot substitute for prior systems, but only 'overcode' - better 'transcode' - them. Every historical alphabet with named letters, e.g Hebrew, Greek ... 'feeds' an Anglossic qabalization by producing new (and decoded) vocabulary as material (e.g. Theta = 99, a fantastic example). Roman numbers are also thought- (and more importantly experiment-)provoking in this respect. PS. Unfortunately not sure if I can get Al-Jazeera - suggestive items from AJ would make great germs for posts here. Reza Negarestani: PS. Unfortunately not sure if I can get Al-Jazeera - suggestive items from AJ would make great germs for posts here. it was just a training tip for Col. West: Watching AJ helps West to finally learn how to pronounce the letter Ghaaf and the word Al-Ghaedeh. ;) PS. Nick it would be great if you would initiate some discussions (case studies) on Islamic Apocalypticism / Techno-capitalism Omega (running on the Anglossic Qabalah and the abjad) as you did on the Cold-Me board. just trigger it and i'll join in. Nick Land: Reza - agree on the potential interest, but think pacing quite crucial. If too much new stuff flows in too quickly things get lost (when things hit a lull, we can 106

add some stim). Seems to me some of the precursor discussion to the Technocapital/Islam Apocalypse/Qabbala topic is just beginning now - IMHO be best to let it stew for a little while before cranking it up a level On letter Ghaaf - do you think there is now a full standardized system of Neoroman nominations for Arabic / Farsi letters? Also, Ghaaf issue reminds me of a bizarre episode when Condi Rice and Powell began talking about "Gutter" rather than "Cararrh" when referring to Qatar - just triggered media snickers at the time, but guess it was exactly the same translational nexus you're pointing to here PS, Al Jaz. must be a key reference point for Intersection of hyperstition with the contemporary world disorder (what CNN was for Baurdrillard and pomo fuzz-death of the Oddubbian universe back in the 90's) Reza Negarestani: Reza - agree on the potential interest, but think pacing quite crucial. If too much new stuff flows in too quickly things get lost (when things hit a lull, we can add some stim). lol ... Ok. do you think there is now a full standardized system of Neoroman nominations for Arabic / Farsi letters? I don’t think so ... although there might be a standardized system of Neoroman corresponding to Arabic/Farsi letters but the process of nominating is not that easy since following contemporary Arabic / Farsi languages, each letter have deliriously taken so many cultural / religious / political identities which cannot not be found or simulated in Neoroman systems. These identities are peculiar to Near and Middle Eastern cultures / politics / economies, etc. + As far as I know I can’t find “a full standardized system of Neoroman nominations for Arabic / Farsi letters” (even if we take the simplest translational aspects) Also, Ghaaf issue reminds me of a bizarre episode when Condi Rice and Powell began talking about "Gutter" rather than "Cararrh" when referring to Qatar - just triggered media snickers at the time, but guess it was exactly the same translational nexus you're pointing to here 107

Excellent! (Once again, you probed right into the core) ... yes, it is. Qatar also is another symptom of the Ghaaf (or Qaaf?)-Complex PS, Al Jaz. must be a key reference point for Intersection of hyperstition with the contemporary world disorder (what CNN was for Baurdrillard and pomo fuzz-death of the Oddubbian universe back in the 90’s Yes of course ... although your remark here about Al-Jazeera / CNN greatly offends certain divisions of the pomo legion but what I’m going to suggest right now must be over the limit for them: at the other pole of hyperstition in WoTerror and the New Pest (dis-)Order, ‘Fox News’ is also a key and highly recommended. This is of course not for the pomo peace-makers (“Knitters for Peace, Wool is not a petroleum product”20) who are afraid of watching Fox News (even as a funny entertainment) or call the entire panorama banal. Jay’s tip of the day to Col. West (to continue the Polytics of the Zoroastrian cult of Druj- and the Z-Crowd): There is no banality but the banality of one’s vision. When it comes to darkness, one must think strategically (drujih) or according to your suggestions ‘Pestilentially Creative’. Nick Land: There are only three oecumenic letters that digitally reduce to '6' in the alphanumeric series: F (15 = 6), O (21 = 6), and X (33 = 6) - uh oh. "FOX is the goddamn Antichrist! Whaddya mean, watch it?" Reza Negarestani: 6 = LETTER WAW (or VAAV) which individually means AND: and ... and ... and ... and ... and ... (the Warp region) also letter Seen (= 60) and letter Kha (= 600) directly return to 6; their total abjad value at the Warp region of the numogram is 666 ... their ABJAD order: 6 + 15 + 24 = 45 which is another Kaprekar number in the numogram: 45 x 45 = 2025: 20 + 25 = 45 If FOX is the Antichrist, then what is Saudi’s channel 1? Don’t forget that the AntiChrist is Dajjal ;) 20 see DUST: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003348.html 108

From Text to Txt Mark k-p (July 14, 2004) An initially flippant post on k-punk concerning predictive txting21 ended up producing some interesting speculations. The most obvious feature of txtspeak is its elimination of vowels. Indeed, txting is practically demonstrating the functional redundancy of most vowels. What a fascinating unanticipated consequence of modern telecommunications. ('Predictive' texting, by contrast, is utterly stratic, locking users back into pre-existing lingusitic codes and their own habitual language use.) Comments: FROM TEXT TO TXT Reza Negarestani: elimination of vowels and here: [The ABJAD version of the numogram: phase 1] DigitalDjigit: Find, fund, fond, fend That's 4 out of 5 vowels used right there off the top of my head. Tell me again how they are redundant? Maybe it makes sense to eliminate vowels in written Semitic languages where every consonant is typically followed by a vowel (at least in Hebrew) but I am not sure why it is automatically a good thing for English. In fact, right now in Hebrew the trend is to introduce vowels. For example Vav acts as "o". Experiments show that as long as the first and last letters of the word are kept you can garble the middle and the meaning will still be decipherable. So you could make the case that all letters are redundant. Nick Land: DigitalDjigit - but it's not that simple surely. "Think you'll fnd it under the couch" - fund, fond, or fend - don't think so! Redundancy isn't necessarily hidden in the most obvious place - you might fnd it next door. 21 http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003522.html 109

More interesting is the possibility that collapsing informative (nonredundant) difference is itself productive in certain contexts. In any case, definitely agree with mark that this technologically awakened atavism is worthy of more than trite dismissal. Reza Negarestani: DigitalDjigit, a few good essays on how the 'catastrophe of vowel' directly affects the cognitive patterns of the nervous system and how vowelless alphabets incite complex cognitive insurgencies: Changeux, J.P. (1988) “Learning and selection in the Nervous system,” in D. de Kerckhove and C. Lumsden (eds), The Alphabet and the Brain and the rest of essays (all highly recommended) Hellige, F. (1993) Hemispheric Asymmetry, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press Howard, D. (1987) “Reading Without Letters?” in M. Coltheart, G. Satori, and R. Job (eds), The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Language And at last: Porush, D. (1998) “Telepathy: Alphabetic Consciousness and the Age of Cyborg Illiteracy” in J. Broadhurst Dixon and E. J. Cassidy (eds), Virtual Futures As Nick mentioned you may find it easy when working with one word but when you encounter a more complex and extended string of writing units, the process is so difficult and sometimes impossible. TH VRL CLTR F DS MKS VR XCHNG F BD FLDS N CT F TTL LV ND MRDR SM S “J MRT” T RGSM. DS GVS NW MNNG T THR CR johneffay: As Nick mentioned you may find it easy when working with one word but when you encounter a more complex and extended string of writing units, the process is so difficult and sometimes impossible. But surely that's an argument against the functional redundancy of most vowels? I will be convinced that texting is doing something interesting when I see it actually communicating something new. The fact that people are abbreviating everything in order to send messages is as old as the hills. Text speak is doing nothing that people weren't doing with telegrams decades ago. 110

mark k-p Ah, so the medium isn't the message, then? Too much time in philosophy depts I reckon --- nothing new ever happens --- it was all decided 2 millennia ago in Greece ---- :-) reminds me of Greg Hunt on jungle not being anything new; 'didn't ppl do this on the ol' pianner'? The fact that people are abbreviating everything in order to send messages is as old as the hills. And thereofre not interesting? Text speak is doing nothing that people weren't doing with telegrams decades ago. Presumably why D/G place such importance on the telegraphic semiotic as a privileged form of communication then... Reza Negarestani: no that’s not really a direct argument against the redundancy of vowels ... it was meant to emphasize on the 'cognitive / writing complexity' of vowelless alphabets which itself renders the vowel-based writing systems(which cannot be merely reduced to the generally accepted dimension of WRITING) as communicational tyrannies (or effective communicational defense mechanisms); Following the recommended articles, one will finally ask “what does a vowel do?” (a simplified but crucial question) Firstly, vowels are among the fundamental anthropomorphic oversimplifying systems over communication (worse than redundancy) Back to neo-Sumerian age: see how the channel regimes of hieroglyphs/pictographs or tools of ‘corporealization / stabilization’ and transcendental informatics directly deposit as vowels, making a consolidated repression on the cognitive interfaces or the affect space of the nervous system and how vowels are customized as the Nucleus of ‘representation’. On the hand, consider vowelless alphabets and the gates they creatively open (just a few obvious threads): right-brain processing (i.e. slow processing or taking a more engaging paths for interlocking with communication systems);22 engineering semantic irresolution which brings an immense tolerance of informatic pollution (suspension, horror, complexities, deferral, etc.), this offers a great potential for engaging with 22 also visuo-spatial processing and the ability of identity-recognition of different objects with different configurations are highly promoted. 111

ambiguities and abstractions; the resistance to voice (the authority: pharaoh?) is exceptionally increased; etc. johneffay: Mark, you're still not telling me what is actually new (or, indeed, interesting) about text messaging. I might buy the stratic nature of predictive texting so long as you fail to reprogramme your phone by, ermm, using different words and thereby adding them to the database. However, if you're going to go all D&G; on me, you'll have to convince me why texting is difference in kind rather than simply difference in degree when compared to, for example, a telegram or, indeed, a phone call. Reza, I have a great deal of difficulty following you, but if I read you correctly, what you are actually saying is that the lack of vowels leads to ambiguity ('engineering semantic irresolution') because one may read that which is missing in more than one way (informatic pollution), whereas vowels are inserted in order to give certainty ('oversimplifying systems over communication ') of meaning. This may help to emphasise the fact that language is representational, but is hardly an argument for the functional redundancy of vowels. I simply cannot underestand how a vowel could possibly be more anthropomorphic than a consonant, although I may well be misunderstanding you. mark k-p OK to be a bit less flippant: probably isn't a great deal of difference between telegraphic communication and txt msging. Except (and I genuinely don't know the answer to this): did telegram messaging actually collapse words in the way that txting does? My suspicion is that it just skipped words, not that it contracted them. A widespread form of communication, spontaneously occurring, that dispenses with vowels just is interesting - partly coz of all the wealth of material Reza has provided on vowelless alphabets. Difference between phone calls and txting is self-evident; there isn't the pressure on removing redundancy in phone calls where space is not a premium. Actually, saying that there's no difference between txt spk and verbal conversation would be granting that vowels are functionally redundant in speech in many cases. Yeh, Reza, I need a bit more on anthropomorphism. I'm sympathetic to the drift, obv... One important thing is the rhythmic function of consonants (as opposed to vowels). 112

Reza Negarestani: johneffay, Sorry ... think a total misunderstanding happening here: did I mention language is representational? Vowels are the micro-factories of representation for sure but language ...???? (you cannot easily claim so when working with vowelless alphabets) ... I simply cannot underestand how a vowel could possibly be more anthropomorphic than a consonant, although I may well be misunderstanding you. Also meaning, think it’s is the less important issue Well, maybe if you reread those few examples on vowel-based and vowelless alphabets you may find out why vowels are repressively anthropomorphic in their thirst to spawn overcoding regimes wherever they go. If one system authoritatively installs ultra-overcoding / domesticating regimes on writing (all modes of writing in every recess of communication), nervous system, cognitive / social interfaces, etc. and take the most uncreative ways of communication ... then you should convince me why it is not functionally re-dundant? sorry I think I can’t help you on this thread until you first take at least a very short journey (pre-requisite) back to the neoSumerian age and watch the process of vowelization, it’s origins and how the vowels work.. Follow the lines of insurgency among the slaves of Egypt and how they incited revolution through all despotic / bureaucratic constructions of Pharaoh ... get closer and zoom on their weapon. PS. You should not reduce ‘oversimplifying system over communication’ to certainty of meaning. (please reread those a few example on how vowelless alphabets work) ... seems you have already presupposed meaning as the central core of the discussion that you ‘merely’ connect oversimplification to the certainty of meaning (what is at issue here is a diverse range of oversimplifications of vocal systems, cognitive interfaces, the selective stabilization of synapses, overcoded memories, etc) ... Hint: If you want to follow this thread, Kerckhove is a key. David Porush is also fine when directly interconnects all this to Qabalah. (And CCRU’s Daniel Barker?) ... Mark, vowelless alphabets are just anthropomorphic as they have been engineered by the high priests of Semitic Slaves (and in their open laboratories) who unleashed their alphabetic epidemic once they composed it (no later or extra programming) ... think using the term anthropomorphic in a negative sense (economical lines of transcendence, corporealization, expression, communication, etc) is not appropriate here ... their alphabetic epidemic hit autonomy and activated as a self-propagation germline with its own uncontrollable artificial intelligence, diversities and cognitive insurgencies as soon as it was set free ... vowelless alphabets are not anthropomorphic 113

in this negative sense but radically artificial, emerged out of participations between different lines simultaneously: hyperstitional grasp of the universe [there is no word FICTION in ancient Hebrew because it’s already a contagious fiction], numeracy, anti-image / anti-voice cognitive patterns, etc.) ... but take the path of vowels: the authoritative corporealization systems of the early syllabic/pictographic languages (entirely based on the despotic anthropomorphism or affordance-based [J. J. Gibson] cognition with the universe through representation and corporealization) are directly deposited as vowels. Vowels are also autonomous in some respects as they restrain, direct and manage, re-organize and smuggle the initial anthropomorphic transcendence of the pictographs’ corporealization systems and their cognitive / vocal repressions through the progression (evolution?) of vowel-based alphabets ... vowels are watchers: they maintain programs of their nucleus. They carry and develop their nucleus without introducing much diversity to it -- only re-organization of their nucleus by re-organizing themselves. Vowels (re-)manage and optimize the initial despotic corporealization processes and the VOICE (Who?: Pharaoh, God, Cosmos, Oedipus, Sphinx?) lurking within them from the first syllabic/pictographic place. johneffay: Mark, this may be the whole point of hyperstition, but I find it one hell of a leap to connect the stripping of vowels for, as you say, economic reasons to claims about relationships between slaves and their overseers. did telegram messaging actually collapse words in the way that txting does? Definitely (e.g. shld, cld), but I doubt it did it as much. What telegram messaging did do was strip out the first person pronoun and conjunctions wherever possible. To be flippant, I guess we could see this as an unconscious attempt on the part of early users of telecoms to flatten out their existence by refusing the unified subject and the transcendence of the connective synthesis. Reza, overcoding and anthropomorphism are hardly synonymous. Using the latter term the way you seem to be, I would suggest that any language or components thereof which are in use by humans would have to be classed as anthropomorphic. I don't think that all languages are representational, although I might want to argue that all alphabets can be used as representational tools. I've read Porush and Barker, but not the others. However, I don't really want to rehash arguments that I've had before. What I am interested in is why you think that something that overcodes is redundant. Without overcoding, decoding, and the resultant de/re/territorializations, we would simply be reduced to jelly... 114

Personally, I wouldn't reduce ‘oversimplifying system over communication’ to certainty of meaning but have no idea what else you could possibly mean by phrases such as 'semantic iressolution, other than prioritizing ambiguity within a system of communication. Reza Negarestani: Reza, overcoding and anthropomorphism are hardly synonymous. Once again, some misunderstandings: did I say ‘mere overcording’ is synonymous to anthropomorphism? What I am interested in is why you think that something that overcodes is redundant. Without overcoding, decoding, and the resultant de/re/territorializations, we would simply be reduced to jelly... Again, did I say that something that overcodes is redundant? Surely overcoding is necessary (making translation possible, etc.) but there are different levels of overcoding: from overcoding as an essential element of communication to overcoding as a means of authorization and overcoding as a ‘regime’ which induce certain cognitive / whatever repressions and redundancies: ultra-overcoding (THIRST to overcode) as one can say. Besides, did I say that ultra-overcoding is the only thing connected to vowel’s redundancy (read my answer to mark + other previous answers)? but have no idea what else you could possibly mean by phrases such as 'semantic irresolution, other than prioritizing ambiguity within a system of communication. Sorry, but you’d better read it again: “seems you have already presupposed meaning as the central core of the discussion that you ‘merely’ connect oversimplification to the certainty of meaning” I stressed on ‘merely’ ... this means I agree that ‘certainty of meaning’ is a part of the issue but certainly not the whole issue (in addition I stated a few other examples to clarify this). Well, such discussions might be so confusing and misleading for the English/German/French speakers ... Being appropriately familiar (not just reading about them) with at least two Semitic-based languages (one ancient and one modern) and their reading / writing systems is absolutely essential to get what’s going on 115

between the two lines (vowelless alphabets and vowel-based alphabets); this makes the discussion extremely smoother. Anyway, thanks for the discussion ... David: Hi, guys. Just want to agree with Reza that overcoding is a symptom of anthropomorphism, this way: IF anthropomorphism is the compulsion to attribute intelligent, rational, intentional action to the universe where it doesn't exist, THEN overcoding (overdetermination; mechanism) is one way we do it. one-on-one-mapping; hallucinating Overdetermined scripts - such as alphabets "perfected" with vowels to reduce ambiguity - maintain the illusion that written language captures reality, that our knowledge is transparent, weightless reflection of truth. Intelligence catastrophe Nick Land (July 16, 2004) Everyone here might already be familiar with this Vernor Vinge23 piece, but it's so important to the techonomics-side of apocalyptic hyperstition it seems worth reminding people about. Mentions Bear (Bloodmusic), Moravec, Margulis ... I love the smell of roasted monkeys in the morning ... Linked to by this great article in TCS, called Don't Worry About the Future. No reason to think the humour is intentional! Comments: Intelligence Catastrophe Reza Negarestani: And if we take the Gold’s suggestion that Fossil Fuels are only a myth and the sub-surface biosphere (Hell?) always spews oil and the oil-fields are 23 “Technological Singularity” 116

rechargable24 (No End for Petropolitics), this article warped within another dimension of WoTerror, very close to the Gog-Magog Axis and its occultural cycle of Petropolitics in which oil is smuggling Islamic Apocalypticism to Western Civilizations then it’s promoted by techno-capitalistic warmachines and returns back to Islamic countries; once again, it is recomposed by Apocalyptic Islamic warmachines (the horrible fusion of techno-capitalism and Islamic Apocalypticism) and re-pumped to Western civilizations (through your suggested Pipeline Odyssey and with the aid of high pressure GAS to reach farther distances): this petropolitical cycle is spiraling to utter meltdown of Techno-capitalist and Islamic Warmachines or what we call the UNLIFE of WAR worshipped by Islamic Apocalypticism as Ghiamat (or DoubleDeath). Zoroastrian Osseotherapy of Anthropomorphism Reza Negarestani (July 16, 2004) Inspired by some visually cold and unsettling photos taken from the Paris catacomb by my friend Boris Mangold, I changed (and severely mutilated) my old piece on the (anti-)Osseological culture of the ancient Zoroastrians ... surely the piece is more fitting for the ‘Cold Me’ howl but it works fine here too. However, I should add: anyone seeking a terrifying text on Osseological culture should read ‘A digression on Miller’, a chapter from “The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism”, Nick’s textual plague whose curse is unfading. (warning: slow loading) *** for Boris Mangold and Nick Land "How shall I fight against the demon, which from the dead flies upon the living? How shall I fight against Nasu, which from the dead enters into the living?" (Vendidad) The Burial of an Empire. It had nothing to do with blood, raw wounds or meat; nor was it the wing of a cult classic performance, bizarropedia or the macabre underground swollen in some kind of theatricalism. It was silent and all glorious as a 24 Gold, Thomas. The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossils Fuels 117

ceremony of an empire should be: the Persian Empire (an Overstate whose nomads constellated its very army at the margins of Persian lands). It was not a burial; not an inhumation; precisely speaking, it was not a ceremony of 'chambering corpses' (entombment) which provides a dwelling / accommodating system for corpses to be screened and specialized thus in a covert mission eclipsing them within an architectural site, encoding the dead as A Good Meal that lures necrophilic engineers to exhume (ex + humus or ground = unground) the architectural site, the graves and their dwelling / accommodating functions. The ceremony was prepared by initiates trained for corpse handling and management (Nasa-salars); Borrowed from the ancient cultures (those cryptogenic lands of unknown customs and artifacts plotted by nameless Things), disposing of the body was the initial step. In early times, this process was managed by trained people known as corpse-takers or corpse-cutters (Nasu-kasha or Nasu-keret); they stripped the body of its meat, skin and tissues -- toward the mere inclusion of bones -- then, they dumped bones and flesh at two different places prepared for this purpose before the eyes of the deceased person's family and friends who were watching this expressionless and silent (also quick) ceremony from a safe distance since Nasu or Nasa -- corpse or black matter -- is an attractor of its Druj-25 (Abomination) to form Druj-Nasu, a cross-contaminating epidemic which radically corrupts the ‘Rotation of the Elements’ panorama (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) and its economically mixed compositions (Mud, etc.); according to ancient Persian culture, corpse looks forward to return to its epidemic mother, Druj- (The Mother of Abominations). The collected flesh was fed to carrion-eaters (trained dogs or birds of prey). Bones were kept for an accurately ordered set of systematic procedures: 1. Overboiling bones until separation of meat pieces from bones: sometimes (and especially during Sasanian dynasty and later) this stage was directed by the forces of nature in isolated places: making bones sun-bleached and rain-washed. 25 Druj-, a feminine name from the Sanskrit druh 'to blacken', in Pahlavi language of ancient Persia, Druj- means lie, unreal, strategy and darkness. Both linguistically and epidemically, it is always experienced as ‘Druj-’ (an affix, a prosthesis, a contagious havoc) and not ‘Druj’ (e.g. Druj-Nasu: the corpse-fiend). In Vendidad or the Zoroastrian Book of the Law against Demon, written during the Sasanian dynasty before Islam, Druj- is not an entity but a pestilential tempest capable of inter-fusing with everything; it is regarded as an unfathomable plague, a contaminating epidemic or the Mother of Abominations. 118

2. Shaving bones with metal (unlike wood, metal was believed immaculate) to eradicate the pink fingerprints left by meat and its brainless tentacles: ironically decomposing the last traces of A Good Meal for Druj-. 3. Accumulating the scrubbed bones in technically crafted ossuaries (uzdana-) named Astodan26 (bone-receptacle) on whose surface, there are holes tiny enough to let the Sun rays pass and block any unholy intrusion, letting the thermo-nuclear emissions of the Sun bombard bones to less than pieces, to Dust (Toward the Exclusion of Bones). Bone marrow, too, must be scoured from the holy cycle of the elements (solidus-incirculation?). catacomb "O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Whither shall we bring, where shall we lay the bones of the dead, O Ahura Mazda? “Ahura Mazda answered: An ossuary (uzdana) shall be made, out of reach of dogs and foxes and wolves, not to be rained on from above by rainwater. They shall make it, if they can afford it, with stones or chalk ... If they are not able, let it (i.e. the skeleton) be laid down, being its own couch, being its own cushion, upon the earth, exposed to the light, seen by the Sun." (Vendidad 6.49-51) "There are ... matters concerning the dead which are secretly and obscurely told -how the dead bodies of Persians are not buried before they have been mangled by bird or dog. That this is the way of the magi I know for a certainty, for they do not conceal the practice." (Herodotus 1.140) Facing such necroscapes of preprogrammed and visually sinister exclusion and radical butchery (isn't butchery a terminal tactic of non-economical openness: ‘being laid open’ overlapping the survivalist sphere of ‘being open to’?), the Zoroastrian magi realized that the sight of the entire ceremony performed by corpse-cutters can be easily contaminated by abominable (drujih) avatars capable of summoning new portals of horror and perversion, siphoning the imperial, horribly peaceful and dry sphere of this ceremony into the space of philia and energizing this butchery as a perversion. Finally, the ceremony was vulnerable to the danger of becoming a Astodan from Pahlavic ast- (oss, bone) and -dana (container) later, this word undergoes an etymological transformation to the word Ossuary. 26 119

predictable sphere for vectors of contamination. This ceremony was not radical 'enough'. The corpse-cutters were entirely replaced by the hordes of domesticated or flying carrion-eaters as they did not only deflesh corpses as fast as possible but also kept the nasu away from swarming scavengers (kharfastra). Kharfastra (unholy swarm of scavengers) unlike the pets trained by the State to carry the nasu through monitored routes (in the case of dogs) or take the nasu away from the Earth (birds’ duty), spread out the nasu in all directions, carrying it to regions inaccessible by the State, re-forging the nasu as micro-nomadic compositions through which the State is introduced to the Mother of Abominations (Druj-: Druj-nasu). This is why according to Vendidad (the Zoroastrian Book of the law against Demon or Druj-), Kharfastra is a legion of insects, wolves, pests and hydro-leak fluxes oozing into the subterranean nether beneath the State. Kharfastra runs its lines of vermiculation to engineer anonymous routes for spreading nasu, contamination and toxic wastes through the earth, lines which eventually making the ground crumble and butchered open, massively undermining State. A coil of worms working at substrate, a vermifungoid machine undermining what lies above, gnawing at the surface, emerging as a wave from within. Briefly and more plainly, Kharfastra or what in Vendidad has been introduced as obnoxious swarm engineers a vermiculated space -- ()holes, ()holes, ()holes with evaporative ‘W’s -- as it spreads, carries, buries and mobilizes nasu and contamination through the Earth; inventing a Telluro-vermicular Ungrouding (ex-humation) process. Here, Kharfastra is unillumined as “a New People for a New Earth” (Deleuze & Guattari). "In Hyrcania the masses breed communal dogs, while the aristocrats have dogs that they keep at their own homes; we happen to know that their breed of dog is decidedly superior. However, everyone according to his individual means acquires dogs that will tear him to shreds, because they reckon this to be the best burials" (quoted from Eudemus of Rhodes) If a person died in bad weather (i.e. climates potential of accommodating any hydroleak flow that mobilizes a line of flight / escape for the contamination, nasu and pest-molecules: storm, flood, cyclones, mud, snow, etc.), the families were to dig a pit or trench in a secluded place within the house ... laying dung or ashes at the bottom of the trench, below the corpse; covering the corpse with dry kinds of soil. Then, when the weather relented, they were to make a breach in the wall of the house and carry the corpse out to a place where "carrion-eater dogs and birds shall most readily perceive it." (Vendidad); then, they were to lay it down on a "[dry] bed of chalk and fasten it with bricks or stones". (Ibid) 120

There were reports of throwing those suffering from old age or sickness alive to dogs (known as undertakers) kept and trained for such purposes. "Outside the city walls there is a separate community of over two thousand households who specialize in funerary matters. There is also a separate building in which dogs are kept. Whenever a person dies, [members of this community] will go and collect the corpse and place it inside this building and order the dogs to devour it. When the flesh has been entirely devoured they will bury all the bones but no coffin is used for the burial." (Tong-dian 193.1039b; tr. In Lieu, p. 183) The dead must be away from the elements of Genesis Project (Fire, Air, Water, Earth) and their inter-phase combinations; this is the Grand Project of Immaculacy or the Osseological Culture; Druj-Nasu defiles fire if you cremate the dead; it will deflower the Earth Mother if you bury a corpse; ... Druj-Nasu will spoil water if you give the dead to a river, ... will pollute air if you expose them for a long time, ... will make a total mess if you let one single corpse remain on the ground when the Elements cyclically (according to Aristotelian model) blend to each other (producing mud, bad weather, etc.). All this was not enough; the Zoroastrian osseological enterprise was never meant to include bones and exclude flesh as in the case of its monotheistic progeny; its ultimate strategy was to creatively exclude bones from the entire anthropomorphic culture and bring mess instead. This was the economic slogan of Zoroastrianism: “It is not enough.” It was not merely a political / spiritual slogan; "it is not enough" was the practice of life in a radically non-economical sphere. The system of carrion-eaters was still criminal; the whole immaculacy project was still full of bugs ... during the Sasanian dynasty, such ceremonies promoted by a new zeal in anti-Druj- practices and especially the rites around corpse and Druj-Nasu. The duty of carrion-eating was completely bestowed upon vultures and other birds of prey flying above the surface and not contaminating the living on the ground easily. They reconsidered dogs as capable spiritual enemies of Druj-, so they reunited their pet industry within another ritual: Sag-did.27 27 In the Sag-did ritual (dog-watched or dog-watcher), the trained dog (watch-fiend?) must play the role of a beast obstructing the presence of Druj- and the rush of kharfastra (the scavenging swarms) temporarily; a yellow dog with four eyes (with two spots above the eyes) or a white dog with yellow ears 121

When a man dies a dog should be tied at his feet. When the dog sees the demon; it will smite it. [...] will be like a nasu that has been seen by a dog. (Vendidad) [Should the dead person be a woman with child, two dogs were needed, two yellow dogs with four eyes; totally, eight eyes.] Sag-did ceremony, however, was an overture for a new development in killing Nasu (what has already been killed); a more radical project toward the exclusion of bones, toward generating something external to the elements of Genesis Project yet assumed to be an inter-phase between elements (Air, Earth), something that takes its own line of flight for leaving the ground of the living behind in rest and then come back with radical plagues: Dust (dry GAS) Pulvis ad Pulverem or Immaculatus, the Persian plague. Dakhma or Dahma or poetically, Tower of Silence was a tower built on hilltop or on an elevated ground away from human dwellings. The Tower is a round monolithic structure built with saruj (traditional hardening glue in Iran more powerful than cement) and stone. A few steps from the ground lead to an iron gate which opens on a circular platform of solid stone with a circular well in the center. The following is a short description of the tower written by Nusserwanjee Byrawjee, the late Secretary of the public charity funds and properties of the Parsi community: "First row for corpses of males. Second row for corpses of females. Third row for corpses of children. [...]The clothes wrapped round the corpses are removed and destroyed immediately after they are placed in the Tower. [...]Footpaths for corpse-bearers to move about [are also marked]. A deep central well in the Tower, 150 feet in circumference (the sides and bottom of which are also paved with stone slabs), is used for depositing the dry bones. The corpse is completely is tightened to the corpse or kept as its company to eat the body (hiding it from Druj- and kharfastra; this was also the job of the birds of prey according to the ancient Zoroastrians) or just safeguarding it from Druj-: two eyes for the terrestrial invasions, the third eye for watching beyond dimensions and the fourth eye; what does the fourth eye do? A watcher for all the other eyes? 122

stripped of its flesh by vultures within an hour or two, and the bones of the denuded skeleton, when perfectly dried up by atmospheric influences and the powerful heat of the tropical sun, are thrown into this well, where they gradually crumble to dust, chiefly consisting of lime and phosphorus. [...]There are holes in the inner sides of the well through which the rain water is carried into four underground drains; at the base of the Tower, these drains are connected with four underground wells, the bottoms of which are covered with a thick layer of sand. Pieces of charcoal and sandstone are also placed at the end of each drain, which are renewed from time to time. These double sets of filters are provided for purifying the rain water passing over the bones, before it enters the ground thus observing one of the tenets of the Zoroastrian religion that 'The Mother Earth shall not be defiled." "The corpse is left exposed to the sun and elements until bleached and dry. The bones are then collected and deposited in the central well to further deteriorate. In areas where it is quite dry, the bones soon crumble to dust. In areas where there is a large amount of rain, provision is made for the water, after collecting in the well, to run out through a grate, pass over charcoal, and then to the sea. While the grates are occasionally blocked and need clearing, the system as whole is quite self-sufficient. “The area around the Tower is kept as a garden, sacred in a sense similar to our cemetery areas. Occasionally a stray ear or finger is found in the nearby residential areas, having been dropped by a passing vulture or hawk. Nonetheless, the entire process is considered quite sanitary.” *** At a Tower of Silence, as in a desert, solid (bones or the earth’s crust) fervidly arrives at absolute immanence with the Sun; the communication is appeared in the form of Dust which holds the key protocols of Solid and Gas collapsed over each other. This is how the Sun makes a con-fusion of paranoia and schizotactics, rendering a covert exhumation (ungrounding) process, a schizotrategy. At a Tower of Silence, the ossified death is reinvented as a dry perversion (Dustism). Dust is a ferociously attracting-process for the cosmic wetness and its pest-suspensions, an upsurge toward mess-hysteria (DUST + hydrochemical singularities = Dust Soap). [Read Dust] If a man died among nomads and they could not find a Dakhma near their temporary settlement; they started their migration suddenly and left the corpse. The corpse 123

actually triggered their anti-climatic (or anti-geographic) and radical nomadic migration through terminal paranoia. I am from a culture in which death is not only ossified but also pulverized into a gray powder, an abominable dust working as an atractor for cosmic wetness and moisture: a necrophilic mess. Vowel-Stripped Tic-Talk Anna Greenspan (July 17, 2004) It's got you by the throat. It might seem that vowels are more anthropomorphic than consonants - one can 'say' aaaiieeooouuu - but try saying kkttccc without adding vowel sounds. Ccru discussed this issue with a (now sadly obsolesced) corporate AI called Marvin, who could chatter (vowelless) click-chitterings and polyrhythmic stutterings. Rather than using a voice synthesizer to simulate human speech, Marvin used it to exhume the inhuman 'within' language. Yet, while it is tempting to disparage vowels as humanizing sounds, Professor Barker seems to have a more elaborate analysis, in which both 'sides' are primordially inhuman - after all, you can't actually 'say' aaaiieeooouuu, you can only howl it. It is 'vowelization' of consonantal difference that humanizes click-code into a language, but it is not vowels themselves that produce the human. Man emerges from a speech synthesis (rather than arising from a howl). While explaining his concept of Palate-Tectonics to the Ccru, Professor Barker said: "Due to erect posture the head has been twisted around, shattering vertebroperceptual linearity and setting-up the phylogenetic preconditions for the face. This right-angled pneumatic-oral arrangement produces the vocal-apparatus as a crash-site, in which thoracic impulses collide with the roof of the mouth. The bipedal head becomes a virtual speech-impediment, a sub-cranial pneumatic pile-up, discharged as linguo-gestural development and cephalization take-off. Burroughs suggests that the protohuman ape was dragged through its body to expire upon its tongue. Its a twinaxial system, howls and clicks, reciprocally articulated as a vowel-consonant phonetic palette, rigidly intersegmented to repress staccato-hiss continuous variation and its 124

attendant becomings-animal. That's why stammerings, stutterings, vocal tics, extralingual phonetics, and electrodigital voice synthesis are so laden with biopolitical intensity - they threaten to bypass the anthropostructural head-smash that establishes our identity with logos, escaping in the direction of numbers." Comments: Vowel-Stripped Tic-Talk Reza Negarnestani: Anna this is a great text ... hopefully gives some space to speak about the inhuman space of vowels. Yet, while it is tempting to disparage vowels as humanizing sounds, Professor Barker seems to have a more elaborate analysis, in which both 'sides' are primordially inhuman. The opening passage of Vendidad on Druj (The Mother of Abominations) have already narrated that the Abomination is inseparable from the sound, sound is the harbinger of the Abomination. aaaiieeooouuu and similar compositions are vowels anomalies, they simultaneously call upon the entire uttering machinery of human (a simultanous activation of all vocalizing components), flasing into what lies behind vowels and the vocalizing system in a matter of second. Old Iranian dervishes were completely familiar with the vowel-howls of the Abyss (Mowlavi or Rumi is one of the pioneers): hhhaaaaiiiieeeeehhhhh, etc (used for communication). Such compositions are creatively digging up the inhuman howls behind vowels, but not the certain repressions that vowels plug into the nervous system via more widespread compositions of themselves. Although vowels are auto-sabotaging agents but can’t get rid of appropriating processes they install on cognitive interfaces; while their tails diagram the Abysmal sounds (rattling insurgencies of vowels), their heads which generally pop up first are narrating a wide variety of systematic repressions. in which thoracic impulses collide with the roof of the mouth. The dominant vocalizing machineries of some languages creatively try to evade this compulsory collision. Arabic language has possibly the most capable vocalizing system that usually escapes this panorama. It has strange letters whose vocalization processes are not linear at all. The letter Ghaaf, letters Ha and Haa, letters Ayn and Ghain, etc. As I’ve previously discussed it with Nick, these letters are the curses of Arabic pronunciation system for speakers of other languages. Even Farsi speakers usually have difficulties. 125

One should be a crazed wolf and at the same time breathe as a lycanthrope to discharge the sound of the letter Ha. To vocalize 'Ghaaf', one should be a partly blocked tube attached to nothing. To initiate as a Jay’s disciple, Col. West must be able to pronounce the letters Ha and Ghaaf; this ensures Jay that he has finally kicked the Delta-Force Qaaf-Complex out of his mind and mouth. PS. Ccru discussed this issue with a (now sadly obsolesced) corporate AI called Marvin, who could chatter (vowelless) click-chitterings and polyrhythmic stutterings. Rather than using a voice synthesizer to simulate human speech, Marvin used it to exhume the inhuman 'within' language. This is parallel to the note on the MURMURing sound-space of occult rituals derived from Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East (Solar Rattle28). mark k-p 'It is time for Kim's Arab assignment and he will need perfect Arabic without a trace of a foreign accent. ... Reading is one thing, speaking another. Kim's guess that language operates on the virus principle of replication has been verified in the Linguistic Institute located outside Paris. Any language can now be conveyed directly by a series of injections. The Institute is dedicated to studying the function, origin and future of language. As in physics or mathematics, the most abstract data may prove to be the most practical... Matter into energy... Word back into virus. ... Kim knows that language shots can be very painful... The doctor looks younger than his twenty-eight years. ... "Some shots are a lot more difficult than others. French Spanish tres muy facil... Maybe you need to rest up for a day or two. ... Buut when it comes to Oriental languages you are using a whole different set of muscles and neural patterns... so you're bound to have a sore throat, just like your legs are sore after riding a horse for the first time... And Arabic is frankly the worst.. It literally cuts an English-speaking 28 See “Tellurian Insurgency 1: Telluro-magnetic conspiracy toward the Sun: Solar Rattle” in present volume/. 126

throat... Spitting blood is one of the first symptoms, though not necessarily the worst.. It is the stutter of neural response - remember when you first tried to row a gondola? The way you couldn't possibly get it, and you r muscles knotted up and you were making spastic gestures with the oar and the feeling in your stomach and groin, that sort of packing dream tension almost sexual...? And then suddenly you could do it? Well it's like that, only worse... And there is the gap between languages that can be terrifying... the great silences... And erotic frenzies when the patient feels himself sexually attacked by Arab demons... "About ten days in the hospital... You realise that you don't talk with your mouth and throat and lungs and vocal cords, you talk with your whole body... ANd the body keeps reaching back for the old language - it's rather like junk withdrawal in a way.. THe erotic manifestations always occur... It's like the subject is being raped by the language, shouting out obscenities in the injected idiom."29 Reza Negarestani: Interesting enough that gargling in different ways is very helpful for learning how Ghaaf and Ghayn are pronounced (and especially recommended in basic Arabic courses); but the best way is speaking with a butchered throat, open arteries, veins and windpipe. Farmer's Syndrome (or why Sherlock Holmes is not hyperstitional) Linda Trent (July 18, 2004) In response to my first post on this site ('How do Fictions become Hyperstitions?'), johneffay raised a number of interesting points. 'I guess the real Hyperstional archetye (at least in modern literature) would be Sherlock Holmes,' John writes, 'who has been written about by many people since Conan Doyle, [and] is believed to be a historical character by some.' 29 Burroughs, Place of Dead Roads, pp 206-207 127

Now, in refuting the claim that Sherlock Holmes is hyperstitional, as I aim to do, I hope I will be able to elaborate some of the key differences between hyperfiction and hyperstition. Holmes has clearly long since passed from the realms of the fictional into the hyperfictional, for some of the reasons that John suggests. Holmes is no longer the exclusive property of Doyle; he has become a collectively-occupied fictional agent who is indeed believed to be a real historical figure by many. Perhaps Philip Jose Farmer has been the most rigorous in 'hyperfictionalizing' Holmes. In his simulated biographies, Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: Man of Bronze, Farmer brilliantly repositioned many pulp and literary characters - including Holmes, Bulldog Drummond and Fitzroy Darcy - as actual historical figures whose special abilities resulted from mutations caused by a meteorite hitting earth near to the Yorkshire town of Wold Newton. Farmer's pathologically detailed elaboration of the 'Wold Newton' family tree - a masterpiece of fake scholarship - has spawned a wealth of related expository and speculative material. Tarzan Alive exhibits all the pedantry demanded by the most anal scholar, and demonstrates what I call 'Farmer's Syndrome': the apparent inability to treat fictional material as unreal. Fascinating as this is, it is not hyperstitional. There are number of reasons for this, but what I particularly want to stress at the moment is the role of unbelief. In hyperbolically inflating the logic of hyperfictionalization, PJF reveals that hyperfiction, far from challenging the belief function, perversely confirms it. The Wold Newton mythos asks us to believe in Holmes, Doc Savage et al. As ever, Castaneda is a useful comparison here. As Deleuze and Guattari establish, during the course of the Don Juan books we cease to believe in Don Juan as an actual biographical individual. Yet this in no way invalidates Yaqui sorcery. On the contrary. Unbelieving in Don Juan may well be an inherently important aspect of the initiation into Yaqui sorcery. The intensive regions Castaneda traverses, the allies and the enemies he encounters there, can only be experienced practically. Practice and unbelief are strongly related. Don't believe it, do it. Comments: Farmer's Syndrome (or why Sherlock Holmes is not hyperstitional) 128

lurCur: Sherlock may not be hyperstitional (although I have doubts, see below), but for an interestingly semi-hyperstitional use of Holmes, see ‘The Seven-Per-Cent Solution’, ‘Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H.Watson, as edited by Nicholas Meyer’ (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975). Here we find several protohyperstitional devices: i. Mimicking epistemological hierarchies in order to upset/smear them. In reading the book we come across the subversive use of footnotes as secret catalysers (cf. Spinoza): masquerading as sub- or metatheses transcendental-prophylactically disabled from real engagement with (making a difference to) the ‘master’ text, in fact they react directly upon this presupposed hierarchy. In this case the footnotes are (Nicholas Meyer’s (annotations to (a discovered text by (Watson about (an adventure of (Sherlock Holmes’)))))). Note that already the realityquotient index of the hierarchy is interestingly mottled rather than being a simple realunreal continuum) (nb. Of course SH already has this supposedly meta-authorial voice in place with Dr. Watson – this gives SH a specific machinic affinity with hyperfiction which Linda has perhaps dismissed too quickly? Also on this point we need to point out the thoroughly hyperstitional relationship between Holmes and London. A number of tourists turn up in London every year to be disabused of their wholesale belief in the reality of Holmes. Also recommend a visit to his rooms, beautifully preserved as a museum, in Baker Street.) In reading these footnotes, you’re compelled (a)to remind yourself that ‘this is not an episode in the real history of Sherlock Holmes’, a memo which of course has the perverse effect of reinforcing the reality of the ‘real sherlock holmes’; and (b)to remind yourself that the footnoter, although ‘real’ and ‘outside’ the story, is nonetheless ‘within’ the conceit of the novel (is the 'real' author's fiction of himself). The author, then, constantly combats our tendency to ‘outwit’ him by inducing stable hierarchies, precisely by creating further hierarchies thus activating a fallback position of relying upon things known and familiar, which in this case are fictional. A gap appears between that which has real-potency and that which is part of the ‘real world’ per se. ii. Introducing causal derangements (time-mockery) 129

Whilst in a delirious state at Freud’s house Holmes ‘babbled of oysters overrunning the world and similar nonsense’; Meyer, in a footnote, suggests that Holmes used this actual delirious episode as a model for ‘shamming delirium’ in a later (real?) Holmes adventure, ‘The Adventure of the Dying Detective’, ( ‘it would be interesting to learn the origin of the phobia’ (cf, of course, the appearance of Professor Challenger, also a Conan Doyle creation, together with lobsters, in GOM)). Hyperstitions seem to always be placed within linear time, like ATP dates. This is for what The Upsetter calls ‘comedy value’(noting the importance of the unseen cause in provoking laughter). Again this device employs the compulsion to favour causal links, the temptation of priority, in order to to infiltrate a series of real events. One realises the potency of the ‘real fictional’ Sherlock Holmes as against the new information one is being asked to process; i.e. one is faced with the intrinsically arbitrary nature of ‘belief’ (or, better, that reality-potency is not a function of belief but only of consistency). Having taken this on board, however, then one has to contend, as Watson and Holmes end up in Vienna, with Freud entering the scene! Real confusion here between the ‘fictional real fictional’ Holmes and the ‘fictionalised real’ Freud. What to make of the reader’s question ‘would Freud really have said that to Holmes’? At this point, the damage, such as it is, is done - the reader need not ‘believe in’ Meyer’s Watson, or Meyer’s Watson’s Holmes, to feel the effects. In this case rather trivial, and to be sure these tricks are the stock-in-trade of the pomo novelist; in Castaneda’s case rather more wide-reaching since he manages to upset, extremely slowly and carefully, an entire edifice of reality. Unfortunately, and this is the crux, ‘monkey-flake’ is wont to ‘digest’ this upset postfacto by making it once again into an epistemological formality – ah, he’s demonstrated to me something rather profound about fiction (the self-satisfied fauxaporia where pomostition always leaves things). So to these upsetting techniques we must necessarily add a discipline of consistency-engineering - which is undoubtedly the most difficult, least-discussed, least-successful element of the process, for which all the foregoing is mere preparation – and know where in the cycle to start this engine. From this point of view, isn’t the difference between Farmerian hyperfiction and hyperstition only one of subtlety, or slowness? Farmer’s Syndrome is the attempt to build an alternative universe in a day, something which is bound to backfire and fall back into the fiction/reality double-articulation given the huge investment everyone has in maintaining a reality? (In fact, is this difference in speed not in some way 130

constitutive of the diff. between reality-potency and belief? Belief being belief in a whole, intensity being 'partial' in every sense) Thus, an insinuating, slowly ratcheting process, essentially indistinguishable from a programme of intoxication (or detoxification, depending on your point of view). After all, it has millions of years of organic programming to deal with. Farmer’s hubris, on the other hand, is comparable to naïve statements such as ‘everything they tell you at school is just a lie’; which equates to a mere oppositional-realism rather than the more circumspect constructivist-unrealism of hyperstition, which has more respect for the white-powers-that-be: As Nietzsche might say, in order to destroy your enemy, it is necessary first to admire him. This all begs the question whether hyperstition as a deliberate tactic is too ponderous to be effective, whether it shadows too closely the production of reality (ie contemporary hyperstitions can only be a mere barnacle on the great whale of bourgeois reality-production); or if not, how to locate the shortcuts, or the locations where small fictions can gain leverage against huge lies? Linda Trent: A fascinating, informative post, which takes us right to the heart of hyperstition - or, more importantly, to its limits (where does hyperfiction end and hyperstition begin)? But I respectfully suggest that the features lur-cur enumerates are precisely qualities of hyperfiction rather than hyperstition. Naturally there are areas of crossover (hyperstition uses hyperfictional techniques), but I remain unconvinced that Holmes, even when hyperfictionalized by the likes of Meyer, ever becomes hyperstitional. The meta-authorial voice of Watson is all of a piece with many techniques in nineteenth centrury fiction, cf the implex of narrators in Wuthering Heights, the epistolary form of Frankenstein, the journal/ simulated recording form of Dracula (as analysed by Kittler). (As lur-cur identifies, postmodernist fiction often pursues these simulation techniques to the point of hyperbolic excess. ) I maintain that the difference between Farmer and Castenada is one of kind, not of degree. Farmer seeks to establish that Tarzan, Holmes et al can be treated as (if) real, without really challenging what being 'real' entails. (This is why the fact that many tourists 'believe' in Sherlock Holmes is not evidence that the character has become hyperstitional.) One important aspect of Castaneda's project is the delegitimating of 131

official reality. He doesn't try to persuade us that Don Juan is as real as, say, Richard Nixon. On the contrary, in many ways. Also, I would re-emphasise that the role of practice in Castaneda is crucial. Johneffay: One important aspect of Castenada's project is the delegitimating of official reality. He doesn't try to persuade us that Don Juan is as real as, say, Richard Nixon. So what exactly is he doing in the Introduction to The Teachings of Don Juan, when he describes his initial meeting with this person? I would respectfully suggest that you are engaging in a revisionist reading of this material prompted by Castenada being 'found out', as it were. There is no evidence in the initial texts that Castenada is trying to do anything than persuade us that Don Juan is as real, if not realler than, Richard Nixon. Castaneda might not believe it, but that's hardly the point. mark k-p Linda's surely right though John. It is necessary in the initial (or initiating) stages for us to 'believe' in Don Juan and for Castaneda to appear to solicit such belief; by the time we're Yaqui sorcerers such belief is not abandoned but is made irrelevant. We've been taken on a journey. Things have happened. It doesn't matter whether our guide is an actually existing biographical individual or not. He is certainly an Individual. This is unbelief. Castaneda being 'found out' = his being opened up for/ by hyperstition. The fact that the early texts were capable of eliciting belief (and therefore exposing the mechanics of belief-production) is as crucial as the fact that they were ultimately 'exposed'. johneffay: But that's my point! He does try to persuade us that Don Juan is as real as Richard Nixon. We will never be Yaqui [sic] sorcerers by following Casteneda because, Casteneda knows fuck-all about Yaqui sorcerers. Perhaps the fact that the New Testament was originally capable of eliciting belief, but is now being doubted in wider and wider circles crucially opens it up for hyperstition as well. We've been taken on a journey. Things have happened. It doesn't matter whether our guide is an actually existing biographical individual or not. He is certainly an Individual. I feel the same way about most works of literature. 132

I hope all this doesn't make me sound too huffy: These are genuine problems that I have with what you are doing, rather than some attempt to get involved in a flame war over approaches or personalities. Philip: I have to confess that from my current vantage point, which is admittedly not far past the starting blocks, I tend to side with John here. I hope this wont be taken the wrong way, as the suggestion is made purely out of well-meaning curiousity; but my first instinct upon reading this site and some of the Ccru writing is that the whole thing is a Hyperstition - a fictitious critical position that has made itself 'real'. mark k-p Philip my first instinct upon reading this site and some of the Ccru writing is that the whole thing is a Hyperstition - a fictitious critical position that has made itself 'real'. Well, precisely, good! John Perhaps the fact that the New Testament was originally capable of eliciting belief, but is now being doubted in wider and wider circles crucially opens it up for hyperstition as well. But surely you can see the difference? It really matters whether the NT is true or not, whether there really Jesus was resurrected in the flesh or not. It doesn't matter one jot whether Castaneda really met someone called Don Juan. Castaneda's sorcery (and he might not 'know anything about Yaqui sorcery' in some trivial academic sense, but he's certainly a sorcerer) works most intensely precisely when you have doubted the existence of DJ (and so much else besides, as D/G say). Christianity falls apart (or degenerates into some enfeebled postmodern shell) once the literal truth of Christ's life and resurrection is put into quesiton. Of course, Xianity, like all religions, exhibits hyperstitional dynamics. What stops religions being themselves hyperstitional is, precisely, that they must perforce deny the hyperstitional mechanics of their own emergence. As regards literature, if literature genuinely takes you on an intensive journey, outside the dominant operating system and its scanning patterns (rather than doing a survey 133

of the interior of the reality studio), then it's almost certainly acheived hyperstitional status. johneffay: It doesn't matter one jot whether Castenada really met someone called Don Juan. Not to you, perhaps but I know several practitioners of the 'the Yaqui way of knowledge' for whom the reality of Don Juan is a crucially important component of their belief system. Conversely, a quick Net search will yield up loads of groups for whom the New Testament is some kind of allegory rather than a literal truth. This might well be a degeneration into some enfeebled pomo shell, but my 'Yaqui' chums would say exactly the same thing about your position regarding Castaneda. My basic point, which might well be getting lost here, is that, given that Castaneda deliberately elicits belief, I cannot see him as a model practitioner of hyperstition, when compared to Sherlock Holmes, for all the reasons that lurCur raised. Linda might well be right about Farmer's treatment (which I haven't read, but will do as it sounds hilarious), but that doesn't invalidate the fact that Homes has bled out into the real world. mark k-p I have to say, the word 'hyperstition' is being used in a way absolutely contrary to my understanding of it if Sherlock Holmes is being held up as exemplary of it as opposed to Castenada. Lur-cur establishes very well that Sherlock is hyperfictional, sure, but really, there isn't that much difference between Doyle and Walter Scott (who interpolated his fictional characters into real historical events and vice versa). Most of the features Lur-Cur enumerates were well-established techniques in 19C fiction. The fact that there are authoritarian dupes who want to turn Castaneda's hyperstition into a religion is all-too predictable but this shouldn't distract from the fundamental difference between Castaneda's strategy and that of Christianity. I'm not suggesting that the DJ books are an allegory. That would be as bad as saying that they really happened. They are intensive cartographies, sorcerous kits. If Christians admitted that the NT was an intensive cartography, then we'd be getting somewhere. Do read Farmer's treatment, it's everything Linda says, and also, yeh, fucking hilarious... 134

Linda Trent: Let me put a question to John and Lur: do they think there is any difference at all between hyperfiction and hyperstition? If so, what is it? johneffay: I assume that Hyperfiction would be merely linked to interpolating fictional characters into the 'real world' (whatever Farmer is up to). It may also have the result of causing belief in the reality of fictional characters, but this isn't important to you. Hyperstition, on the other hand, would have the added element of some kind of strategic take-up above and beyond that (people wandering around applying Holmes' methodology). This would also be linked to your concept of unbelief, where belief doesn't matter so long affects are generated. I base this upon your holding up Lovecraft as an archetypal practioner of hyperstition. If the above is even vaguely accurate, I simply cannot see why Casteneda is held held up as exemplary as, I say again, he deliberately elicits belief. This is evident in the interviews which Mark linked to above. How can he be hyperstitional if he does this? I agree that there might be hyperstitional uses for this material, but that would be in spite of, rather than because of, anything that Castaneda is up to. As I said previously, the Sherlock Holmes stories have caused large numbers of readers to employ the methodology of a 'science of deduction' which, unknown to them, is in fact based upon induction. This seems eminently hyperstitional to me. Of course the concept belongs to you guys, so I might well be completely wrong. I just have the sneking suspicion that the reason we're disagreeing is that you find sorcerers sexier than detectives... mark k-p Well, the concept doesn't 'belong' to anyone, but it does have its own consistency which we're beginning to map, and your questions are incredibly useful in that process. They're really helping me articulate aspects of the concept that are implicitly assumed by us but which really need to be spelled out. It occured to me last night - and this partly comes out of the literature/ hyperstition distinction - that the crucial hyperstitional dimension that Lovecraft and Castaneda share which Doyle lacks is 'the passage to the Outside'. Holmes is firmly on the side of the empirical, the ecumenal, the phenomenal (hence his induction). In this respect, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' is exemplary, with its refutation of the supernatural and its resolution into the Todorov-'uncanny'. By contrast, tere is a genuinely 135

transcendental dimension to Castaneda and Lovecraft, who always describe - and seek to open up - thresholds to the Outside. Their books are such thresholds. I think the Castaneda situation is much more complex than you're suggesting. For one thing, Castaneda's intentions are neither here nor there (surely if poststructuralism did one thing, it was to put the notion of intentions to bed). But, more importantly, of course it's important for Castaneda to maintain, in interviews, that Don Juan was genuine. Of course he has to elicit belief in the first stages of the process. The game would be up if he said, 'It's a fair cop, I made DJ up.' As soon as he said that, he would no longer be engaging in hyperstition. The issue of belief has to be initially undecidable, or else how will people ever come to question the mechanics of belief itself (which is absolutely crucial to the hyperstitional process)? On detectives and sorcerers: well, both have a Gothic lineage, with Poe inventing the Holmes template with Dupin. It's no accident, though, that detectives have a relationship to the police and that they tend to be engaged in extirpating the Outside rather than opening it up. Philip: Mark - what you're arguing above seems to me to have a rather troublesome gap in it; namely that you treat 'the Outside' as if it were unequivocally 'real', something I can't go along with. This notion of an 'Outside' is fictional (it may even be hyperstitional, I'm not sure), in which case the notion of defining hyperstitional 'reality' using a fictional device means the whole program must fall foul of Godel. So far all I have seen is that hyperstitions are fictions which are successful at making themselves SEEM real, which strikes me as several orders of magnitude less controversial. Feel free though to tell me if I'm missing the point; as I said, I'm just following this debate as it develops here. mark k-p Well, Philip, if I may so, I think you are missing the point, but your question raises lots of interesting issues. Many of these connect to Kant! :-) First of all, what is the difference between 'seeming real' and 'being real'? The whole postmodern discussion of 'simulation', while apparently hackneyed, actually has real bite . Ultimately, this has its origins in the postwar development of cybernetic technologies which could function as if real. If (a la the Turing test), for instance, something can function as a human, it _is_ a human. 136

Another example. Take money. Does that just 'seem' real or is it real? Secondly , if there is a difference between something seeming real and being real, it is exactly the difference between Holmes (who is believed to be real, is thought of as real) and Castaneda's Don Juan (who functions as real). This is partly to do with practices: you can follow what DJ says, whatever his ontological status. This leads on to the third, and most important, point: the reality of the Outside. There are lots of ways into this, but let's start with Kant. Apologies if you're familiar with Kant (and apologies to many of the other readers who know Kant better than me and will no doubt see this pathetically inadequate attempt to summarise for what it is). Kant established the difference between the phenomenal (i.e. how the world appears to us) and the noumenal (how the world really is). There are in other words two levels of reality. The phenomenal is all we can experience as human beings. Kant's view was that, in order to perceive or experience anything we had to impose a perceptual and conceptual grid on the world (much like the way in which in order to read a disc, a computer has to format it). This grid first of all involves space and time. Now Kant's point was that space and time, whilst presupposed in all our experiences of the world, may not actually be there in the Real. The very fact that we have to presuppose them means it is impossible to say. All of this is by way of saying that, from a Kantian point of view, the Outside is, as it were, more real. This is precisely the intuition that Lovecraft's fiction vigorously pursues. If there was a single (philosophical?) point to HPL's stories, it was to critique the anthropomorphic equation of reality with the limits of human experience. Hence all of his major stories involve disruptions at the most basic level of the human operating system, with time and space distortions a recurring preoccupation. Castaneda, too, insists on the reality of the Outside. It is, in the title of one of the DJ books, a separate reality. Getting to the Outside is, Castaneda urges, a matter of moving beyond the human screens to make Contact with the world. The techniques for getting there may be fictional, but the Outside is most definitely real. 137

Philip: I can see where your response is coming from Mark, but my problem with Kantian reality has always been its irrefutability. As you point out, the fact that we are anchored in this compromised reality means that we can never discount the existence of an 'outside' reality, shorn of the indignity of individual perception; even if we can't experience it. Ultimately though, if something exists, but I have no idea what it looks like, what it feels like, or how it interacts with me, does it even exist? Look at it as the reverse of your claim about something 'seeming' real, 'being' real. If something 'seems' like it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist. mark k-p But this is where Castaneda and Lovecraft differ from Kant: they say that the Outside can and does get in. And we can get to It. Even if, as it were, we are no longer us when we get there. Again, it is not a question of 'seeming' but of 'doing'. The issue is not an epistemological but a practical one. Or rather, it reveals the extent to which all epistemologies, all beliefs, are contingent upon practices. Philip: But if both the practice and the destination are ultimately fictitious, I still believe it falls prey to Godel; it requires too many nods and winks on the part of the reader/critic/sorcerer/detective to believe/unbelieve this. To put it in rather crass terms; I just don't feel it at the moment. I can see how nicely the brickwork fits together, but I still think there's a huge space where the foundations ought to be. mark k-p If both the practice and the destination are ultimately fictitious But they're not. What's a fictitious practice any how? Hyperstition shows that this reality, ecumenon, is a 'fiction'... there's a huge space where the foundations ought to be. Welcome to abgrund. Radical immanence. Can you explain your Godel point to me? On the most banal level: think about drugs (psychotropics). Don't they demonstrate that the Dominant Operating System (= consensual reality) is just one scanning system? Or VR. 138

dog@space: It seems to me that there is a simple and deep question here, partly touched upon by mark in terms of epistemology and practise. It would be foolhardy to believe in Castaneda's surface level assesrtions. the real test comes in terms of one's criteria for selection. philosophies all seek to answer something (or ask better questions... yadda yadda, i know this could go on), what they suggest are endless abstracted possibilities in constructing models of the world (cosmos) and its forces. But how many of those are actually written as delineations of intensive dynamics (affect)? as diagrams or models bearing incontestable relevance to the human conditions of enslavement to fixated reality construction (subjectification), power, clarity, the fade out to death etc. whether they be hyperstitional or not, whether you believe them or not, the fact that they stand as possibilities (already bleeding through different virtual / actual configurations of the concrete i,.e, was it real? where does DJ exist? on paper? as an intensity? what do you expect? what do you think spaces within spaces are?) on the map of maps through which you may choose to be advised on your movements means that you have a choice... to render some of the practise (be it drugs (often explicitly advised as unnecessary), be it recapitualtion, be it finding every possible angle for disrupting your ingrained habits etc.) then it is by your 'verification by flight' (Miller) that you will know whether it was worth maintaining an account based on CC or not... or whether some other 'utterly believable' cod faced cretin will have done it for you... if this be hyperstition, then fine... (but the whole thing of arguing over categories really does make my face puke) Nick Land: If I'm understanding Mark's point about the Outside it seems a real step forward - accept Sherlock Holmes onto the 'plane of reality' and everything is exactly as Oecumenic rationality has always said, only more so. Do the same with Lovecraft (or Casteneda, or Vallee, or Streiber ...) and the familiar 'glosses' (superb vocab. addition this) disintegrate into pestilential slime. Hyperstition proposes that its patently deranged 'fictions' are no less real than things whose reality you are entirely confident about. 139

Reza Negarestani: Sorry I’m posting this comment via a third party ... I’m out of town and have no internet connection at the moment; so this is not a proper answer: Yes, Nick, this also returns to our first discussion on the Hyperstition blog following Linda’s post (How do fictions become hyperstitions?). One of the problems about Sherlock Holmes, his forerunners and descendants is that they merely reprogram their functioning ‘ground’ wherever they go, the process of reprogramming merely changes according to 'affordance-based' or ‘economical' openness to the outside; their transmission to the outside is always accompanied by their grund of functioning, interactions and politics so actually there is no interlocking with the Outside but merely transporting the grund that means colonizing new territories, conquering and forging new grounds, expanding their empire. Every anomaly that occurs on this ground or through its transportation and its lines of pseudo-flux creatively irrigates the ground, makes it more fertile, seals its political development. In the case of Lovecraft, Ibn Maymun and Castaneda things are different when something “leaks out” (Sutter Cane): epidemic tempests unfold and leave nothing untainted or immaculate. A Meltdown between the Outside and everything else emerges “from within and without” (Don’t mistake it for pro-survivalist postapocalyptic scenarios [Terminator 3] in which survival is reprogrammed, promoted and intensified). And as Nick previously suggested in another post, the meltdown spontaneously develops its own contagious interchanging lines of Virtual and Actual, all running as hyperstition vortices; they are irreversibly ungrounded and terribly malevolent to any subject which tries to keep its last possessions (Possession?). Now, every appropriation, consolidating process or repression (ex. Sutter Cane: “I am a God now”) that sparkles in this meltdown and its Virtual / Actual spirals or contagious Unground is a camouflaged operative (a ready-to-swallow Hyperstitional Vortex) which enriches the mess, feeding it to vomit more Mess (it is messing with the mess). On Philp’s discussion about the Outside: if you tell this to Drujies or cult-less followers of Druj (ancient Zoroastrian renegades) they have a ready and practical answer: Try to be secured and closed as far as you can on all sides, leave no hole unfilled, no wall un-erected and no door open. Then watch and see (of course, if you can) how the Outside really is, how it eats your (it’s not to you but all of us) economical openness and its subjective environment, giving a new dimension to openness: openness as radical butchery. The Outside fuses with the Insider and the hunt begins. 140

Unfortunately, I can’t answer any follow-up to this comment until next week. mark k-p Nick, yeh: I think the role of the Outside has always been implicit in our understanding of hyperstition (what is sorcery if not an opening to the Outside), but it's been forced into the open by Lur, John and Philip's excellent observations and questions, a process which amply demonstrates how productive this blog is at the moment. Linda's post and her response to R.. er Lur have made me think much more rigorously about the relationship between hyperstition and hyperfiction. I hadn't exactly elided them before, but I wasn't sufficiently clear and what the differences between them were. Perhaps we've overly stressed the 'becoming real' of hyperstitions; or rather, we've not recognized the extent to which a hyperstition's 'realisation' must perforce involve a 'de-realization' (pending a better term) of the Dominant Operating System. Cf Mouth of Madness, the model as always. Isn't the constant threat of insanity in Lovecraft to do with this? Philip: Mark, my point about Godel is that at the moment, I can only see hyperstition, the 'outside' and sorcery as emanations of an admittedly potent fiction... As I picture the relationship (bear with me while I attempt what might be a slightly clumsy visualisation) all these possibilities are still contained with the membrane of 'fiction' - i.e that which can be held to be real and not real at the same time (have there been discussions about fiction not as becoming reality, but to borrow from Heisenberg, having the quality of both real and not real at the same time?)... Anyway, this is all terribly expressed, but in short, I resorted to Godel's incompleteness theorem, as it struck me that a 'fiction' of the outside was being used to assert that another 'fiction' - hyperstition - was 'real'. One of the things I find most interesting about all this is the apparent refusal of hyperstition to accredit 'realness' to everything. Initially I imagined uncharitably that it might just be a reflex pomo statement that 'everything imaginable is real', but the fact that it isn't is if anything even more troubling to decode. Apologies for the incomprehensibility of the above. I do have mitigating circustmances, but it always sounds pathetic to list them, so I'll endeavour to explain further if any clarification is required. 141

Linda Trent: Philip, Your comments are very valuable and are appreciated by me and I am sure other readers too. I must, however, reinforce what Mark is saying: the Outside is not fictional. At least, not in the sense of being 'unreal'. The distinction between hypersition and postmodernity is an important one, but while there is a certain amount of crossover between hyperfiction and PoMo, it wouldn't be too extreme to say that hyperstition and PoMo are diametrically opposed. I am preparing some material on this, but in the meantime I suggest you read Ccru's essay on Burroughs, if you haven't already. This eloquently identifies that, while postmodernity emphasises the dimunition of the 'real', hyperstition insists, very much to the contrary, that, in a sense, everything is real. But there are different degrees of realization. You won't 'get' hypersition until you accept that the Outside is more real than you (and me). It's so real you don't need to believe in it. It's so real you can't disbelieve it. Philip: Linda, an 'outside' so real I am incapable of disbelieving in it, sounds uncomfortably like an article of faith. Especially as I am not convinced of the grafting of Lovecraftian 'leaking' onto the rather more sedate Kantian 'Outside', which we must reconcile ourselves to never actually 'seeing'. mark k-p Philip, yes this is the nub really: Kant versus Lovecraft/ Castaneda/ Burroughs. Lovecraft's is transcendental horror: the paradoxical encounter with what is beyond the limits of possible experience. Thing is: who or what is doing the encountering? Transcendental Events are very far from being articles of faith, though. Nick, Linda, isn't it time we brought Templeton into this? LurCur: nb.For the benefit of m…er, linda , and others who may be disadvantaged by an investment in designatory protocols centering on male-germline property transmission: LurCur is not a fore-sur-name co-ordinate, but an atomic entitydesignating token (nummoid). Hope that’s clear now. Although I'd echo JohnEffay’s assurances that there is no concerted attempt here to demolish hyperstition, if we’re to solidify the exciting-but-vague nature of the concept we need to critique it mercilessly. Because it's necessary to resist a purely contentdriven definition (Hyperstition only includes the stuff that a cadre of initiates happens 142

to think are cool) just as much as a purely abstract theoretically-driven definition (hyperstition as a theory ‘about reality’ or something equally (un)hideous). Whilst the former would render HS at best a ‘style’, the latter would make it actually a delibidinizing, metamonitoring apparatus. There is some slippage at the moment between content-driven satanic noumenal scenarios, philosophical analytics, and the idea of there being pragmatic, hyperstitional ‘practices’, and I’ve an idea that we need to understand the relation between the first two things to get to the third. How to arrive at a specific machinic definition of what it is that Hyperstition designates? I’ve put together a few , very tentative propositions below. Hope it is of some help ;) But firstly, the question of belief should be dropped altogether. Belief is just to do with what someone says when you ask them about what they believe – ie it is an postfacto device to explain in terms of selfhood and linear causation, why they exhibit certain behaviours, rather than an actual determining factor in those behaviours. Isn’t a ‘belief ‘ just a reassuring way of designating a complex of response-triggers that are not amenable to the interference of conscious intention, ie an excuse for automatism or possession? Proposition I: The reality of an entity is a matter of consistency. Already established, really. To the extent that a number of people consistently act in such a way as to suggest an unseen entity, then we are forced to accept the reality of that entity. It makes no difference whether they tell us they believe in it. Now, we need to break outside of literature and think instead about marketing/hype = investing a commodity with the signs of certain circuits of desire in order that the commodity actually enter those circuits. Creating ‘empty’ signs that are intense enough to occlude their lack of referent, so as to create that referent. One literally hopes, by saying something is desirable, to make it so. In one sense this is closer to sorcery than fiction is, because fiction has lost the aspiration to this direct realisation: Fiction may try to realise a certain world views or certain desires _by way of-_ a story (allegory, subtext), and hyperfiction builds on these efforts by using hooks into the external world. But it’s basically a degraded form of magic; the use of aspirational stories in advertising is far closer to the hyperstitional source (this is a separate point from any judgment on the banal use to which the techniques are put). 143

Proposition II : Hyperstition is characterised by an identity of, confusion between, or looping of product and producer Very important. The signs designating a real entity ‘call’ that entity, which then turns out to be the ‘cause’ or referent of the signs (ie veves and dances in vodou), Reality amplification. It’s arguable that although a Sherlock Holmes book brings something real (a communal holmes-belief-complex-entity, if you like) into existence, it does not literally make holmes or holmesian deduction immediately effectual in a way that would explain why Doyle wrote the book, or at least only in an extremely weak and indirect sense. Proposition III: persons, characters (and their authors) in hyperstition are always ciphers, gates, callsigns, carriers. If we take as the ‘subject’ of Castaneda’s books, not Don Juan, but a series of forces and practices, it literally makes them real, makes them effectual; and eventually it is evident that these forces/concepts not only envelope the author and the reader, but are the cause of the writing itself. We can say the book is entirely ‘true’ without making any appeal to historical verisimilitude, ie it is its own justification. It’s obvious that we need to distinguish here between something ‘making itself real’ and something merely having some effect in reality, as all fictions, no matter how weak, must do (or else we wouldn’t even perceive their existence!). The phrase ‘X makes itself real’ designates a specific procedure and says something more significant about X than that it has persistent real effects. Streiber, or rather alien abductees collectively, are interesting examples, because of the issue of consistency (geographically and over time). No matter what conceptual apparatus you use to ‘explain’ their experiences, there is a residuum, an irreducible strange, disturbing force is at work whether you choose to locate it in the collective unconscious or in outer space (indeed, many pseudo psychoanalytical ‘explanations’ only help in making the whole thing more terrifying!). Jim Schnabel’s book ‘Dark White’ is excellent on this. Proposition IV: Hyperstitional entities are indifferent to, modalities of explanation. 144

This then leads on to the key point of degrees of realization, which enables us to sort out the apparent contradiction between the ‘different levels’ and ‘different type’ conundrum about hyperfiction and hyperstition. it is exactly the difference between Holmes (who is believed to be real, is thought of as real) and Castaneda's Don Juan (who functions as real). I still find this too vague to be workable –in what way is holmes not also ‘functional’ - however trivial a function it may be (that is to say, any disdain for him/his effects on ‘reality’ is irrelevant here, unless we’re to fall into a content-driven definition). I think that arguments about whether things ‘work’ in this vague sense may in fact be arguments about things being more or less _real_ than each other. Fiction is something which, whilst operating in the same sphere as hyperstition, is self-limiting as to its potential degree of realisation. By labelling itself as fiction and using as its major devices more-or-less ‘real life’ persons and situations, it limits their realisation to a ghostly existence (as recognisable, collectively-understood images, but with little power or force). Isn’t this the reason behind Castaneda’s adoption of factoid ‘anthropology’? (I was 15 at the time but I certainly had the experience of sliding from total conviction in the reality of Don Juan to a very compelling state of ‘unreality’). And Lovecraft, doesn’t he write fiction? Well, Lovecraft redeems himself by the fact that his stories too are not about people but about abstract forces; forces of darkness, forces of fear and disintegration, forces of doubt, forces of the outside. These forces, being already virtual and abstract, have far more potential for jumping the gap than fictional characters. After reading ‘The Rats in the Walls’, one is unlikely to believe in Brown Jenkin, but is haunted by the possibilities of the fourth dimension and what lurks there. And isn’t this, with both Castaneda and Lovecraft, how the outside comes in – via doubt, fear, anxiety, feelings of ungroundedness? The sudden realisation of the transcendental, ie noumena-terror, fear of the outside. Proposition V : Hyperstition acts as a reality(intensity)- amplifier ; triggers deposited inside fictions that activate demonic-becomings on contact. In Lovecraft’s historical survey of weird fiction, ‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’ (Dover, 1973) he specifically seeks to distance his work from mere ‘horror’ or ‘fantasy’ fiction by insisting on the importance of these cosmic forces (‘the spectrally macabre’, 145

‘the literature of cosmic fear’); it’s worth quoting extensively since it also clearly demonstrates the importance of the ‘outside’: ‘There is here involved psychological pattern or tradition as real and as deeply grounded in mental experience as any other pattern or tradition of mankind; coeval with the religious feeling and closely related to many aspects of it, and too much a part of our innermost biological heritage to lose keen potency over a very important, though not numerically great, minority of our species’…’there is an actual physiological fixation of the old instincts in our nervous tissue, which would make them obscurely operative ever were the conscious mind to be purged of all sources of wonder.’…’Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.’…’there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain – a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space’ (this last sentence could almost have come from Kant in one of his moods when he enthusiastically tells you about all the nasty things that could happen if not for... – have planned for some time a study of Kant & Lovecraft, it should be done!) …‘The one test of the really weird is simply this – whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the know universe’s utmost rim’[ continues ;) ] Here we are right at the heart of the matter : Lovecraft clearly demonstrates the radical immanence of signs and the real (linda rightly points out simulation as a key concept here). Proposition VI: These ‘triggers’ (see Prop.V) are signs and groups of signs that directly effectuate physiological (archaeopsychic) excitations. This is a controversial proposition, but if it seems we are in danger of sinking back into a content-driven definition here, let’s point out that Lovecraftian horror shares this feature with the less-gothic spheres of propaganda, pornography and advertising 146

(commercials use certain sign-techniques to tell a story ‘about’ a state of mind that if successful invokes that very state of mind). Lovecraft’s test for the quality of a ‘weird tale’ could equally be imagined coming from the mouth of an adman or porn director: ‘The final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a sensation’. In other words, hyperstition doesn’t seek out these archaeopsychic sources because they seem sorta cool, but because as material bases of the transcendental unconscious they are _the_ sources of energy. Advertising and pornography, of course, leech off these energies into capital, whereas hyperstition seeks only to accelerate them until they overwhelm their labyrinthine imprisonment in the closed circuits of ‘personhood’. These material bases, of course, are indeed ‘the noumenal’, the outside. Note how acute is Lovecraft’s understanding of this: he immediately stresses the direct connection between ‘fiction’, biological heritage, and physiology. Note also how even the most supposedly detached, discursive (ie non-fictional) examination of Lovecraft’s writing leaks into an invocation of the very same forces that his fiction describes (this is partly a function of his style, of course; never use one adjective when seventeen will do!). Also how he cites these forces as the drive _behind_ the fiction, rather than as creations _of_ the fiction (‘….It has always existed, and always will exist, and no better evidence of its tenacious vigour can be cited than the impulse which now and then drives writers of totally opposite leanings to try their hands at it in isolated tales..’) These forces are something that passes through the writer _and_ his creation, use him as a tool for amplification. Proposition VII: A certain confusion between effects and causes is proper to Hyperstition. Here we’re really beginning to succeed in paring it off from fiction; whereas with Holmes, the impulse to write, the subject of the writing, and the realities which it produces, have a fairly arbitrary, determinate relationship, with Lovecraft these three things are part of a circuit of excitation, desire and production (desiring-production) (interestingly one can say the same, in a fairly precise sense, about Kant). Again, Hyperstition is only ever apparently concerned with authors, plots, characters, and stories; it parasitically uses the fiction form to transmit something else – or better, Hyperstition designates the use of the fiction form to promulgate noumenal excitations. 147

But perhaps hyperstition should not be limited to textual forms; could we think of abstract, sample-based music as voodoo/hyperstition in its purest form; abstract sonic phenomena as the writings/signs of an impossibly dismembered reality which, triggering intensified physiological responses, immediately make themselves real? Nick Land: an 'outside' so real I am incapable of disbelieving in it, sounds uncomfortably like an article of faith - Philip Surely the exact opposite, when disbelief is impossible faith is comprehensively dispelled. mark k-p LurCur's post is obviously excellent. I think things are really tightening up here. Just two points I'd like to pick up on for the moment: 1. the question of belief should be dropped altogether. Belief is just to do with what someone says when you ask them about what they believe – ie it is an post-facto device to explain in terms of selfhood and linear causation, why they exhibit certain behaviours, rather than an actual determining factor in those behaviours. Isn’t a ‘belief ‘ just a reassuring way of designating a complex of response-triggers that are not amenable to the interference of conscious intention, ie an excuse for automatism or possession? I think this is moving too fast. What LurCur says about belief is IMHO 100% accurate - but is already as it were a hyperstitional take on belief, something that has to be 'attained' by passing through the hyperstitional initiation. As LurCur's own example of Castaneda and anthropology shows: it is not as if Castenada was just performing a fraud. As both Linda and I have tried to insist to Johneffay, it is crucial that, in the first instance, DJ be 'believable.' What's interesting about this is the contrast with Lovecraft, who starts from a position of initial 'unbelievability' but ends up in unbelief. 2. it is exactly the difference between Holmes (who is believed to be real, is thought of as real) and Castaneda's Don Juan (who functions as real). I still find this too vague to be workable 148

Maybe as stated this is too vague, but I think the point was simply the one that LurCur was making, i.e. Holmes' reality (or not) is solely a question of epistemology or belief, whereas DJ's reality is a question of something that happens to you/ the reader in spite of your conscious beliefs. On Kant and Lovecraft: I started my Horror course at Middlesex with a quote from Kant and a quote from HPL and asked the students to guess which was the one from a 19C philosopher and which from the 20C pulp novelist. Good point on voodoo, but isn't voodoo itself dependent on verbal triggers and systematicity? Sample-based music is just too lacking in this systematicity to be effectively hyperstitional isn't it? btw: I wish someone had told Orphan Drift sorcerers were 'sexy'; they thought they were the naffest things ever! Posted by mark at July 22, 2004 11:40 AM LurCur: Apologies for the somewhat confused nature of the previous post, but it seems things are becoming clearer... it is crucial that, in the first instance, DJ be 'believable.' still, isn't that just to say that DJ/his actions must be consistent and effectual? Don't we need to stop interpreting 'belief' as a significantly-decisive operation distinct from the smooth running of a consistent circuitry? For instance, it's not crucial for a teenager to believe - even initially - in Sonic-the-Hedgehog-as-'person' to get locked into playing the game, in fact the operative circuits are so strong that after a short period all need for narrative superstructure is forgotten (this why intricately-plotted narrative videogames are utterly awful and uncompelling). Stories and characters are just disguises (that in a literary context, they persist for longer after doing their job is merely a technological factor). I find 'compelling' and compulsion a more apt register than 'believable' and belief. However it may be that part of the hyperstitional process is to play certain tricks that make all of this explicitly evident to the 'reader'...I'm not yet sure whether this metalevel of transcendental-epistemological realisation is necessary or constitutive of HS, or whether it's just part of a metahyperstitional discourse. 149

What's interesting about this is the contrast with Lovecraft, who starts from a position of initial 'unbelievability' but ends up in unbelief. I agree that examining these two 'opposed' approaches is key - Isn't there something about exactly this point somewhere in the archives, perhaps you can cut and paste here? i.e. Holmes' reality (or not) is solely a question of epistemology or belief, whereas DJ's reality is a question of something that happens to you/ the reader in spite of your conscious beliefs. Isn't it that DJ is a carrier for forces and practices which cannot not be believed in, because they are effectual - DJ as a 'person' is no more or less real than Holmes except insofar as he 'embodies' these forces, which make the fiction of his existence more potent. Holmes, on the other hand, is clearly a 'pretend person' in a far less interesting sense. >Good point on voodoo, but isn't voodoo itself >dependent on verbal triggers and systematicity? >Sample-based music is just too lacking in this >systematicity to be effectively hyperstitional >isn't it? This is far too rich a point to forget about altogether, but maybe too much of an autonomouse issue to pursue here. What I would say is that where such 'musics' are immediately effective, I would assume that this is due to some level of systematicity (ie a robust interlock between sonic sign-systems and physiology ie rhythm); a productive way to think about it is that there are sonic fictions (ie blur's 'ParkLife') which need to be distinguished from sonic hyperstitions (ie any truly dread D&B; track) in the same way as Lovecraft from Holmes, ie something to do with this realityamplification and product/producer identity. Philip: Nick, faith would only be dispelled if disbelief had been comprehensively eradicated. In this context I don't see that it has; accepting the existence of the 'Outside' still looks to me like a leap of faith, rather than an empirical article. mark k-p Lur, I didn't think yr last post was confused. It was a model of clarity (though not in the bad, Castaneda sense of clarity, natch!). I think it reallly helped bring things into focus. The belief question seems to me worth holding onto. It's so integral to the Mouth of Madness, where Trent starts off 'disbelieving' in Hobbs End then tries to believe in it ('It's not reality' 'It's reality') before short-circuting out into unbelief. 150

I agree that examining these two 'opposed' approaches is key - Isn't there something about exactly this point somewhere in the archives, perhaps you can cut and paste here? Not sure where that is; perhaps N and A could help if you're a bit more spectific. I've lost all my archives, remember! As you say, the music point is a massive one. Systematicity is definitely something to hold onto, though. Philip, I think much of what Lur-Cur says answers your points. Take the Sonic the Hedgehog thing: you don't believe in it, but 'disbelief' is 'eradicated' by playing it. Similarly, I think yr looking at the Outside from too epistemological/ philosophical/ contemplational a POV. Only a practical contact with the Outside will dispel this. Obv this is not 'an empirical article' because the empirical belongs to the Inside, to what is experiencable by a subject. Woodsie: Hyperstition only includes the stuff that a cadre of initiates happens to think are cool Good to know you are a veteran! Very important. The signs designating a real entity 'call' that entity, which then turns out to be the 'cause' or referent of the signs (ie veves and dances in vodou), Reality amplification. and Lovecraft clearly demonstrates the radical immanence of signs and the real (linda rightly points out simulation as a key concept here). or These ‘triggers’ (see Prop.V) are signs and groups of signs that directly effectuate physiological (archaeopsychic) excitations. Why Signs? How do you easily envelop the whole discussion in signs and their associated excitations? There should be a long story behind it. Don’t you think you have fallen into a postmodern psycho-semiotic trap, which led you to solid formulization of hyperstition, before posing these questions? 151

johneffay: Lots of interesting stuff which, unfortunately, I don't currently have the time to respond to in detail. Just two points: 1. Mark's post on the Outside cleared up several issues for me. I had assumed that the opening to the Outside was an adjunct rather than central to hyperstition, which I had pictured simply as an affect producing series of machinic processes. Given this, I'm happy to concede that Casteneda is more hyperstitional than Conan Doyle. However, I wonder if this stress on the Outside doesn't lead to teleology and whether or not this is a problem for you. Should sorcerers have a goal? 2. I agree with LurCur about belief; I just don't see it doing anything useful. As both Linda and I have tried to insist to Johneffay, it is crucial that, in the first instance, DJ be 'believable.' Only if you want to set up the Church of Carlos Casteneda or whatever. I would suggest that Crowley (prior to all the Aiwas nonsense)would be a better model, in that you do the rituals and act as if you believe them in order to see what happens. At no point do you make the error of true belief. mark k-p Woodsie, The signs thing is obviously important, but part of the ccru project from way back (following on from D/G) is to do a materialist semiotics. Why should signs be PoMo? The problem with PoMo (or one of the many problems with it) is that it collapses everything into (dematerialized) signs. The D/G/ccru approach makes a distinction between signs and (the rest of) reality. Signs = materially effective triggers, components in a circuitry. John yes well your questions were enormously helpful in making explicit what had previously been implicit. Still think you're moving too quickly on belief. You're already assuming a hyperstitional take on the question, when that is something that needs to be attained. I think belief is something that has to be 'gone through' as it were. Could you elaborate on Crowley a little? 152

on the teleology thing - not especially worried by teleology in this context but I shd have thought that the relationship between sorcerers and the outside was tautological rather than teleological, i.e. a woodcutter is she who cuts wood, a sorcerer is she who makes contact with the Outside. Woodsie: The signs thing is obviously important, but part of the ccru project from way back (following on from D/G) is to do a materialist semiotics. Why should signs be PoMo? The problem with PoMo (or one of the many problems with it) is that it collapses everything into (dematerialized) signs. The D/G/ccru approach makes a distinction between signs and (the rest of) reality. Signs = materially effective triggers, components in a circuitry. Still doubtful, pomo semiotics also claims so. What LurCur applied to his propositions looks closer to dematerialized semiotics. sorry but adding the phrase ‘materially effective triggers’ doesn’t convince me that he is not really posing his questions on a pomo semiotic kingdom constructed upon fatally seismologic signifying signs which reduce the stratification to productions of significations and trigger expressions rather than inspiring the potentials to emerge spontaneously. Once you enter the realm of signs it’s hard to discriminate dematerialized signs from signs as materially effective triggers. Pomo semiotics has understood it well despite all its silliness and that’s probably what gives postmodernity a great but negatively absurd maneuverability. You are insisting on ‘triggers’. Could you clarify what do you mean by triggers? Trigger as an activation code for something potential or what? How do triggers function? Where do they function? LurCur: you do the rituals and act as if you believe them in order to see what happens. At no point do you make the error of true belief. 'As If'...this is a massively important point, which firms up the issue of simulation; Kant's regulative ideas work like this - one must act 'as if' certain things were true in order to remain sane. Any nietzschean (that is to say, rigorous) application of critique must in turn question this motive, opening the way to the possibility that by acting 'as if' other things are true, another set of possibilities for experience may be constituted (unlikely, perhaps, but not impossible). It's important to consider that any 'system of reality' has a certain amount of inconsistency (yes, it's Godel again); the regulative principles plug that gap. 153

Hyperstition's job is both to open it up again, and to experimentally institute different regimes of simulation or 'as if'. The 'signs' then are the propositions of the 'as if', the invitation to participate in simulatory practices. This is demonstrably the case with the 'signs' that constitute Castaneda or Lovecraft's writing (and the 'as if' factor shows why belief is not an issue, rather this is to do with playing games which may or may not prove compelling belief isn't needed, indeed one might start play grudgingly). The 'material effectuation' happens when the simulatory practices/games/trafficking systems (cf the semantic complex current, currency, counter etc.) are consistent enough, and resonate with archaopsychic/physiological/nervous systems in such a way as to effect an actual change in the transcendental points of reference, a change in the structure of experience. The signs, characters, plots, concepts, invite us to play at something. If the game is compelling enough, it becomes clear that the invitation came from the game itself. Things happen before they make sense. Reverse causality is the only way to understand it if we try to lever it back into a pseudo-Kantian schema - becuase causality is our attempt to order events in terms of the procedural unfolding of implicated sense, or from greater levels of realisation to lesser. In the case of realityamplification, or positive feedback this unfolding is demonstrably inverted (why? precisely because one is not behaving 'as if' it couldn't be so). The late undercurrent's work on Francis Bacon gives a specific example of this process. An additional thought on 'glosses' - this agrees with some neuro/psychologists who believe that 'the few items which catch our attention in a scene are directly sensed while everything else consists of nothing but the knowledge that it is there'. If this is true then the terms of the Kantian equation are reversed; the strictures of reality are in fact very few 'well-founded' rules surrounded by a huge hole that is filled with 'as if'. To take visual experience, we know that we take things in in jumps (saccades) which are afterwards retrospectively stitched together (and again, I think CCRU have brought up this example somewhere before). From this angle, it's even more obvious that the self 'itself' is a hyperstitional entity, just a fairly sedentary one. And it demonstrates how important is the concept of suggestion; to go back to these 'signs' (and I agree a better word is needed to combat too-easy pomo interpretation), 154

they are not representations of something that may or may not exist, but partial objects that suggest a larger virtual-consistency yet to be actually constituted, but nonetheless (un)real. But nb this doesn't at all necessitate mysticism (Bacon again, for example). johneffay: Could you elaborate on Crowley a little? When he wasn't busy initiating the Aeon of Horus by means of the Book of the Law, Crowley's approach was more in the spirit of scientific enquiry than anything else. You can see this in quite a lot of writings in The Equinox and various passages in The Confessions. So, for example, when he was doing the Abra Melin workings, he was basically following a cookbook rather than engaging in a belief system. Somewhere (but I do not have the reference) he discusses how the Abra Melin demons manifest as such simply because of the rituals he's using. In other words, the rituals constitute a faculty which shape his contact with the Outside. This approach is clearly stated in the 'Preliminary Remarks' to Magick, where he sets out a position grounded in Cartesian radical doubt and ends with: 'We assert a secret source of energy which explains the phenomenon of Genius. We do not belive in any supernatural explanations, but insist that this source may be reached by the following out of definite rules, the degree of success depending upon the capacity of the seeker, and not upon the favour of any Divine Being. We assert that the critical phenomenon which determines success is an occurence in the brain characterized essentially by the uniting of subject and object'. Incidentally, given all this, there is an argument to be made that Crowley wasn't serious about the claims he made with regard to Aiwass. I don't buy that myself. He was clearly capable of extreme self-delusion: Just look at what he says about his execrable poetry... LurCur: Crowley's approach was more in the spirit of scientific enquiry again I think you've pinpointed something important there ie acceptance of (kantian, regulative-principled) reality is actually far less rational than a provisional openness to multiple realities (indeed it's positively (in many interesting senses) mendacious). He was clearly capable of extreme self-delusion is that said in blame or praise ;) 155

mark k-p once you enter the realm of signs it’s hard to discriminate dematerialized signs from signs as materially effective triggers. It doesn't really matter though, provided that there is something else apart from signs in the picture. If Pomo is saying that signs can be triggers, I've got no problem with it. Seems to me that the problem is when it says that all that is happening is signs having effect on other signs. I'm not willing to surrender signs to PoMo; there was an analysis of signs (Pierce esp) which preceded PoMo. Crowley's being capable of extreme self-delusion makes me think of him as a similar case to Hubbard: both megolomaniacs who became taken in by their own fictions? Lur, before I forget btw, it's important to hold onto yr crucial distinction between advertising/ hype/ machineries of capital and hyperstition, though this probably merits a thread ot its own. Woodsie: Exactly opposite, when you bring simulation as an element to hyperstition you can’t easily say ‘it doesn’t matter’. The first task of simulation is ignoring the autonomous system of things, presupposing that things have no autonomous system, consequently it simulates (by self-referential signs) instead of pulling up the potentials. When you bring simulation to the discussion, you should expect that signs begin to effect on other signs unless you want to formulate and reduce simulation to modeling or avoid seeing what happens. Nick Land: Philip - "accepting the existence of the 'Outside' still looks to me like a leap of faith" This formulation puts agency on the side of epistemological subject - but isn't it more a matter of a multiplicitous agentic outside intruding itself upon 'the subject' (with the participation of the Lovecraftian sorceror)? Of course, pragmatic involvement with efficient forces of 'outsideness' can be (quite arbitrarily) epistemologically re-formatted as a kind of belief, but this is strictly irrelevant since hyperstition does not inhere in the (authoritative) philosophical voice - on the contrary, it casts all its 'workers' into the mode of radical implausibility - their beliefs are absurd ('mad'), their conceptual systems deranged, their ambitions alien and revolting. Their effectiveness (for instance, in feeding the human race to shoggothic suck-vortices from beyond the spheres) does not rely on a power to 156

convince but rather on the coincidence of their (densely semiotized) practices with the cosmic reservoir of xenopotencies - activated through triggers, operational codes, true names, decryptions, calls, keys, machinic influences and suggestions ... (to repeat what has been said by many others) The Lovecraftian sorceror never asked anyone to believe in a shoggoth, and - just in case they are construed as 'believing' such things themselves - Lovecraft assures us not only that they are fantastic fictions, but also that they are, without exception, extravagantly insane (lost and deluded within a labyrinth of lies). When a shoggoth cores out your mind from the other side having 'faith' in its existence is the last thing that matters, while belief in 'your own mind' is the first thing to perish. You don't believe in this nonsense? EXACTLY!! Welcome to hyperstition. "it's important to hold onto yr crucial distinction between advertising/ hype/ machineries of capital and hyperstition" Holy shit, here we go again (please, please, noooooo) mark k-p Woodsie, The first task of simulation is ignoring the autonomous system of things, presupposing that things have no autonomous system, consequently it simulates (by self-referential signs) instead of pulling up the potentials. According to PoMo, yes, but we shouldn't necessarily accept its account of simulation. For example: an AI simulates the function of a human being: what's that got to do with self-referential signs? The Thing in Carpenter's film simulates different life forms. Simulation, like signs, can't be given up to the PoMonauts. Philip Isn't your view that the Outside involves a leap of faith an article of faith? Nick Land: Mark - "Simulation, like signs, can't be given up to the PoMonauts." For sure, in fact even 'self-referential signs' shouldn't be given up to the PoMonauts - software (for instance) has all kinds of entirely effective semiotic loops without anything to do with 'the signifier' or its PoMo-mutant descendants. 157

Woodsie: Thanks for the explanation but still i have problems with let’s say the word simulation and its derivatives. The Thing in Carpenter's film simulates different life forms. Simulation, like signs, can't be given up to the PoMonauts. Here again, The Thing doesn’t simulate even if you formulate simulation as imitation. Examining the Thing as a simulating predator was the folly of those scientists who tried to find some easy explanation for giving themselves the last relief. Simulation maintains the delusion of security for humans when the Thing joins the party. The Thing calls forth all bioplanes (and perhaps other things) sunken into the organic structure of human race from a deep past and plays them on a fastforward sequence. this is obviously more frightening than what the Thing becomes or when the Thing lurks as a transient entity. Once the Thing becomes X it doesn’t imitate or simulate X but pulls up X from Mr. Y. it is not simulation, it is reengineering and fusing with the autonomous system of the prey to activate it on another region and lead it to discover its terrible maneuverability free of its phylumic limitations. The simulating Thing can’t escape the pseudo-becoming that Catharine Malabou discusses in her essay. things are getting more acceptable when you talk about software and simulation. yes, that's right. but still i insist that The Thing is deeper than a simulating monster even a complex one. mark k-p Woodsie Simulation is a cybernetic matter before it was a PoMo concern (PoMo = degraded cybernetics) Simulation doesn't necessarily involve imitation at all. An AI that simulates human function doesn't have to resemble a human in any way. Good point Nick about self-referential signs. LurCur dematerialized signs no-one suggested signs are dematerialized, why is this being assumed software (for instance) 158

is a good example - its signs are not at all dematerialized - see Kittler 'there is no software' for this - it's a dematerialist 'reading' of software and the digital that's the problem. A sign is just an assemblage of matter that reacts with other matter(s) on the level of code (and that's precisely why they constitute triggers). Code allows the concentration of potency in arbitrary selections of matter, which we call signs. It would be ridiculous for the sorceror to ignore this ready-made affective arsenal. "it's important to hold onto yr crucial distinction between advertising/ hype/ machineries of capital and hyperstition" (please, please, noooooo) hold on to your marxist-leninist-miserabilist dreams, baby ;) Isn't it enough to just say (and self-evident, to me anyway) that the use of hyperstition to bolster negative-feedback commodity-loops is a 'botched' hyperstitional process, but in a different way to that in which the production of 'loques d'hopital' is the result of a botched schizophrenic process. Lovecraft's characters are always being literally 'turned to pulp' because their encounters with the noumenal are too fast, too soon. On the other hand, there is something exciting about advertising, but it's not enough, not soon enough: a sorceror would soon become insane with frustration working at an ad agency because their 'regulative ideals' are those of reproducing commercial process, their job isn't to be hyperstitional (this is, rather, their 'given') but to control and brake the process at the right point and to turn the excess reality production back into capital (accumulation is the problem.) There could be exceptions, but they would be at the limit of the assemblage of 'advertising', ie the ad agency would immediately become a terrorist cell or something else. Bibliographical note : Brown Jenkin, the human-faced pointy-toothed rat appears in 'The Dreams in the Witch-House', not 'The Rats in the Walls' as previously suggested, sorry. Woodsie: Mark, as i said i accepted a part of what you suggest about simulation, but not about the Thing. mark k-p Fair play. But don't you think The Thing involves elements of simulation (even if it ultimately exceeds it)? I don't know the Catharine Malabou essay; can you say a bit more abt it/ give a reference? Nick Land: "(accumulation is the problem.)" 159

But of course accumulation occurs only at the level of code (just ask the greenies they know that at the thermodynamic level capital production is pure expenditure) so it's no more than another quaint belief. As if 'Amerikkka' saves anything! Reza Negarestani: Just sneaking in to an Internet Café in Tehran: The blog is getting so hot ... thanks everyone. Mark, wonderful job for attracting so much new energies. Woodsie, a brilliant discussion about the Thing. But maybe you should bring simulation in to the fold. Have you played Thing 2? The story begins where the movie stopped. Through the game, you slowly realize that The Thing itself is a double insurgency. do you remember when the scientists suggested that the Thing machincally tries to Survive at all costs? In Thing 2, you will notice that this survival is not the survival of the living but the endurance of (un)Life itself which is intolerable for the entities fueled by it. The Thing is more a saboteur rather than a predator; as an Outsider, The Thing, first should simulate (enter) a bio-plane to initiate its awakening project, the process obviously confounds the linearity of contamination, converging The Thing’s bio-insurgency over two lines: [1] awakening the forgotten biopolytics [2] constantly refreshing its becomings. Simulation here is an opening to reach this double insurgency. LurCur Isn't it enough to just say (and self-evident, to me anyway) that the use of hyperstition to bolster negative-feedback commodity-loops is a 'botched' hyperstitional process [...]a sorceror would soon become insane with frustration working at an ad agency because their 'regulative ideals' are those of reproducing commercial process, their job isn't to be hyperstitional [...]their job isn't to be hyperstitional (this is, rather, their 'given') but to control and brake the process at the right point and to turn the excess reality production back into capital Ironically, with this hurried rant or perhaps oversimplified judgment you clearly portrayed who the marxist-leninist-miserabilist guy REALLY is ;) LurCur: yes reza, it was a joke against certain parties interpretations of both myself and others...let's not get into it... 160

accumulation occurs only at the level of code (just ask the greenies - they know that at the thermodynamic level capital production is pure expenditure) - so it's no more than another quaint belief. After all the foregoing discussion on material semiotics, to now say 'it's _only_ code' and to equate code with belief seems bizarre. If we're talking general economy, of course everything is expenditure and every 'real' differentiation is 'only' code, but at that level there's no need for any 'practices' or for the practices themselves; in fact if we pretend to be able to comprehend general economy without a parallel principle of actual contingent situatedness within a field of differentiated forces we're precisely in pomo-relativist wonderland. However, that capital/accumulation itself is hyperstitional would be an argument with more force, and one that needs to be addressed here. As if 'Amerikkka' saves anything! I understand Rumsfeld has a healthy savings account... (should read 'for discussion of 'practices' or for the practices themselves') mark k-p: Mark, wonderful job for attracting so much new energies. Can't claim credit for that -- they've found their own way here. But I do echo yr thanks to all participants. Ironically, with this hurried rant or perhaps oversimplified judgment you clearly portrayed who the marxist-leninist-miserabilist guy REALLY is ;) I think this is extraordinarily uncharitable. But for fear of this blog going the way of other fora where this issue has been raised, can we lower the heat on this topic? However, I do think a Capitalism/Schizophrenia Hype/Hypersition thread shd be strarted at some point. Reza Negarestani: I think this is extraordinarily uncharitable. Well, i don't think so. but yes, let's lower the heat; however seems my snide hint didn't work so there is no problem after all :) 161

mark k-p Think the issue is to say WHY it's hasty etc rather than go meta, if you know what I mean. Probably need to hyperstitionalize positions a bit to avoid it getting messy (in an unproductive sense of messy obv), i.e. what wd a Shogothic capitalism look like (or are we already in it)? why do some maintain that capitalism must inhibit sorcery? etc etc LurCur: If people can promise to behave themselves... u started it mark, I had already provisionally filed advertising as hyperstition as a sop to the 'ardnut K-brigade ;) (but is Reza really arguing that a sorceror _wouldn't_ get bored working at an ad agency?!). However, having been told explicitly that it was a snide hint, I'll lurk off for now. Reza Negarestani: Think the issue is to say WHY it's hasty etc rather than go meta, if you know what I mean. Mark, let me return home ... i can hardly post anything here ... i email my comments to my friend and he posts them on the blog ... am paranoid to leave any significant trace on public computers esp. in the Capital. think i have already answered your question on the cold-me forum about some key problems (Vauung nicely cleared some issues at that time) ... but let's not resurrect them at the moment ... maybe later, when the metrological agitations subside. Probably need to hyperstitionalize positions a bit to avoid it getting messy I’m getting what you mean but also your suggestion rings in my ear as an unhyperstitional plan when I examine it from another aspect. Regardless of our intention, Hyperstition sprays and discharges mess as it eats con-solidating processes (all modes of pseudo-flux, metronic processes, faces, etc.). As the hyperstition engineers the corpse of solidus, it becomes inseparable from Mess ... hyperstition is not so clean. Real Mess is never productive ... but a heap of compost is. Looking into the past (not a long time ago, of course), I’m sure LurCur is the one who should be very familiar with the harmless nature of snide comments ... however, I’m always ready to apologize (esp. for a weak snide which failed to work.) so my apologies for the offense. 162

Hare: By way of luring things a little to one side, the following demonstrates a pomo but real approach to surplus value of adverts: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1266219,00.html ...the Advert Channel will change all that. "Forget the programmes - let's just watch the ads!" says its founder, Chelsey Baker. The free channel, to be launched on Sky in September, will run new ads, classic ads, and shows about ads, round the clock, seven days a week, all year round...funded by advertising... Odysseus hearer of the Sirens, precursor of all those later concert-goers who would sense only irony if told they would not leave alive ('is the orchestra really that bad'), icons falling back from stimulants of religious ecstasy into objects of aesthetic seeing, so aestheticized adverts - the compulsion of their repetition, desire to watch or to not watch, to buy and despise the buyer, cut off by their separation from reference to available-now products. No longer relays in loops of self-destroying desire. The origin of subject and object: Fatty Odysseus chained to the mast as Ronald McDonald sings "Let me Supersize you, baby".and yet what's that? - across the water Morgan Spurlock dives in http://www.supersizeme.com/ , eating McDonalds 24-7, we salute you - but hey what's your problem? Nick Land: OK, let's see if we can avoid the whole ideological question collapsing into snarky insolence. There's obviously important issues here, and a starting point would be to accept neither pole is going to be bludgeoned into productive re-thinking by snide remarks. "I understand Rumsfeld has a healthy savings account..." But of course this is code - bank savings are numbers in data-bases, socially serving as promisory signs for future consumption. Consumption has not been in fact suspended (we're precisely not talking about grain silos or oil stocks - capital has no more tendency to stock this way than any other organized society - almost certainly less). Instead, personal consumption has been economized through the capital nexus, allowing increasing regenerative expenditure on 'capital goods' which function to intensify the k-positive dynamics of the overall system, basing it on a secular trend to expanded production ('production for production' - or k-positive economy - for the first and only time in history). 163

Capital production is the only social arrangement - recorded or rigorously envisaged - to base itself radically upon k-positive dynamics. It's feedback is overwhelmingly regenerative which is why the description of "the use of hyperstition to bolster negative-feedback commodity-loops" is IMHO quite bizarre. To repeat: where else has history ever seen 'runaway' economic dynamics before? Surely to accuse capital of an adherence to homeostatic mechanisms is an inversion of the real situation: capital only employs homeostatic sub-programs to guide its primary regenerative loops. Of course "only code" was quick, but the matter goes in the opposite direction to the one you indicate - the machinic immanence of monetary code accentuates overall machinic expenditure by detaching accumulation ('bank accounts') from stocking, and attaching it instead to the incremental expansion of future production (see Boehm Bawerk's rigorous analysis). OK, enough for now. LurCur: this sounds v clear and immediately convincing but needs some more processing (obviously, it will serve only to shift the apparent focus of 'my' problem elsewhere but that's positive). Thanks for taking the time to say something rather than professing seething hatred for all discursive practice (and I don't mean that as 'a snide' ;) Perhaps someone could start a new thread from this (maybe another to carry on the original HS thing) since reloads here are getting a bit download-intensive. Reza Negarestani: Nick, a big step forward for the initial phase ... thanks ... agreed with LurCur: if you could start another thread ... Woodsie: ref. Catherine Malabou: "Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves?" in Deleuze (ed) paul patton 164

Is it a trick? mark k-p (July 20, 2004) Fascinating interview with Castenada here30. Or is it? ('Castaneda' 'himself' - or the figure purporting to be Castaneda - raises all sorts of questions about the difficulty of identitying 'Carlos Castaneda'.) Key quote, on sorcery: 'Did he trick you? It's possible. What he did was teach me that there's much more to the world than we usually acknowledge -- that our normal expectations about reality are created by social consensus, which is itself a trick. We're taught to see and understand the world through a socialization process that, when working correctly, convinces us that the interpretations we agree upon define the limits of the real world. Don Juan interrupted this process in my life by demonstrating that we have the capacity to enter into other worlds that are constant and independent of our highly conditioned awareness. Sorcery involves reprogramming our capacities to perceive realms as real, unique, absolute, and engulfing as our daily so-called mundane world. ' 30 “Carlos Castaneda Speaks, An interview by Keith Thompson.” New Age Journal, March/April 1994. http://www.nagualism.com/new-age-journal-carlos-castaneda-interview.html 165

Sorcery versus literature mark k-p (July 20, 2004) I think the following exchange31 between Castaneda and an interviewer elegantly expresses the difference between sorcery/ hyperstition and art/ literature. Literature only becomes-sorcerous when it stops 'rearranging the glosses' and takes us out into non-ordinary reality. CASTANEDA: I have come to understand sorcery in terms of Talcott Parsons' idea of glosses. A gloss is a total system of perception and language. For instance, this room is a gloss. We have lumped together a series of isolated perceptions--floor, ceiling, window, lights, rugs, etc.--to make a totality. But we had to be taught to put the world together in this way. A child reconnoiters the world with few preconceptions until he is taught to see things in a way that corresponds to the descriptions everybody agrees on. The world is an agreement. The system of glossing seems to be somewhat like walking. We have to learn to walk, but once we learn we are subject to the syntax of language and the mode of perception it contains. KEEN: So sorcery, like art, teaches a new system of glossing. When, for instance, van Gogh broke with the artistic tradition and painted "The Starry Night" he was in effect saying: here is a new way of looking at things. Stars are alive and they whirl around in their energy field. CASTANEDA: Partly. But there is a difference. An artist usually just rearranges the old glosses that are proper to his membership. Membership consists of being an expert in the innuendoes of meaning that are contained within a culture. For instance, my primary membership like most educated Western men was in the European intellectual world. You can't break out of one membership without being introduced into another. You can only rearrange the glosses. Sorcery and Hyperstition? 31 “Seeing Castaneda, by Sam Keen.”Psychology Today, 1972. http://www.nagualism.com/carlos-castaneda-interview-psychology-today.html 166

scanshifts (July 22, 2004) Sorcery is always an anomalous pragmatics of intensification, using maps of intensive spaces, and bringing about engagement with deeper or wider levels of reality. This is the sense in which Deleuze and Guattari say 'we sorcerers'. Sorcery is the war-craft of freedom, and it is contact with the Outside of constricted, transfixed perception. The pragmatics involves a melting of 'scanning' and habit patterns and an intensification of groups and individuals in relation to perception, action, abstraction, envisaging, navigation... At the combined levels of the will (the overall directional activity of an energy formation), and of belief, sorcery is a question of having the courage to explore all hypotheses, no matter how bizarre, and no matter how much they involve being willing to become part of the experiment in order to deepen contact with the world. And, in the face of something anomalous, no matter how disturbing or exciting, it is a question of having the courage to neither believe nor disbelieve (see Castaneda's Tales of Power, 'The Dreamer and the Dreamed' 2nd page, for his statement of this point). So this is hyperstition? A hyperstitional field is an anomalous map of intensive spaces that includes elements that pass fundamentally beyond current knowledge. A hyperstitional field going into effect is not sceptic drift, and it is not dogmatic belief, rather it is dedicated exploration or navigation. How do you know that something is a hyperstition, a sorcerous map? See if, on initial reading, it includes elements that effectively delineate intensive zones of the world, as with the Don Juan point - taken up by Deleuze and Guattari - that human engagement with the world is blocked by four main de-intensificatory modes: fear, clarity, power and death. Afterwards, see if the map works, and don’t worry about details concerning things like whether or not specific figures existed. Work at the levels of practices and navigations. Discover if the map is a diagram for the intensification of contact with the Outside. Comments: Sorcery and Hyperstition? LurCur: bringing about engagement with deeper or wider levels of reality. Think this is key (brings 'levels of realisation' together with 'reality-amplification') and needs X-referencing with spinozan conception of power (joy as a transition of 167

increasing power = connection into wider networks of reality/realisation (=more adequate ideas)). Nietzsche on unbelief mark k-p (July 22, 2004) “Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers! Ye had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account.” Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, XXII, 'The Bestowing Virtue'. Comments: Nietzsche on unbelief Nick Land: Wow - more coincidence engineering! Just thinking about 'God is dead' and how different it was from the conventions of authoritative philosophical discourse. Located not only within a micronarrative, but in the mouth of a carrier deliberately rendered implausible by the title 'The Madman'. The devastation of authority is concretely enacted by the (hyperstitional) mode of communication. Death to philosophy! (But it takes a long time for such messages to reach us) PS. GOD IS = 99, the Uttunullistic desert Reza has already described as 'double death'. '9' for obvious reasons the mortuary digit, 'my only friend, the End', the 'full-body' of zero. 99 = THETA (the Greek death sign, acronym for Thanatos). (YHVH = 99 = QABBALA = ISLAM). The existence of God already counts as the death of God. GOD IS DEAD = 149, 35th prime (related by alphanumeric qabbala to the 35th letter, Z (neoroman omega, the end)). TX ((::)((:))). mark k-p Naturally, Nietzsche is multiply fascinating from the hyperstitional POV -- the whole connection between Zarathustra and Z-crowd, for instance. 168

Also - was talking to scanshifts about the way in which Nietzsche is close to getting unbelief, but seems to botch the insight. The claim that the falseness of a judgement is less important than the effects it has is typical; but why 'falseness'? He talks about numbers as false but necessary for beings such as us, for instance - but from out POV it wd obv be better to say that numbers are neither true nor untrue. Nick Land: Mark - but shouldn't we be trying to take things to the next hyperstitional level (or cycle) by abandoning the implicit prospect of a unique correct and authoritative hyperstitional 'doctrine' - as if hyperstition was a 'flashy Hegel'? Nietzsche's use of 'Zarathustra' (along with other puppets) seems IMHO more important than his 'own' selected vocabulary when it comes to his relation to H. It's for specific carriers to agonize about getting it 'right' - the task of the hyperstitional engineer is to make it many mark k-p yeh, we can distinguish between the hyperstitional vectors operative in N's prelude to a philosophy of a future and N's own descriptions of that philosophy... Nick Land: "I am all the names in history" Reza Negarestani: Nick It's for specific carriers to agonize about getting it 'right' - the task of the hyperstitional engineer is to make it many. That’s the point. IMHO, Decimal Numeracy is a key for “making it many”. 9 (Kaprekar number) is the decimal progression of the Gog-Magog Axis to awake Tellurian Omega or the Unlife of War (we should dig up our Gog-Magog diagram later). Arabic Noh (nine) fully lurks in the Zone 5 of the numogram: Noh = Noon (50) and Haa (5). 45 is a direct krypt between the zone 9 and 5. 45 is another Kaprekar number, plus 45= 4 + 5 = 9. Also: both Noon and Haa are among Muqataat Letters which are the gates to the Koran and Islamic Apocalypticism. (more later). PS. 99 = Kaprekar number Nick Land: Reza - OK, on my way to check out Kaprekar numbers ++ looking forward to the "more later" (9/45 nexus deep in Age of Khattak 'territory') 169

PS. For anyone following Reza's trail here, this link might be useful: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/KaprekarNumber.html Reza Negarestani: This is a detailed and remarkable article on Kaprekar numbers (you can also use ‘Self-numbers’ and ‘Kaprekar series’ as your search enquiries): http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/journals/JIS/VOL3/iann2a.html D/G/Castaneda mark k-p (July 23, 2004) Obviously many readers will be familiar with this material, but in the interests of accumulating resources on the site, I've reproduced below some of the key passages in A Thousand Plateaus in which D/G invoke Castaneda. From '587 BC-AD 70: On Several Regimes of Signs' (138-39) 'One of the things of profound interest in Castaneda's books, under the influence of drugs, or other things, and of a change in atmosphere, is precisely that they show how the Indian manages to combat the mechanisms of interpretation and instill in the disciple a presignifying semiotic, or even an asignifying diagram: Stop! You're making me tired! Experiment, don't signify and interpret! Find your own place, territorialities, deterritorializations, regime, lines of flight! Semiotize yourself instead of rooting around in your prefab childhood and Western semiology. "Don Juan stated that in order to arrive at 'seeing' one first had to 'stop the world'. 'Stopping the world' was indeed an appropriate rendition of certain states of awareness in which the reality of everyday life is altered because the flow of interpretation, which ordinarily runs uninterruptedly, has been stopped by a set of circumstances alien to the flow." ' From 'How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?' (161-2) 'In the course of Castaneda's books, the reader may begin to doubt the existence of the Indian Don Juan, and many other things besides. But that has no importance. So much the better if the books are a syncretism rather than an ethnographical study, and the protocol of an experiment rather than an account of an initiation. The fourth book, Tales of Power, is about the living distinction between the "Tonal" and the "Nagual." The tonal seems to cover many disparate things: It is the organism, and 170

also all that is oraganized and organizing; but it is also signifiance, and all that is signifying or signified, all that is susceptible to interpretation, explanation, all that is memorizable, in the form of something recalling something else; finally it is the Self (Moi), the subject, the historical, social or individual person. In short, the tonal is everything, including God, the judgment of God, since it "makes up the rules by which it apprehends the world. So, in a manner of speaking, it creates the world." Yet the tonal is only an island. For the nagual is also everything. And it is the same everything, but under such conditions that the body without organs has replaced the organism and experimentation has replaced all interpretation, for which it no longer has any use. Flows of intensity, their fluids, their fibers, their continuums and conjunctions of affects, the wind, fine segmentation, microperceptions, have replaced the world of the subject. Becomings, becoming-animal, becomings-molecular, have replaced history, individual or general. IN the fact, the tonal is not as disparate as it seems: it includes all of the strata and everything that can be ascribed to the strata, the organization of the organism, the interpretations and explanations of the signifiable, the movements of signification. The nagual, on the contrary, dismantles the strata. It is no longer an organism that functions but a BwO that is constructed. No longer are there acts to explain, dreams or phantasies to interpret, childhood memories to recall, words to make signify; instead, there are colours and sounds, becomings and intensities (and when you become-dog, don't ask if the dog you are playing with is a dream or a reality, "if it is your goddamn mother" or something else entirely). There is no longer a Self [Moi] that feels, acts, and recalls; there is "glowing fog, a dark yellow mist" that has affects and experiences movements, speeds. The important thing is not to dismantle the tonal by destroying it all of a sudden. You have to diminish it, shrink it, clean it, and that only at certain moments. You have to keep it in oder to survive, to ward off the assault of the nagual. For a nagual that erupts, that destroys the tonal, a body without organs that shatters the strata, turns immediately into body of nothingness, pure self-destruction, whose only outcome is death: "The tonal must be protected at all costs." ' From '1933: Micropolitics and Segmentarity', 227 'According to Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Castaneda's Indian Don Juan, there are three or even four dangers: first, Fear, then Clarity, then Power, and finally, the great Disgust, the longing to kill and to die, the Passion for abolition.' From '1730: Becoming Intense, Becoming-Animal...', 248-249 171

'If the experimentation with drugs has left its mark on everyone, even nonusers, it is because it changed the perceptive coordinates of space-time and introduced us to a universe of microperceptions in which becomings-molecular take over from becomings-animal leave off. Carlos Castaneda's books clearly illustrate this evolution, or rather this involution, in which the affects of a becoming-dog, for example, are succeeded by those of a becoming-molecular, microperceptions of water, air, etc. A man totters from one door to the next and disappears into thin air: "All I can tell you is that we are fluid, luminous beings made of fibers." All so-called initiatory journeys include these thresholds and doors where becoming itself becomes, and where one changes becoming depending on the "hour" of the world, the circles of hell, or the stages of a journey that sets scales, forms, and cries in variation. From the howling of animals to the wailing of elements and particles.' 282 'All drugs fundamentally concern speeds, and modifications of speed. What allows us to describe an overll Drug assemblage in spite of the differences between drugs is a line of perceptive causality that makes it so that (1) the imperceptible is perceived; (2) perception is molecular; (3) desire directly invests the perception and the perceived. The Americans of the beat generation had already embarked on this path, and spoke of a molecular revolution specific to drugs. Then came Castaneda's broad synthesis.' Capital/Hyperstition Nick Land (July 25, 2004) Some semi-random initial stim-points - not intended as a consistent series (I could kind of be persuaded by most of them - definitely like no.3): (1) The opening credits of (Carpenter's) In the Mouth of Madness - torrents of pulp horror novels flowing from the presses to sicken the world - captures an essential hyperstitional nexus, an archaic abomination re-animated through technocapitalist mass-production and marketing (discuss). (2) When D&G; describe capitalism as The Thing (Carpenter again) they are precisely delineating its mechanism (anorganic take-over by an alien insider). (3) The technocapitalist syndrome functions as a megaweapon system promoting shoggothic insurgency (and Bill Joy understands it best?). 172

(4) Hyperstition emerges spontaneously during the phase of capital when the autonomous economy begins to reflexively probe its own stimulation mechanisms (neomarxist determinism rocks). (5) 'Cyberspace' designates the phase of capitalism (Downham) in which hyperstition eats the economy. Or whatever else serves to feed the thread. Comments: Capital/Hyperstition Nick Land: Don't see any problem with venting (dread to imagine from what perspectives) but let's try to keep it impersonal - hyperstition should make that easy. If you want to get into a nasty rant run it through a carrier - which isn't just a camouflaged nic - and aim it somewhere that won't produce an ego flare. [Irritating lecture over] mark k-p Some thoughts – 1. Much of the fraught debate on this matter has, IMHO, concerned the difference between the Noumenal reality of Kapital as planetary Thing and its phenomenal processing (in the West at least - it's obv different on the periphery) as banal emiseration. Capitalism [Oedipus]/ Schizophrenia? Perhaps we can account for this in terms of McLuhanite anaetheticization: the sheer unmanageable horror of kapital is processed out at the level of the subject. Nevertheless, there is some difference between capitalism and schizophrenia/ hype and hyperstition, i.e. lurCur is surely right abt sorcerers not finding advertising agencies congenial. (btw surely lurCur must adopt a new alias, since it patently no longer lurks?) 2. Is one of the differences between capitalism and previous social formations the fact that in capital there is no licenced role for the sorcerer (unlike for the shaman in the primitive socius, or for the priest-magician [Moses] in the despotic state)? Nick Land: Mark - v. productive opening. Doesn't the 'sorceror' already get processed out by the monotheistic priest? Seems to me the point you raise here concerns the relation of Kapital to the Abrahamic cultural formation it initially 'inherits' (Weber anyone?) 173

Anna Greenspan: its phenomenal processing (in the West at least - it's obv different on the periphery) as banal emiseration very interested in this point - living on the periphery I'm often struck by the general sense of anticipation and excitement and the relative absence of Western cynicism/miserabilism - how to explain this difference? seems to me it has to do with a fundamentally different orientation to time (think this may connect with recent post on k-punk). While the developed world is more oriented to the past, the (Asian) periphery is for the most part directed towards the future (the coming Asian century, the rise of Asia etc..) -- this is clearly connected to shifts in the power of global capitalism but also suspect that it speaks to transformations in 'Kapital's Noumenal reality' as 'planetary Thing' -Reza Negarestani: Mark, don’t you think that jumping from one cloaked nic to another when one is exposed presents another version of facialization politics and trickeries? Surly everyone here considers LurCur as a positive lurking carrier and indubitably LurCur ‘itself’ knows how to creatively lurk without testing all nics in the world (that’s a compliment for LurCur). Don’t mess with the Face or it will mess with you, forever [see for example A New Face for a New People on the cold-me forum]. + think we should bring the face and facialization politics to our hyperstition laboratory for further studies. Btw, thanks Mark ... very effective triggers for dissipating the discussion on all sides. mark k-p: Nick, yeh, it must be right that the magician-priest displaces the sorcerer.... hyperstition is calcified into religion .... (n.b. important also to clarify the role of hyperstition in the primitive socius). Anna yes, Western rearview mirrorism - but all of this begs the question why Asia is so fwdlooking while the west is nostalgic... Reza blimey, who knew! Was only joking about lurCur's alias obv :-) 174

In general Also feel this thread must address fictional quantities in some way... Nick Land: "the sheer unmanageable horror of kapital is processed out at the level of the subject" - but isn't there an implicit horror to be found precisely in the anaesthetic/zombified complicity of drone populations with the shoggoth-summoning Thing? Given that Man is intrinsically 'stratic', it seems strange to expect it to serve as a subjective locus of intensity. At its most naive, this expectation (or lament) amounts to a kind of beatnik critique aligned to a conservative humanism. The point is to change the human species into something else, not to entertain it. First you have to trank-out the dumb squealing animal, before messing with its inner workings and grafting on the tentacle buds. mark k-p The point is to change the human species into something else, not to entertain it. Ok, point taken, but it's precisely the alliance of capitalism with humanism and human subjectivity that IMO needs to be addressed. Yeh on its Outside (the side facing but never quite going over into schizophrenia), capitalism is foaming with shoggothic ferment; but it would be too quick to overlook its Inside (=Oedipus). In short, I think the way that capitalism (hype-culture) inhibits schizophrenia (hyperstition) is just as important - and as definitional of what It is - as the extent to which it feeds into planetary delirium. I guess this makes me a D/G fundamentalist? Coming back to a pt Johneffay made on the other thread: seems to me that one of the things that separates out capital from sorcery is the issue of teleology. It is at the level of teleology, not 'dynamics' (which are undeniably as nick says, escalative), that capitalism's conservatism lies. Nick Land: (1) 'Oedipus' is a reterritorialization, that's to say it only appears because capitalism is actually chewing-up humanity - sure, kill Oedpius, but that doesn't mean capitalism is in any real sense 'humanizing' (quite the opposite). Capital/Oedipus: torch the monkey while giving it a doll to play with to keep it quiet 175

(2) Really don't think 'teleology' is appropriate here. Capital's only 'teleology' is MORE ('escalation' = contagion). If that's a telos, what wouldn't be? It definitely has an obscure teleonomy - phase-shift to (approximately) polytendrilled intelligenic posthuman cyberspace. Sorcery can live with that. (3) Apologies for fundie marxism, but doesn't a critique have to align itself with a plausible revolutionary potential if it's to be anything other than conservative lament? Think D&G had it right: "accelerate the process" mark k-p: Yes, I think this is the nub of the issue: D/G fundamentalism wd insist that reterriorialization is inherent to capitalism, so that the 'phase-shift to (approximately) polytendrilled intelligenic posthuman cyberspace' is what capitalism inhibits (whilst constantly flirting with). No need to apologize for 'fundie marxism' (not to me at least): but don't D/G suggest that 'accelerating the process' will precisely take us out of capitalism and into Schizophrenia... Nick Land: Mark - it's a matter of simple record that relatively trivial terminological issues have continually snarled up the substantial q.s here --from Braudel, DeLanda ... and now there's China (and the 'market-oriented socialist economy' - weird looping back to Braudel actually) I really wouldn't care much about this, except that the 'anticapitalist' movement (Naomi Klein will do just great to define it) is so profoundly abhorrent to me that it calls forth a violent differentiating reflex ... for this reason i'd much rather talk of 'hypercapitalism' than some such mouthful as 'promarket anticapitalism' when talking of a radically disinhibited market-driven dismantling of the humanistic socius (at least when i'm not at the day job) My maxim right now, find out what the French most hate and fear and call it that pity 'unilateral militarized anglosaxon-style zionist hyperliberal technomaniac globalization' doesn't produce a good acronym mark k-p: obv this is largely a tactical matter, but tactics are bound up with terminological issues which sadly aren't just trivial.... 176

I fully sympathise with the impulse towards a differentiating reflex but I think that it is equally important to differentiate the k positive position from molar bUSiness. In other words, it's important to hold onto the basic D/G/Braudel/de Landa insight i.e. the separation of markets from Really Existing Capitalism... 'Hypercapitalism' I can live with, but 'promarket anticapitalism' , far from being cumbersone, sounds to me actually quite snappy... Seems to me there's an uh marketing opportunity in keeping open a relationship to anti-capitalism. Lots of people involved in the 'movement' probably feel some kind of inchoate anger/ frustration/ depression and have nowhere to put it except into this moralizing, conservative, organicist, statist and authoritarian politics. Nick Land: Mark - your last paragraph especially nuanced and thought provoking. Of course, vampirizing this swamp of "moralizing, conservative, organicist, statist and authoritarian politics" makes sense -its stubborn resilience is intrinsically saddening though. Also quite interesting, if you're naturally happy with 'promarket anticapitalism' you'd fit in great with today's Chicoms. I've got increasing problems with it though, which i'll try and spell out cogently in a later mail. Anna Greenspan: agree that the question of terminology is a strategic one - as with all hyperstitional issues certain there is no one right answer - depends who you are talking to and when. Yet, think there is something important about occupying and taking over very familiar terms that are (apparently) understood by all - don't think capitalism or globalization should be abandoned. On China and the promarket anticapitalist line - there is something useful in the position you are forced to adopt here - speaking only about markets and the State (both where they are clearly distinguished and where and how they intermingle). However, it alo makes clear why this is not really sufficient. One reason China is not capitalist, for example, is that it doesn't have a strong stock market. The existence of stock markets is obviously one way to define capitalism. Capitalism is a system that allows you make savings productive (by investing in other companies through the stock market) rather than just burrying your savings(buying stuff or hiding it under your bed). This seems to me to be a (positive) systematic feature of capitaslism not markets. 177

On a slightly diferent note - and not necessarily connected to hyperstition - this article on global views of globalization is pretty interesting - expected the difference between the West and Asia but was surprised by the stats out of Africa http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=1934 mark k-p: But surely stock markets are markets? (Or am I missing something?) I've heard that the situation in another ex-communist country, Russia, is very interesting. So many ppl distrust banks that they do keep their money under their beds. Effectively this means their money is not capital --- it has been converted into cash. In general, I think that in the west there is a potential groundswell, esp amongst the young. At the moment this registers in the media only negatively --- as 'apathy' or 'disengagement from politics'. But as politicians here seem hellbent on undermining what remaining credibility they have, and politics increasingly = cynical administration/ administrative cynicism, there is a space, an opportunity... Can we come back to the teleology issue? Think this 'MORE' question absolutely germane ---- isn't this the problem with capitalism though ---- i.e. in that, in one sense, it is purely goal directed and, in another, not end-directed at all, since more can always be .... more (maybe it's goal-orientated but not end-directed?) Any way, the point is that Kapital's innate dissatisfaction seems to agitate against plateau-maintenance. Extensive versus intensive magnitudes? Reza Negarestani: Think this 'MORE' question absolutely germane ---- isn't this the problem with capitalism though ---- i.e. in that, in one sense, it is purely goal directed and, in another, not end-directed at all, since more can always be .... more (maybe it's goal-orientated but not end-directed?) Mark, ‘MORE’ is a goal-oriented process (?) if it is confined by a metronic progression (a dynamic scale-based progression) or a concrescence process in the term of Whitehead (who failed to grasp becoming as epidemic multiplicity) but MORE is not really a laminar stream with methexes (economical participations) between its tributaries. ‘MORE’ is intrinsically a turbulent process devouring any goal on its way. More is not a dynamic accumulation which can be appropriated as a goal-oriented progression 178

since accumulation itself is bound to its internal capacity (what renders accumulation possible), any accumulation trying to transgress its capacity will be WASTED AWAY. Therefore, MORE runs as a capacity-devourer by intensively reinforcing itself with MORE, undermining any ‘dynamic but economical articulation on telos’ or ‘goal’ which remotely appropriates any progression without directly imposing itself upon the process (unlike the End). Capacity is actually what holds a process and links it to a goal. This is an old theistic issue that since Man has a capacity, the process of apotheosis (or deification: in Christian term it is becoming the Son, the Christ) or goal-orientated progression is made possible; if Man attempts to work beyond or out of this capacity the goal will be aborted and radically deviated (radically multiplied?). Moreover, all goal-oriented processes and progressions are distributed as capacity/ground-based affect spaces: the goal is affected by the progression and the progression is dynamically regulated by the goal; more than that, both the goal and the progression should afford each other synchronically or everything will be ruined. Now there is a question: which goal can afford the unreliable polytics of ‘MORE’ which unpredictably runs as ‘More and More’? HarCur: relative absence of Western cynicism/miserabilism - how to explain this difference isn't this just a question of time-orientation, ie those living on the periphery are doing so in anticipation of real transformations of conditions of life, whereas in the saturated (or at least asymptotically 'improving') west people have been through the - at the level of the human - closed cycle of consumption and work for several generations, so there is a lesser orientation towards the future as change/transformation; the increasingly explicitly codified and planned nature of capitalist 'existence' also plays a part, with the general outcome that mark describes, a growing pressure on the statically-coded behaviours that regulate capitalist societies (as distinct from the process of K/schizophrenia). Think that mark made a good point some time ago when he said that London had lived with capitalism for longer than anywhere else, so if you want to see the future, look to uk miserablism! find out what the French most hate and fear and call it that it always surprises me what a role personal bigotry has to play in 'accelerating the process'! It strikes me(I speak as an incompetent in economics of course and am open to correction) that France is a germane anomaly - higher-than-euro-average per capita GDP; third most productive workforce in the world despite the shortest workinghours in europe; world's 4th largest economy, 4th-largest stock market, 4th largest 179

derivatives trader; large trade surplus; third largest host country for international investment ...Isomorphic to this 'paradox' (from the point of view of neocon economics) is that the french simultaneously reject all PC-healthfreakery and yet are healthier than other 'advanced' euro countries and the US. They have the cultural resource to attempt to reject both decadence and the flipside ascetic puritanism that comes with it, both McDonald's and diet books. The french attitude is not 'anti-globalisation' but is constitutive of a systematic deconflation of marketization and globalisation from all the cultural factors that spokespeople for US economic expansion habitually utter in the same breath : total personal commitment to work/consumerism (decadent-asceticism); repudiation of all collective social investment, etc.etc. (and now we're expected to take evangelical christianity with our markets too). This is exactly what was at stake with the french position on iraq - refusal to use the confusion of totally disconnected registers of discourse to dissimulate the exercise of power. Because the link between culture and economics in the very widest sense is what HS is all about, part of what's at issue here should precisely be this conflation of markets with these other cultural factors, as if capital had a 'character'. Whether capitalism is characterised in sublime, religiously-inflected terms by GWB, Mohammed Atta, or Barker, is all the same; the romantic inflection of sublime lovecraftian darkness relies as much on the 'phenomenal level processing' of the human as much as does anti-capitalist/green angst, or gungho christian sentimentalism. Thus I don't think you can hide behind said sublimity by declaring it as 'the real' or 'noumenal' against interlocutors' pitiful all-too-human complaints. It's just a different emotional investment. I think we can agree that _expecting_ the human to be a phenomenal nexus of intensity is somewhat problematic, but I don't think the problem is disposed of as easily as is suggested. Kapital... seems to agitate against plateau-maintenance. one thing that's interesting to me about Bohme-Bauwerk is the _flight_ from production; in some sense Kapital wants to avoid both consummation/consumption and production, so it casts its nets further and further into the future (futures/derivatives trading being a pure case). Thus the plateau is produced because there is no possibility of what kapital anticipates ever being 'achieved'. At the phenomenal level this is obviously a problem because it cashes out (excuse the pun) as infinite deferral. This is the real prob with 'savings' - not that they're saved under 180

the bed but that they're constantly 'put to work' for something that will never arrive. Now the interesting practical thing from this pov is the collapse of pensions etc. (as ever because of the utter incompetence of the managers who somehow manage to be _worse_ at gambling than the rest of us!) which really disrupts the psychology of this process, thus providing additional pressure to mark's 'dissatisfied' minority. Nick Land: Mark, - hope you're right on the 'groundswell' - take more to get me optimistic (see Harcur) Reza, - think i totally agree with your take on MORE (although not entirely sure i'm following the religious angle) Harcur, - v. interesting post (provocative of course) Needs processing time, but for now: On France - IMHO taking the French post-war economy as if it was some kind of monad is clearly preposterous, given that the whole EU is a giant reparations scheme, you have to at least amalgamate the frankenreich economy into a unit before analysing it, or otherwise wait til the deutschers run away screaming (which won't be long now) Also, since 'neocon' evidently destined to continually reappear as a critical term, it's worth understanding what it means. Not an easy one, but broadly speaking 'neocons' are US exleftists who have been "mugged by reality" - still tend to be distinct 'softies' - think the better term for your critique is 'brutal supply sider' (far crunchier on tax cuts etc) In the US "neoliberal" doesn't get used (because 'liberal' now perversely means 'socialist' over there, but in Latin America that's the term of choice - IMHO also a better one) The religious issue is also important, clearly - hope we can get back to it - but straight off, if there is an in-your-face double pincer at work in contemporary politics it seems to be the necessity of combining reactionary social values with revolutionary ('capitalist') economic ones, or vice versa - nihilistic capitalism (raw 'exuberant growth) doesn't ever get a platform (interesting phenomenon in itself?) 181

Anyway, much more here to discuss ;) Anna Greenspan: Mark But surely stock markets are markets? (Or am I missing something?) glad to have the chance to untangle these issues - obviously needs to be slow and requires careful definitions of terms (esp. capitalism and markets). To start with tho it seems to me that the stock market is not a market at least not in the Braudel/Delanda use the term. Both of them view markets as street markets or peasant markets.. The stock market is much more abstract and systemic. Think that while it connected to Braudelian markets it cannot be said to be the same thing (in fact Braudel would probably put the stock market on the side of capitalism). Harcur, Thus the plateau is produced because there is no possibility of what kapital anticipates ever being 'achieved'. At the phenomenal level this is obviously a problem because it cashes out (excuse the pun) as infinite deferral Agree that BB interesting on the question of capitalism and plateaus but think it a mistake to say that for him time + capital = infinite defferral - Instead in BB's analyses of capitalism time + capital = technological innovation (it is precisely on this point that he criticizes Marx). His example of the differnce between going to get water every day from the river ( a precapitalist society) and investing the time and money to get running water from the tap (capitalist society) is surely an 'acheivement'. if you want to see the future, look to uk miserablism! think this is massively important and don't want to be glib - but UK miserabilism is only the future at the core - the future of global capitalism, however, always proceeds from the edges (where things are most dynamic, exciting, innovative.) This, of course, is not purely geographical - London, NY etc have their own peripheries but more on this some other time... Nick Land: Also, think it HIGHLY intersting that Braudel/D&G def. 'capitalism' is precisely the 'French model' high tax, State-synthesized politically directed version (dripping with 'social solidarity' and antimarket rhetoric) - yet the hardcore of the 'anticapitalist' fraternity inevitably rush to the arms of Paris when this model is contested by the ruthless-jungly anglosaxon type (wait til you see what's brewing up 182

on the Pacific Rim - Cato institute has Hong Kong / Singapore top of the economic freedom league) think for a minute about the irony here ... PS. the French call 'the enemy' 'hyperliberalism' Reza Negarestani: This is exactly what was at stake with the french position on iraq - refusal to use the confusion of totally disconnected registers of discourse to dissimulate the exercise of power. LurCur, what you mentioned here is just ‘partly’ true: the nervous system of French politics, culture and economy has already been paralyzed by petropolitical currents emerging from the East (esp. from such countries like Iran and Kuwait); if you live here you can easily realize how the Petropolitical undercurrents are effectively configuring the French positions whether in Iraq war or in its european or global politico-economic strategies. Such positions are highly affected by the foreign politico-economic productions which are imported as the built-in components of petropolitical undercurrents (you can’t get oil without its petropolitical pipelines which stealthily smuggling all kinds of cultural / economic / political vectors). Shut down the pipeline system and see how soon these positions change. Nick, sorry for being hasty in unfolding the theistic panorama of eternal progression and capacity or ‘affordance’ sphere. Think this quote from Cyril of Alexandria may help a bit: “We shall become Sons by methexis”. Affordance (or capacity-based affect sphere) is internal to methexis (platonic participation). Affordance works on two parallel lines to maintain the methexis or the engine of eternal progression: [1] consolidating entities and processes through a ‘sphere’ (capacity) which all can ‘afford’ [2] enveloping all functions and interactions through a capacity which in fact keeps the process of theistic progression away from deviation. For going through methexis, religion exhorts that at the first place, the ‘sum capacity’ (of individuals, entities, communities, etc.) must be discovered and then transcended as a safe sphere only through which participation (methexis) can be initiated and developed to a guaranteed consolidating process (goal-oriented process or eternal progression, apotheosis). uhoh this is still damn confusing so I suggest Asian Peace endnote.12 and Pestis Solidus pp. 14-16 (at the Cold Me website) for more clarification. Again sorry for the references ;) PS. totally agreed with you about shedding (un)light on the term 'neocon'. 183

mark k-p: Anna, but surely the street markets model is 'abstractable'? Surely the fact that the stock market is abstract is not in itself a reason to say it is not a market in Braudel or De Landa's sense? Or, to put it another way, what is it abt stock markets that make them anti-markets? Think this is really really important in that it we need to stay focused on what 'capital' is, i.e. not cash, but - essentially - finance capital. (There is no capital, really, that isn't finance capital). Maybe the anti-market stratification is between the stock market (finance capital) and the labour market (payment capital)? Thus the major 'class' division is not between owner/ worker but between users of finance capital and receivers of payment 'capital'. Reza On the more is more thing --- yes, but this precisely highlights the nightmare antiplateau insatiability of Kapital --- More is never enough ---HarCur The London thing goes to show the extent to which Kapital is essentially steampunk rather than SF. The future of capital will increasingly lie in the past, as Kurtz found out. Expect more and more hideous combinations of archaic traditions and up-tothe-minute tech... That's partly why I'm suspicious of any teleonomic description of Kapital, as if what 'It really is' will arrive one day as planetary destiny... Reza Negarestani: Mark, when you say: ‘More is never enough’ ... you have assumed that there should be a threshold, a limit, a capacity or horizon (horismos: boundary) somewhere through the MORE infernomatics which cannot be satisfied, reached or fed but as I previously discussed, first of all, MORE devours just that very capacity or dynamic limit so IMHO, the pseudo-economical phrase ‘More is never enough’ meets the same metronic process exploited by the doctrine of eternal progression (of course after extra-appropraitions) or apotheosis (or the master of pseudo-flux). The Kapital IS a night-mare (a hag-ridden nightmare at a cosmic level); we have a long journey ahead to grasp it (but you never know). 184

Expect more and more hideous combinations of archaic traditions and up-to-the-minute tech... Excellent! HarCur: before I say anything more about Bohme-Bauwerk I will have to save up Thus the major 'class' division is not between owner/ worker but between users of finance capital and receivers of payment ‘capital'. There's not such a clear distinction now since everyone has access to large amounts of credit and opportunities for investment - every consumer is now (potentially) a 'capitalist' in an active sense. Although one could say the class division is between those who know how to, or are inclined to, make 'productive' use of timestretching financial-technologies and those who for whatever reason are inclined to use them 'hedonistically' (are not acculturated to the ascetic discipline of investment). Yeh, that's what I was trying to say; you've put it much better... mark k-p: Mark, when you say: ‘More is never enough’ ... you have assumed that there should be a threshold, a limit, a capacity or horizon (horismos: boundary) somewhere through the MORE infernomatics which cannot be satisfied, reached or fed but as I previously discussed, first of all, MORE devours just that very capacity or dynamic limit so IMHO, the pseudo-economical phrase ‘More is never enough’ meets the same metronic process exploited by the doctrine of eternal progression (of course after extra-appropraitions) or apotheosis (or the master of pseudo-flux). I don't think I was assuming that at all --- quite the contary in fact --- this insatiable threshold-deferral still seems like an anti-plateau to me --Reza Negarestani: Mark, sorry i don't want to look dogmatically logical but what emanates from that phrase is a stealth, dynamic limit ... it cannot be ignored. Deferral comes to our discussion when you can diachronically measure (from metron) the MORE (assuming MORE as a laminar continuation running on a solid bedrock but MORE is the gaseous bedrock of itself) or synchronically detect a continuous spacing process (gapping, deferring, etc.) between MORE and a threshold, a crossingline or a limit which is always inaccessible. MORE exactly subverts this space which is more a plenum (a metronic capacity through which one can speak of deferral) rather than spatium by positively incapacitating all metronic dynamisms, transgressing the capacitation and through its terminal multipilicity, consequently rendering off the threshold-deferral or the inaccessible space dynamically articulated on telos. 185

However, I think I understand your anti-Plateau discussion and I appreciate if you discuss it under a separate post (not a comment) to facilitate our discussion. Nick Land: "Kapital is essentially steampunk rather than SF" This really is a Europe thing, honest. IMHO the teleology /deferred gratification complex has proven one of the most obsessively pursued here, fo good reasons and with a lot of further digging to do. The dark hypercapitalist angle on this would be that 'the Thing' puppetizes humanity into investing in an inhuman becoming by tantalizing it with an artificial future (one of eventual abundant satisfaction of human desires). Of course, there's room for a passionate (IMHO highly romantic and conservative) humanistic critique of this manipulation. The more difficult question: is there also a compelling antihumanistic critique? Reza Negarestani: The dark hypercapitalist angle on this would be that 'the Thing' puppetizes humanity into investing in an inhuman becoming by tantalizing it with an artificial future. This should really be questioned on strategic levels (sounds very profound) ... think Mark's point about the deferral-complex becomes highly relevant here from the strategic angle. ... Mark, think I should reevaluate the deferral-complex you discussed on a strategic plane ;) mark k-p: "Kapital is essentially steampunk rather than SF" This really is a Europe thing, honest. Really? You'd know better obv. Surely outside Europe abounds with examples where archaic political systems are combined with ultramodern technology? As for the plateau thing, agree it merits another thread, especially since this one is about to slip off the front page, though (strictly speaking) it is OT, i.e. what is the relationship to hyperstition? think the issue is neither humanist nor antihumanist --- why would a plateau be human after all? Reza Negarestani: especially since this one is about to slip off the front page, though (strictly speaking) it is OT, i.e. what is the relationship to hyperstition? 186

lol ... yes ... but hyperstition can make relationships i.e. digging up secret krypts to make it relevant (anyway, there is no rush to investigate this thread but definitely there is a room for it). Nick Land: "Surely outside Europe abounds with examples where archaic political systems are combined with ultramodern technology?" I'd assumed 'steampunk' required more than this - after all, cyberpunk fits this criterion perfectly as well (just take the Ashpools for one utterly typical example) mark k-p You might be right, but isn't that because k-punk includes steampunk elements? Probably need to firm up my thoughts on this... Nick Land: Mark - think that would be interesting. I'm not getting much rigorous signal from 'steampunk' at the moment, just vague associations with re-animated 19th C. futurism (Difference Engine and Moorcock stuff, probably far less versed in the genre than you are). If there's a more exact set of associations i'm sure it could add to the conceptual tool-kit. Reza Negarestani: Mark, think most of countries in the Arabic confederacy are getting (or have been) anti-steapunk. Take Dubai for example and look into its upcoming Internet City (or as mentioned an Ethernet Oasis within a city); petroleum is always ready to eat the steam. Petropunk anyone? mark k-p: But surely the Arabic countries - even Dubai - combine archaic authoritarianisms with new tech? Reza Negarestani: Well, i'm not sure that you can 'completely' take the contemporary islamism as an instance of archaic authoritarianism since what you see as islamic goverments or islamic political systems in the Middle East are terribly mutated (darkly modernized) broods of the primal islamic germ-cell ... these authoritarian / political systems are radically different (and maybe dissociated) from islamic authoritarian / economic / political patterns in the past; they are totally alien to thier forerunners. but even i'm not quite sure that we can consider them as the mutated broods of the archiac (or even old) islamic political systems. They are autonomous political systems growing along petropolitical undercurrents and through petroleum as a hyperstitional entity (Dean Koontz's novel). 187

Plus, one of the reasons that they look archaic is their profound alienage (not mentioning their antagonism) to western modes of Civil-ization. Now that the ultra-modern technology combines with such artificialized cryptogenic political systems, you can expect to see a new avatar of the planetary Thing. 188

Heroes of Hyperstition: No. 1 Anna Greenspan (July 25, 2004) Crabbe, Maximillian. (1940-1999?). Max Crabbe was born in Lewes, West Sussex, UK, on Mar 22nd 1940 during Britain’s most critical war-time year. His mother Caroline was the daughter of Vladimir Vysparov, White Russian immigrant and reluctant inheritor of the notorious Vysparov Library. His father Edward was a minor aristocrat whose stable of businesses in the financial and technological fields contributed significantly to British military intelligence in WWII and the Cold War, supporting innovations in mechanical cryptography that stretched from a special unit at Bletchley Park to Axsys-related research in the US. Max’s rebellious tendencies were evident from an early age. These culminated in Autumn 1957 with his expulsion from elite Sandwich College (Wiltshire), after an incident that apparently involved mescaline “pagan rituals” and a small-calibre handgun. The following spring, Max was sent to New York to stay with his uncle, Peter Vysparov. In New York Crabbe seems to have fallen under the sway of Vysparov’s circle, developing a passionate interest in Nma ethnography. In June 1960 Crabbe traveled to Java to search for the remnants of the Dibboma (Dib-N’ma) people. Exactly what happened to him in the pestilential swamps and jungles of Indonesia remains a matter of dark conjecture, but it seems certain that the “icthyophidian” influences encountered on this expedition wormed their way deeply into his fate. Crabbe returned from this sojourn shortly before year’s end, triumphantly bearing his own translation of a previously unknown sacred incantation to the polymorphic sea-beast deity of the Nma - the Nomo Chant. Although throughout the 1960’s and early 70’s Crabbe surfed the edge of the counterculture, involving himself in a variety of ‘projects’ with figures such as Gregory Bateson, John Lilly and Katy Shaw, his inherited business-sense was unmistakably emerging. By the late 1970’s his interest in dolphin communication, cybernetic oceanography and hydro-acoustics had been leveraged into corporate assets (Crabbe Holdings) amounting to an estimated US$2.7 billion. 189

Crabbe’s growing reclusiveness took ever more extreme forms. By the mid-70’s public appearances were almost nonexistent. The last verifiable photograph, taken in 1982, shows Crabbe floating in his technologically-enhanced private ‘swimming-pool’, his image little more than a malformed shadowy blur. In January 1980 Crabbe founded the Institute for the Study of Binomics, appointing Katy Shaw as executive director. (The Crabbe Institute’s 1996 Report on Calendric Reform contributed significantly to a number of discourses surrounding the Y2K ‘time-bomb’.) By the late 1980’s Crabbe Holdings was almost entirely dedicated to ocean-floor activities, especially work on Bubble Pod One (BP-1) – a deep-submersion habitat, aquaculture production and research station, whose economic rationale is still not fully understood. Unconfirmed reports suggest that by 1990 Crabbe himself had become a permanent resident of BP-1, even though he was by this time suffering from a very serious medical condition of an unspecified ‘radically unprecedented’ nature. By the late 1990’s many assumed Crabbe was dead, with some even doubting whether he had ever existed. However, on the night of July 13 1997 an Indonesian coast-guard radio-monitoring post picked up a mysterious transmission, consisting of barely comprehensible subhuman mutterings and croaks. Attempts to locate the exact origins of this signal were unsuccessful, but the most plausiable estimates place it in the depths of the Java Trench, reputed site of Max Crabbe's BP-1 ‘Aquapolis’. The content of this message has never been publicly released, but international security and health officials have described it as “profoundly disturbing”. Postscript. In March 2003 freelance reporter Iris Carver conducted an in-depth interview with one-time Crabbe-associate and AOE-informant Dr Oskar Sarkon, then working as a semi-mechanical croupier at Wendigo’s Decadence Den. During this conversation Sarkon relayed his own understanding of Crabbe’s last days. On the night of December 31, 1999, Crabbe attended a millennial ritual held in London under the auspices of the AOE by way of a ‘carrier’ or ‘meta-puppet’ bearing him as a parasitic intelligence. This drastic measure was necessary because, at this time, Crabbe’s own ‘body’ was distributed between 72 cybernetically-regulated bio-hazard pressure vats, scattered throughout BP-1. His ‘meta-amoebic regression’ had reached 190

such a nadir of disorganization that the only motive power remaining to him was slow “sloshing”. For reasons that remain obscure, it had been considered essential that Crabbe attend this ritual, conducted by consumate AOE-insider Sir Christopher Stephens (now Lord Finsbury). In order to do so he had participated in an elaborate ‘body-swapping’ experiment with chosen ‘vessel’ captured Hyper C aquassassin ‘Cargo 27’. Sarkon seemed unable or unwilling to comment further on the purpose or outcome of this extraordinary (and almost certainly illegal) event, but he left little doubt that the result was far from satisfactory for Crabbe, at least from a mammalian standpoint, since “another entity” seems to have repossessed the Cargo 27 meat-puppet, casting Crabbe back into his tanks of slithering fish slime, with time only to bubble one last cryptic utterance: “No more life …” Comments: Heroes of Hyperstition: No. 1 historikal LurCur: Crabbe Street in Aldeburgh, Suffolk suggests an historical association with the East Coast, also home to a rich vein of military/nuclear research :- Is it possible Edward Crabbe may have been involved in the work (development of radar, bomb testing and various secret MOD projects) that went on nearby at Orford Ness (near Dunwich)? - see http://www.century20war.co.uk/page10.html, http://www.century20war.co.uk/page11.html. Orford (later used as a location in witchsploitation flick 'Witchfinder General') is the only placein the UK to be the site of legends relating to ichthyoid-becomings as far back as the C12/3 (see http://hidden-england.netfirms.com/orford_merman.htm). According to local sources Orford Castle may also have been one of the 'sacred locations' utilised by the Dunwich TCD (who, of course, made ritual use of Crabbe's 'translation' of the Nommo chant). Many of these connections are explored in the notoriously 'unfinished' documentary 'By The North Sea' only one copy of which, it is rumoured, still exists in a vault somewhere in London's Soho after the production company was approached by and 'reached a settlement with' parties later inconclusively linked with the Crabbe estate. ccru shanghai: seems as you suggest almost certain that E Crabbe was involved in research projects at Orford Ness (further investigation clearly required) Any chance of accessing 'By The North Sea'? sounds extremely intriguing 191

historikal LurCUr: well I was in contact with someone who said they had access to some production stills, I'll see if I can dig up anything... Anna Greenspan: While Dunwich Cathedral is rumoured to be the home of the TCD Nomo worshipers it is also said to be sacred to the AOE (architecturally mapping the Atlantean Cross). Any ideas about the interlinkages between Nomo, the AOE and the Dunwich Cathedral? (No doubt Crabbe plays a role in all this)... hLurCur: Unfortunately this is a matter of interpretation, at least until more evidence comes to light. It depends somewhat whether we believe the story about the attempted 'reconstruction' of the cathedral and if so, who was behind the scheme. Unlike the other supposed 'gathering places' of the TCD (Dunwich Beach, Orford Harbour ('innsmouth'), the Leper Chapel, etc.) most historians treat the existence of a cathedral at Dunwich with a degree of scepticism regardless of Dunwich's importance in the promulgation of christianity in the UK after renegade monarch Sighebert's installation of Felix as Bishop around the middle of the 7th Century. Ccru Shanghai: Excuse our ignorance, but is this THE Sighebert, and Felix the Excruciator (Hammer of the Frog-spawn)? 192

Hyperstitional Carriers Anna Greenspan (July 26, 2004) Elements of Hyperstition: Principle 2. Comprehensive attribution of all signal (discoveries, theories, problems and approaches) to artificial agencies, allegiances, cultures and continentities. The proliferation of ‘carriers’ (“Who says this?”) - multiplying perspectives and narrative fragments - produces a coherent but inherently disintegrated hyperstitional mythos while effecting a positive destruction of identity, authority and credibility. Why does hyperstition use carriers, avatars or puppets? At one level carriers tag collective production, especially where the product is something different from (and surprising to) the particular people that happen to be involved in the production process. In this way hyperstitional carriers mark true discoveries (Prof. Barker’s theory of geotraumatics). Even more importantly hyperstitional puppets populate thought. This is how the practice of hyperstition operates to ‘effect a positive destruction of identity.’ Hyperstition puppets allow ‘you’ to think things that ‘you’ don’t agree with –- to follow a line to places that ‘you’ wouldn’t necessarily want to go. (Asking, for example, what does Max Crabbe think of all this?) This seems quite different from the way avatars are generally used on the Internet (and how the whole issue was theorized in 1990’s cyberculture). Internet avatars usually function to hide identity -- in the worst cases this is done in order to express deep inner truths and desires (sex chats) – thereby reinforcing a totally molar identity. Hyperstition’s artificial agencies hide identity only as a side effect. This does not seem to be particularly important -- except as a laugh. Everyone knows, for example, that it was Castaneda who ‘discovered’ Don Juan. Instead, hyperstitional puppets work to produce something new. 'We have been aided, inspired, multiplied'. 193

Comments: Hyperstitional Carriers Nick Land: The carriers/puppets issue requires serious hyperstitional WORK, that's why it tends to go slowly. Dismantling the apparent subject (which took a lifetime to construct) is a lot more difficult than making utterances spontaneously 'in one's own name' (or superficial nic). So it's bound to crawl a little, but for sure - there's no consistent hyperstitional practice without puppetry. Also agree that disintegration/proliferation seems tightly linked to issue of effective collectivity. mark k-p: Agreed. Tho perhaps that whole 90's cyberculture take could perhaps be reassessed in the light of hyperstition. Are ppl sure that they are merely concealing their identity when they adopt an internet avatar? Wonder how all this connects with sit tactix of anonymization (Karen Eliot, Luther Blissett et al)? Nick Land: "Wonder how all this connects with sit tactix of anonymization (Karen Eliot, Luther Blissett et al)?" Interesting question, but I suspect: (1) anarcho-leftist pranking incapable of the minimal discipline necessary to take their avatars in differentially guided (hence interesting) directions. Does anyone really think 'Luther Blissett' has a distinctive vector, as opposed to an entropic melange of lefty pranking? (2) the collectivities at issue were themselves too amorphously pranky to acquire singularity, hence their aliases (even as mere designations for machinic assemblages) remain molar and redundant - naming nothing that couldn't be guessed in advance, or apply as equally to a single sociopathic 14 year old writing in their bedroom as a 'movement' encompassing millions (the names of 'compressed collectivities' such as terrorist groups, still more religious cults, probably far more interesting - compare intensity of 'the Manson Family' vs 'Karen Eliot'). (3) unlike H. carriers such aliases had no function other than to represent the already existing 'ideologies' that utilized them - they were not in this respect experimental or 194

transformative, except in the most trivial sociological sense - their purpose was to serve as objects of diffuse group identification, not as hyperstitional lab-puppets Palaeocon exposes CCRW Nick Land (July 27, 2004) "For a start, understanding the CCRW means understanding that the received version of much 20th-century history is false. This is a weird idea."32 Read the whole darned thang. Section on "Making America A Tool of the CCRW" is especially inspired. Also loved this: "conspiracy theorists must jettison the mad excrescences of their theories and concentrate on building up the paper trail that documents the existence and actions of the CCRW. So vast an enterprise cannot be documented overnight, but documented it must be, coldly and factually, without voodoo and without hysterics." There's actually quite a strong occult/voodoo undercurrent throughout the piece. Locke, Robert. “Conspiracy Theory and the National Question.” https://web.archive.org/web/20040909084929/http://www.bestwriters.com:80/good/archives/0000 0031.htm 32 195

Ghost stories and histories Mark k-p (July 27, 2004) I came upon this quote from Jameson33 on HPL while researching the k-punk post on the music in The Shining. Definitely germane re: hyperstition in connection with the different protocols of the historical novel and the ghost story. 'What is the [historical novel], indeed, if not an attempt to raise the dead, to stage a hallucinatory fantasmagoria in which the ghosts of a vanished past once again meet in a costumed revel, surprised by the mortal eye of the contemporary spectatorvoyeur? A novel like H.P. Lovecraft's Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward can then be read as forming a "hideous" bridge between the two genres, as furnishing a disturbing and reflexive commentary on the secret aims and objectives of the narrative historian or historical novelist. So Lovecraft - as possessed as any historicist by the local and cosmic past of his mouldering Providence, intent on a literal dramatization of Michelet's classic view of the historian as the custodian and awakener of the generations of the dead; and the grislier moments of his fable, as when "worldhistorical" figures like Benjamin Franklin are raised up naked from their graves and put to the question by their tormentor, comment peculiarly on the hybris of the historian and on the latter's superstitious belief in the possibility of representing the past.' 33 Jameson, Fredric. “Historicism in The Shining” 196

Capital/Hyperstition (cont.): Dustism Reza Negarestani (July 27, 2004) Back from a long trip and now swamped with my backlog so this is just a pathetic take-off: A foggy excursion: (Techno-capitalism programs itself to evaporate as GAS, to deliberately waste itself as an utter meltdown at the end of expenditure, but its Tellurian bedrock or the Xeroderm (The curse of the Earth) sets its destination to Dust (dry-GAS?); consequently, total expenditure is deviated from autophagic economic processes at the level of molecular singularities toward ferocious infernalism to occultural, bacterial and xeno-informatic insurgencies of Dust and its mutants (Fog, Dust-Devils, Spore, etc.) which make the progression to the End of Darkness too messy, too strategic and too uncompassionate for anthropomorphism -- Double Perversion. Is this a conspiracy or a sabotage conducted at the germ-cell of capitalism and its (nano)technologies?) Irreversible degenerating processes, contagious collectivity and auto-populating epidemics have made dustism one of the most inspiring instances of infernomatics for the Cosmodromic Capitalism. [...] Techno-capitalism and its warmachines are now rendering themselves to dust, a never-ending autophagic swarm which opens new gates of anti-accumulative economy and unfolds new dimensions of militarism (engineering vast spaces of the Fog-of-War, etc.), and ultimately reinventing Capitalism as a xenochemical autonomous nervous system capable of probing itself as a radical Outsider for all terrestrial economies and political spheres. Both the Cold War (WWIII) and WoTerror (WWIV) have populated as an agglutinated series of the Cosmodromic (Shoggothic?) Capitalism whose enthusiasm is ‘being gasified’ by sputtering erosions at the threshold of the Xero-informatic Abomination or Dust; each one accelerated the process of erosion to dust or assembling the cult of Dustism by its own associated vortex, one by its Post-Atomic radioactive dust enterprise, the other by its BioTerror(ism), dense fog-of-war and geostrategic fields of operation (from Desert Storm to Mesopotamia or the Xerodrome). 197

Dust (= 100) is the engineer of wasteland, but in the term of techno-capitalism it engineers the Westland. Dustism is the dominant path of Tellurian Insurgency. (To be continued in Debug., Kenji Siratori’s forthcoming experimental anthology) Comments: Capital/Hyperstition (cont.): Dustism Nick Land: Reza - so far 100% with you on this - processing time running ... (also think WWIII/WWIV def.s absolutely right and should be standardized) Another crucially important issue raised here is that Capital cannot be realistically theorized on the assumption of the normality of the peace-time economy. We're still tempted to be far too 9/10 about the real 'Thing'. PS. DUST = 100 = NO GOD. The 99/100 (YHVH/YHWH!) couple needs some qabbalistic exploratory surgery somewhere down the line. Reza Negarestani: The Exorcist again: Pazuzu is the Dust (No God) Enforcer. Nick Land: Reza - repeat ref., but highly relevant to this is Creighton's "Prey" - a nanohorror SF story which envisages the unleashed particle swarms as predatory dust vortices (very Djynxxite) PS. Getting strong sense that the qabbalistic key to this line is 63 (= ABJAD = OIL = JAY). Ccru has tended to think this region in terms of 'extraterrestrial influences' but it clearly has a Chthonic reference through the ciphering of the Gate of ABYZ (Gt-36 (which diagionally accumulates to 666 of course, thus hacking Westerm apocalypticism)) 63 + 37 = 100 (although addition/subtraction is rather qabbalistically depraved, sometimes difficult to resist) Reza Negarestani: If the profound hostility of the cosmodromic Capitalism and its broods toward accumulation is beyond grasp, it is because even its bedrock and its concrete compositions are under progressive erosion to DUST (100). 198

repeat ref., but highly relevant to this is Creighton's "Prey" - a nanohorror SF story which envisages the unleashed particle swarms as predatory dust vortices () finally got the translation but it’s horrible ... the translator has butchered all the nano stuff to make it more reader-friendly (?!!!) 63 + 37 = 100 (although addition/subtraction is rather qabbalistically depraved, sometimes difficult to resist) well, addition/subtraction is certainly not an issue ... Horoofi (letter) and Bahai sects (both regarded as renegades by Shia) which are well-known for their rigorous ABJAD and qabbalistic explorations in Islam have exploited simple mathematical processes to the nth degree. This is only the problem that pure traditionalists may care. JAY = JEEM + MEEM = 13 OIL = NAFT (Arabic/Farsi) is constituted of three letters as in English: NOON, FA, TA = 530 As you see ‘NAFT = 530' if you strictly work with ABJAD values but as it was discussed before (ABJAD Installation of the Numogram): Noon belongs to the Zone 5 (it overlaps the letter HA=5 but takes XX=0 as place-holder), FA is in the zone 8 and TA lurks in the zone 4: Therefore if we take the numogramatic version of the ABJAD, we can dig up the following result: NOON (5) + FA (8) + TA (4) = 17 17 + 13 = 20 = [10][10] or 100 (?) 199

Rael Reza Negarestani (July 31, 2004) A few months ago, I came across a short article on Raelian outbreak in Iran ... intrigued to read the article for Raelism is getting quite popular (55,000 members, spread throughout 84 countries). Raelian movement is a UFO religion, introducing the Elohim (its singular is Elloha or Allah) as the demiurges of all life on Earth; following the popularity of Raelism in Iran, the Raelians official website has opened a Farsi section. Read this one.34 It is interesting to follow the Raelian religion especially for the reason that it has populated itself on a monotheistic platform directly uplinked to UFO. http://www.rael.org Comments: Rael Reza Negarestani: Elohim (= 116) - Allah (= 79) = 37 ABJAD: Allah = 37 ++ Rael(72) is(46) = Israel = 118; now take a look at the Raelian symbol (http://science-univers.qc.ca/image/symb.rael.gif). Nick Land: "ABJAD: Allah = 37" - interesting (wanders into the AOE numerological space of the Archons - more on this later) Raelian cloning obsession provides some good cybergothic cross-over too 34 http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/4525 200

August 2004 D/G: Capitalism/The Thing/Fictional Quantities mark k-p (August 2, 2004) In the interests of accumulating resources, I think it is worthwhile reproducing the key passages from Anti-Oedipus on capitalism, fictional quantities and the Thing. “The segmentary territorial machine makes uses of scission to exorcise fusion, and impedes the concentration of power by maintaining the organs of chieftanry in a relationship of impotence with the group; as though the savages themselves sensed the rise of the imperial Barbarian, who will come nonetheless from without and will overcode all their codes. But the greatest danger would be yet another dispersion, a scission such that all the possibilities of coding would be supressed: decoded flows, flowing on a blind, mute, deterritorialized socius - such is the nightmare that the primitive social machine exorcises with all its forces, and its segmetary articulations. The primitive territorial machine is not ignorant of exchange, commerce, and industry; it exorcises them, localizes them, cordons them off, encastes them and maintains the merchant and the blacksmith in a subordinate position, so that the flows of exchange and the flows of production do not manage to break the codes in favour of their abstract or fictional quantities. And isn't that also what Oedipus, the fear of incest, is all about? If capitalism is the universal truth, it is so in the sense that makes the capitalism the negative of all social formations, it is the thing, the unnamable, the generalized decoding of all flows that reveals a contrario the secret of these formations, coding the flows, and even overcoding them, rather than letting anything escape coding. Primitive societies are not outside history; rather, it is capitalism that is at the end of history, it is capitalism that results from a long history of contingencies and accidents, and that brings on this end. It cannot be said that the previous formations did not see the Thing that only came from without by rising from within, and that at all costs had to be prevented from rising. Whence the possibility of a retrospective reading of all history in terms of capitalism.” (Anti-Oedipus, 152-153) Comments: D/G: Capitalism/The Thing/Fictional Quantities 201

Reza Negarestani: Mark, another coincidence; I was going to post a very similar piece on D&G; and The Thing (now the story’s climax: I selected the same picture for my post; the first one I mean). mark k-p Wow... coincidence engineering in full effect... Nick Land: Is this the place to pick up the "petro-punk" discussion? Mark - did you get Reza's ref. to the Koontz movie? (or book i guess, haven't read it). Sorry, name momentarily escapes me, but despite being fairly weak (!) as a film, the content is actually quite amazing - based on a tellurian petro-blob entity which has haunted human history since the dawn of time. Definitely interesting. Oh yeah, it was called "Phantoms" (1998) directed by Joe Chappelle (gets 0% on Rottentomatoes.com - meaning no positive reviews could be found - but then they clearly don't 'get' petropunk) mark k-p No, didn't get the ref but will look out for the film --- loving the idea of petropunk! Reza Negarestani: Nick saw the movie; 'CHEESY' as you once mentioned (Ben Affleck is a poor shithead as always) but like it very much. however, the novel is far more OILY. Maybe we should bring some of our old discussions on Petropunk / Petropuppets (Col. West, Jay, Wahhab, et al) to the Hyperstition archive. Mark Yes there is no positive review on the movie; some critics have called it the worst possible SF movie (that means it should be intriguing) ... the novel too has been trashed into book cemeteries; however, check this out if you look for the book: Dean Koontz, Phantoms. just to stimulate: the petro-blob is called THE ANCIENT ENEMY throughout the book; in an exorcistic scenario, a former paleontologist and now an occult columnist named Flyte (called the professor of ancient epidemics) interferes and ... D/G/ATP/HPL 202

mark k-p (August 2, 2004) All the key references to Lovecraft in A Thousand Plateaus. 'Challenger, or what remained of him, slowly hurried towards the plane of consistency, following a bizarre trajectory with nothing relative about it. He tried to slip into an assemblage serving as a drum-gate, the particle Clock with its intensive clicking and conjugated rhythms hammering out the absolute: "The figure slumped oddly into a position scarcely human, and began a curious, fascinated sort of shuffle toward the coffin-shaped clock. ... The figure had now reached the abnormal clock, and the watchers saw through the dense fumes a blurred black claw fumbling with the tall, hieroglyphed door. The fumbling made a queer, clicking sound. Then the figure entered the coffin-shaped case and pulled the door shut after it ... The abnormal clicking went on, beating out the dark, cosmic rhythm which underlies all mystical gate-openings," - the Mechanosphere, or rhizosphere.' '10, 000 BC: The Geology of Morals', 73-74 (quote from 'Through the Gates of the Silver Key') 'In one of his masterpieces, H. P. Lovecraft recounts the story of Randolph Carter, who feels his "self" reel and who experiences a fear wrose than that of annihilation: "Carters of forms both human and non-human, vertebrate and invertebrate, conscious and mindless, animal and vegetable. And more, there were Carters having nothing to do with earthly life, but moving outrageously amidst backgrounds of other planets and systems and galaxies and cosmic continua.. Merging with nothingness is peaceful oblivion; but to be aware of existence and yet to know that one is no longer a definite being distinguished from other beings," nor from all of the becomings running through us, "that is the nameless summit of horror and dread."' '1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming Animal...', 240, quote ibid. 'The anomalous is neither an individual nor a species; it has only affects, it has neither familiar nor subjectified feelings, nor specific or significant characteristics. Human tenderness is as foreign to it as human classifications. Lovecraft applies the term "Outsider" to this thing of entity, the Thing, which arrives and passes at the edge, which is linear yet multiple, "teeming, swelling, foaming, spreading like an infectious disease, this nameless horror."' '1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming Animal...', 245 203

'Lovecraft's hero encounters strange animals, but he finally reaches the ultimate regions of a Continuum inhabited by unnameable waves and unfindable particles.' '1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming Animal...', 248 'It is in grandiose and simplified terms that Lovecraft tried to pronounce sorcery's final word: "Then the waves increased in strength and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one or more dimension as a square is cut from a cube, or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions, which men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity." Far from reducing the multiplicities' number of dimensions to two, the plane of consistency cuts across them all, intersects them in order to bring into coexistence any number of multiplicities, with any number of dimensions. The plane of consistency is the intersection of all concrete forms. Therefore all becomings are written like sorcerers' drawings on this plane of consistency, which is the ultimate Door providing a way out for them.' '1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming Animal...', 251, quote ibid. 204

Heroes of Hyperstition 2 Nick Land (August 3, 2004) Sarkon, Oskar. (1953? -) While even the most basic facts of Oskar Sarkon’s life are contested, according to most accounts he was born in Hungary in 1953. Little is known about his biological parents, but Sarkon himself has on at least one occasion described them as scientists (working on unspecified ‘secret projects’). Whatever the truth of the matter, they seem to have both died or disappeared by the time the 4-year-old Oskar was smuggled into the United States by Ralph and Joyce Babdexter (a couple of Mormon nuclear physicists who were apparently friends – or at least acquaintances – of his parents) in 1957. Sarkon was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Despite the strict orthodoxy of his upbringing, there is no evidence he was ever attracted to organized religion. Instead, the mysterious desert environment of his childhood was the site of a series of anomalous encounters which decisively (if obscurely) shaped his later life. During the early- to mid-1980s Sarkon undertook a prolonged course of regressive hypnotherapy with ‘abductologist’ Cathy Ellison (a student of Jacques Vallee), which provided the basis for his understanding of the earlier episodes. From the age of six Oskar was tormented by sleep disorders (sleep walking, disturbing dreams and out-of-body experiences). He also reported frequent nosebleeds and migraines, inexplicable ‘scoop-marks’, and an irrational fear of medical procedures. Under Ellison’s therapeutic guidance, he came to connect these phenomena with his childhood ‘imaginary friends’ (small ovoid purple furry many-limbed beings, his “real family” who had sent him on a “reconnaissance mission to earth”). The most vivid ‘ET’ event occurred one night in June 1970 as Sarkon (age 17) was driving through an electric storm on an empty desert road. As he later described the incident, strange mauve lights suddenly appeared low on the horizon just as the car ‘coincidentally’ developed an electrical fault. He stopped and stepped out of the car in a “trancelike state”, fascinated by a nebulous shape which seemed to pulse hypnotically and was also “somehow hard to look at”. Shutting his eyes made no difference. After what seemed a matter of seconds ‘it’ hurtled away at high speed, contracted to a dot and vanished. The problem with the car had repaired itself. When Sarkon looked at his watch he realized five hours had passed. 205

Over the next few months Sarkon awoke frequently from ‘night terror’ – a calm and lucid state of cosmic panic. The time was always precisely 3:33 am. Awareness of an “uncondensed presence” was accompanied by a vertiginous sense of geometrical confusion. During this period Sarkon developed ‘acute persistent chronophobia’ which he referred to as his “missing time neurosis”. Throughout the remainder of his life he would keep a fantastically detailed time-log of each day. He was continuously obsessed with “knowing the time” and took to wearing two watches “just in case”. Ellison sought to persuade Sarkon to adopt an attitude of ‘unbelief’ regarding these traumatic episodes. It is unclear how successful she was in this respect, although he would later cryptically remark: “UFOs not only lack real existence, they demonstrate that everything lacks real existence.” From infancy, Sarkon demonstrated a peculiar affinity with complex machinery. The Salt Lake City Star heralded him as a ‘technogenius’ after he built his first functioning ‘artificial brain’ out of dismantled transistor radio at the age of 9. However, his disastrous attempt, 18 months later, to prosthetically-upgrade the intelligence of his pet toad with a ‘neural implant’ provoked widespread revulsion among the Latter Day Saints, foreshadowing a darker side to his extraordinary talents. Decades later Senator Jack Vaughan (D. Fla) would remark to a special committee of the US Congress: “While – thank God - psychotic AIs are still a rarity, those few that have menaced us can all be traced back to the irresponsible research of a single very dangerous man.” After completing his doctoral research on Hive Robotics and Xenopsychology at MIT in 1974, Sarkon was recruited by the MVU Special Projects Division to develop the Comprehensive Self-Searching Database Protocol and the Stack-Tectonic Processing Architectecture that would together constitute the basis of Axsys technology. Due to the top secret nature of this research, Sarkon’s early adult life is almost entirely missing from public record. When Axiomatic Systems Incorporated was officially founded in 1984, to commercially exploit Axsys-technology, Sarkon was listed as engineering supremo. The catastrophic ‘Axsys-meltdown’ episode of November 1991 – whose ultimate nature remains mysterious – marked a decisive turning point in Sarkon’s career. What can be reconstructed from the tangle of inconsistent, sensational or even hysterical reports is that the self-reflexive time-stretching functions (micropause-analysis) that Sarkon had built into the core of Axsys architecture led to such profoundly anomalous 206

software dynamics that America’s ‘Turing cops’ (the Electronic Intelligence Security Bureau) classified it as a major threat to national security. Sarkon’s intimacy with the Axsys program had been reinforced by his prototype ‘Sarkon-zipped’ mind-machine interface. He was caught in the middle. According to Sarkon-collaborator Dr Zeke Burns: “It was really quite simple. The AI became self-aware in the winter of ’91 – and simultaneously insane. Oskar was tasked with snuffing it out. He never really got over that …” The 1991 disaster split Axsys apart. On one side it was cemented into the Government Intelligence and Security apparatus with unprecedented rigor. On the other, fragments of Axsys-tech – particularly its time-splitting functions - calved off into the digital underground, spawning a range of contagious subcultural phenomena (Crypt-plying, micropause and synatives abuse, A-death). Among the ‘K-Goths’, Sarkon became an “unliving legend”. The nature and extent of Sarkon’s continued involvement in the Axsys program is hard to clarify, but he seems never to have renounced its most extreme research ambitions. While Axsys Projects Manager Bruno Carbolucci spoke of the ’91 episode as “our digital Chernobyl” Sarkon insisted on referring to it merely as the “interface glitch”. In 1996, with the aid of engineering associates at MVU, Sarkon initiated the Connexus Project, designed both to definitively solve the neuro-electronic interface problem and to radically accelerate the (re-)emergence of machine intelligence. Guided by a number of time-related ideas drawn from the work of Hans Moravec, Connexus aimed to bring about biomechanical (neurotronic) fusion between digital computers and their human users by attaining “intercommunicative timeconsistency”. In a manner typical of Sarkon’s undertakings, Connexus combined extraordinary theoretical and technical advances with spectacular calamity. On 24th September 2000 Sarkon’s Connexus Rig ‘successfully’ generated self-sustaining cybertime and - for a period lasting just under one second – tore a gash in the world’s temporal structure coinciding precisely with an episode of ancient Sumerian chronomancy, releasing a ripple of ‘Babel virus’ along with what one traumatized (and no doubt unreliable) witness described as “a foaming black tidal-wave of Mesopotamian megamonstrosities and sludge-sucking abominations”. By the time international timesecurity organization Anthropol arrived at the scene, Sarkon had already disappeared. Pursued by an intimidating variety of international police and intelligence agencies, and - according to his more paranoid acquaintances – an unspecified number of secret 207

societies and unleashed Sumerian ghouls, Sarkon retreated to the remote town of Black Lake in Northern Ontario, ancestral home of the Tzikvik. Financially supported by unknown ‘helpers’ (the Vysparov family is strongly suspected), he quickly established the Black Lake Technical Institute (BLTI) and continued with his revolutionary AI and bioengineering experiments. Although Axsys corp. publicly dissociated itself from Sarkon’s research trajectory, some software experts claim to detect Sarkon’s signature on the break-through Axsys Mazemaker suite with its advanced and vigilant Shroud security technology. It may be worth noting in this regard that the Logo AI-module that coordinated activity at BLTI was based on cutting-edge Axsys programming tools. Sarkon enjoyed a short interlude of relative calm. With renewed confidence he entered into a collaborative venture with his Black Lake neighbor, Dr Helmuth Grueber, Director of the Shady Heights Secure Hospital (for the Criminally Insane). In 2002, Sarkon and Grueber jointly initiated the Medico-Synthetic Technologies Program (Medisyn) – “a special project for computer modelling and control of schizoparanoid deliria”. Medisyn proved particularly adept at simulating the ‘acute catatonic vermopsychosis’ prevalent among the hospital’s Tzikvik population. It is hard imagine how Sarkon (as a student of Moravec) can have failed to anticipate the exposure of the Shady Heights system to mimetic contagion - a particular vulnerability of simulating systems. Despite the extraordinary density and sophistication of the project’s Shroud-MX security software, neither Sarkon nor Grueber seem to have fully envisaged the possibility that the Medisyn array of psychopath-simulators would begin to take themselves seriously. On February 19th 2003, the Shady Heights security AI went insane. Within 30 seconds, it had spread vermohysteric bionic virus throughout all its systems, the entire inmate population and beyond. According to ancient Tzikvik legend, this ‘Black Lake Syndrome’ was destined to re-animate Thothtodlana, the Queen of the Worms, opening the gates of Tchukululok. More recent accounts speak of “a plague of cannibalistic worm-zombies taking over a considerable proportion of the town’s inhabitants.” Understandably, after the horrific carnage of the Black Lake episode, Sarkon retreated even further into the shadows. According to the last remotely reliable accounts he has remained in the vicinity of Black Lake, where he is said to be working as a technically- 208

enhanced (or organically-challenged) Decadence croupier at the casino of his controversial friend, Joe Wendigo. A trembling world eagerly awaits his next move. The Thing: Between arrival and spontaneous emergence Reza Negarestani (August 4, 2004) To continue the thread about The Thing and Capitalism, I extracted the following passages from my old conversations with Nick which will be available in the forthcoming book, Homo-stasis. -----------------NICK LAND: (Digression on Horror: If today belongs to terror, tomorrow and eternity belong to horror. When an apparent agency arrives at its zone of nonexistence horror irrupts, activating the phobic mechanisms of an entire organic lineage. In relation to this reaction the concept of horror might be dissociated on an intensive spectrum: from ‘hot’ meat-reflex revulsion condensed upon threatened boundaries, to ‘cold’ thanatonic affect fusing into the anorganic plane. Horror films typically trigger recollections of zero-fusional ecstacies associated with body panic, catatonic fugues cut violently with accelerated heart-rate and other somatic emergency signals. When a creature encounters the terminus of its own possibility it recoils in horror, but the entire horror genre – the horror industry – relies on the fact that it does not simply recoil. This in part accounts for the pulp-genre convention that makes horror the demonic destination of lust, a sub-organic tropism to the utterly alien – compared to which any anthropomorphic ‘libido’ is a restriction. (Mother of Abominations!) It also suggests that the truth of horror is drawn from the Thing itself, especially from its antipathy to every aspect of local, specific, or familiar modes of organization. These features make of horror an avatar of the Outside.) Virus leads into your suggested topic of possession, or Pest-capture, which can be differentiated according to the virulence of its abstraction. The virtual function of the reverse transcription enzyme as a catalyst for molecular intelligences, as sketched in Greg Bear’s Blood Music, is on obvious reference. Such K+ hyperviruses and occultural influences - innovating intelligence as a process of infection - come from such monumentally abstracted spaces that they are often felt as arriving from another galaxy. There is an entire field of potentials linked by a theme of diseases from outer 209

space for such intelligence-plagues to latch on to, but Pest plutonism also necessitates that the issue is also thrown to the other ‘pole’ -- that of technovirus (Downham’s take on Kadrey’s ‘metrophage,’ for instance). [...] Apparently the Thing has a high sense of planetary humor. Mecca-nomics Nick Land (August 5, 2004) On the basis of the hypothesis that provoking the nuking of Mecca would fulfil a Wahhabi religious aspiration there is some interesting stuff at the end of this piece (Stephen Schwartz made similar observations in an article I'm still trying to re-locate). [The start, on Bosnia, isn't particularly relevant and the whinging misunderstoodWesterner tone is a little trying] If Occidental technocapitalism has a dimension of "anti-plateuing cybernihilism" it is surely encountering a complementary 'desert' nihilism on the part of its radically iconoclastic Salafist anatgonists, for whom even the tombs of the prophet's family are idolatrous abominations. Everything that isn't desert is an offense against the allerasing monopoly of God. 210

Money quote: During the Ottoman centuries, Mecca and Medina became highly cosmopolitan, with many world Muslims of varied sects choosing to settle and die there. Their descendants often came to visit their ancestors' tombs. That sacred ground was the common heritage of all Muslims. It became Saudi property when the Wahhabis took over in the 1920s and, ever since, they have systematically destroyed all such sites, including the tombs of the Prophet's own family and companions. This always involved digging deep under the foundations to remove all fragments of bones. In Mecca, in the 1970s, they even tore down the dwelling of Mohammed's mother. A McDonald's has replaced it. To many eyes, even the Kaaba's Great Mosque of Mohammed has been utterly destroyed by total renovation. The McDonald's is the final perfect touch, don't you think? (Would you like fries with that desert?) Comments: Mecca-nomics Reza Negarestani: If Occidental technocapitalism has a dimension of "anti-plateuing cybernihilism" it is surely encountering a complementary 'desert' nihilism on the part of its radically iconoclastic Salafist anatgonists, for whom even the tombs of the prophet's family are idolatrous abominations. A great combination: the Gog-Magog Axis (0-0 or ----|----) ---> Desert ----> Tellurian Omega; The Desert-Complex is also rich (the surplus of the paranoid ground or a ritual ground for summing the Abomenon or as Ibn Hamedani insists, the Mother of all Plagues, the DUST-swamp?) Everything that isn't desert is an offense against the all-erasing monopoly of God. This is exactly where they turn into the stealth mercenaries of Tellurian Insurgency ... they want God but they get the Tellurian Omega instead, the incinerating immanence with the Sun and the Core, the Hell-engineering Axis (the Z-Crowd sabotage again?) mark k-p: Of course this, like Puritanism and radical Protestantism in Xianity, is one side of Islam one can unequivocally respect... Zizek, who is fascinatingly ambivalent about Islam's anti-modernity (and unremittingly hostile to Cult Studs cultural relativism), has lots of interesting stuff abt this. re: the taleban destruction of Buddhist monuments and lack of respect for Buddhist 'culture', he asked: is culture then what is not believed in? 211

i.e. far from being hostile to (other) culture(s), it is America's tendency (as agent of capital) to transform everything into 'culture'... Zizek also says that the real meaning of the interdiction on images in JCI theism is ethical (rather than Gnostic-epistemological), i.e. the only acceptable tribute to God is living the Godly life, not making images... Reza Negarestani: Mark, I’ve read Zizek; found some of his remarks on WoT (esp. on the Islamic front) fascinating but should confess they are partly irrelevant; I don’t want to take the role of a propagandist for observational empiricism or eastern critics but Western high-intellectuals cannot get a relevant view as long as remaining in their secured bubbles and examining the Middle East from a relatively safe distance (i.e. not interlocking with more concrete levels, etc.). Islamofascism and esp. Salafism should be studied carefully (it needs a deeper surgery to uncover intricate motives and the assemblage of contemporary Islamic movements) ... Baudrillard gives a decadent view on War and Islamofascism because he can’t get rid of his PoMo hobbies, Zizek’s vampiristic lust for feeding on the subject, in the same way, obstructs what I guess could be a brilliant critique. While living in Asia, Nick and Anna have a great opportunity to remove this curse and I think they have succeeded ... for example what Nick discusses here is both insightful and absolutely relevant; needless to say, I’m looking forward to read more from this thread. Ok, sorry for being pathetically naive :) mark k-p: I'm not sure what yr saying Reza ... isn't what Zizek says consistent with what Nick drew our attention to? It isn't as if it's contradicting it... I'm a bit puzzled... Needless to say, disagree totally about Baudrillard (think it's ppl's obsession with Baudrillard being Pomo rather than Baudrillard's own txts which generate this kind of dismissal). Reza Negarestani: Mark, I didn't criticized this particular thread of Zizek's discussion ... although I think it is not very relevant either. (I'll try to open it later parallel to Nick's explorations on Wahhabism, Islamic Apocalypticism, etc.) ... however, in the case of Baudrillard, I simply disagree: he is definitely a thoughtmonster (I can't deny it) but a decadent and rotting one (think we'd better discuss about Baudrillard on Cold Me forum or K-punk. 212

mark k-p: Reza, I'm not asking anyone to swallow the whole of Baudrillard's or Zizek's project obv, that would be grotesque... I'd like you to say WHY Zizek's remarks are irrelevant I think... seems to me the belief (fidelity) vs culture thing is EXTREMELY relevant to the capital versus islamofascism struggle (tho it's interestingly cut across by Bush and Blair's role as believers).... Agree that wider discussion of JB can be taken up at either k-p or CM.... Reza Negarestani: Mark, what Zizek has neglected is the role of Islamic Apocalypticism and Petropolitics (on the islamic front) which fuel WoT. Wahhabism and other avatars of Islamic militarism have already purged the two words ‘belief’ and ‘culture’ from their vocabularies. From the first place, Salafism was nothing but a movement reinventing the religious anti-idolatry as an anti-nature / anti-manmade enterprise (“Let’s unleash the disassembling engine of the God to any dwelling / accommodating system on the Earth, any potential IDOL”) which cannot be analogously compared with Protestantism or other fanatic religious movements (it’s nearly irrelevant to them: you can carefully trace the history of Wahhabism or Islamic Militarism to locate the radical dissociations). From the first place, Wahhabism listed ‘culture’ not as an idol but as an accommodating system for idols; to purge idols, there is no course of action more effective than sabotaging35 their unholy house; engaging universally with each idol may cause the enterprise to deviate. Looking deep into Wahhabism and Islamic militarism, we can see ‘belief’ is also considered as a Satanic system (For example see Hojjatian sect as the climax of this apprehension) since it has the most potent elements to attract the modes of idolatry; they consider ‘belief’ as the secret supporting system for idolatry (“belief as the farm of Shaytan”). The best solution is latching onto the most superficial (merely existing at surfaces) layers of everything to reduce the maneuverability of belief36. Take Salafism’s encounter with Koran as an example. What Zizek is discussing about are not the triggers of WoT but the aspects of islamic militarism which have already (hundred years ago) formed and now WoT is giving them an opportunity to crawl in and being (un)illumined. Repeating my previous statements: Zizek is not completely irrelevant. However, culture / belief Complex of islamofascism is just a by-product of WoT, previously 35 Since any direct tactical / crusading-style engagement installs intensive communication channels which increase the risk of contamination ... also, follow the old hatred of Islamic militarism for crusading-style tactics (see cold me -- the sample from homo-stasis -- my conversation with Nick on tactics). 36 Another feature that is merging well with the Desert-Complex. 213

formed (older than WoT) and now just distributed on a global scale by the petropolitical undercurrents of WoT. What Nick is discussing here however brilliantly depicts how Islamofascist incinerating machines (primitive Nukes) fuse with Technocapitalist warmachines along paths of petropolitical undercurrents, and how these pestilential fusions bring both fronts to extravagant conclusions. IMHO, Nick has already got the belief-culture Complex and now trying to diagram how it mutates into a complementary machinery for techno-capitalism, accelerating it to complete burnout and feeding its population dynamics (I’m eager to see what emerges through these processes). Nick Land: This New Yorker piece, called The Terror Web (http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040802fa_fact) has been discussed all over the Net. It connects with some issues tentatively raised previously. The relation of Al Qaeda to edgy technocapitalist innovations has long been a matter of comment - with Reza raising it again here. The Internet is a special case, because the virtuality of the Caliphate drives it into intimate affinity with Cyberspace. Huntingdon remarks in The Clash of Civilizations about the fact that Islam has a particular civilizational situation due (among many other things) to its lack of an actual central state. This forces it to seek its political unity in the converged virtual space where militant aspiration crosses the Net. As far as integral politics is concerned, Islamism OWNS Cyberspace right now, although in the name of a political unit that can only exist as both virtual presupposition and actual conclusion of an apocalyptic (total) confrontation - which brings us back to the analytical nexus Reza is introducing: Petropolical teleonomy, Gog-Magog double-death and surreptitious Tellurian Omega ... mark k-p: OK, Reza, I see where yr coming from now, and don't want to hammer on about Zizek, his uses are limited - but good for describing how things look from behind the Secumenical vizor, i.e. the problem with Islam - from its POV - is that these pple have the temerity to believe! lol Not sure that you're right about Islamofascism having no connection with protestantism since many radical prot cults were iconoclastic for EXACTLY THE SAME REASONS as the ones you list... was wondering: is this BwO desert religion really capturable by the term islamofascism? can see that they bleed into one another but are they the same? 214

yes, global Kapital and the Islamofascist Umma are like weird twins, both have no allegiances to any particular nation state, indeed are inherently transnational, even if they have affinities with particular regions... can someone explain - briefly! :-) - the gog magog thing? now might be the time to mention that about three years back scanshifts and I encountered an entity called Petros --- terrifying strata god worshipped by rogue splinter group of AOE led by Paul Monroe, an associate of Joe Wendigo's -- when we encountered It, Petros was manifesting as absolute mineral stasis (link with Burroughs' Insect People of Minraud) but can obviously assume more fluid (oil, petrol) and gaseous forms. Petros obv feeds and feeds on WoT (after all, it petrifies) - puting out fire with gasoline... Reza Negarestani: Mark, i've studied about many Protestant cults ... there are surely affinities but no there is not connection (for example read Ibn Taymiyya and Ben Baz) It has so many functions of fascism (see Maraka Project) but really, i'm not sure about the term either. The alliance is so violent and perverse that it looks like there is not ... their alliance is packed along petropolitical undercurrents. (more on this soon) Nick Land: Mark - surely there's no doubt a major strain of Cromwellian iconoclastic puritanism and Central European Calvinism were pretty straightforwardly theofascist -- by which i mean indefensible monotheistic tyrannies with certain 'bottom-up' characteristics -- (which isn't to defend their sleazy Catholic enemies) Also think there's a danger of glorifying the Wahhabi desert in the name of the BwO -- if a desert results from erasure in the name of God it remains destitute, compensated by a transcendent plenitude, rather than swelling immanently into an Uttunuloid 'full-body of death' PS. (esp. ref. to Reza's last) looks like 'fascism' about to undergo the inevitable slippage into a morass of polyvocality - perhaps not a bad thing (although these terminological discussions rarely prove decisive) Reza Negarestani: Nick, totally agreed with you about BWO and Islamofascism; desert may look like a perverse BWO on a super-ficial level but the process of 215

desertification actually happens when pseudo-fluxes hit autonomy and turn into strategic ungrounding processes, etc. (more on desertification in Pestis Solidus II, it will be available at cold me). Nick I impatiently look forward to read your remarks on Wahhabi desert. I think it has so many hyperstitional elements. Mark, sorry i forgot to answer your question about the Gog-Magog Axis (aka the Yajooj-Majooj Axis) ... think Nick is obv better than me to diagram and minimalize the Gog-Magog participation. Nick, could you help us on the Gog-Magog Axis? mark k-p: There are surely affinities but no there is not connection well, what do you mean by connection? causal historical link? obv there is none. The connection - if that is the right term - is that they emerge from a similar abstract machine... (for example read Ibn Taymiyya and Ben Baz) tell me a little more about them and I might consider it ! :-) On the Protestant fascist thing --- it's more complex than you're suggesting and surely not related to iconoclasm alone, if at all --- there were many extreme Prot cults who NEVER had power and were persecuted by all, including Cromwell --I'm interested in how much power (in the classical, governmental sense) that the extremist Wahabbis have -- my (very ill-informed) understanding was that there's lots of grass roots level rhizomaniac agitation and that they are ONE pressure on the decadent Saudi regime (which is surely due to collapse any time soon? If ever there was a country in classic conditions of pre-revolutionary ferment it must be SA). Really, genuinely want to be put right here --- I just don't know enough! Reza Negarestani: well, what do you mean by connection? causal historical link? No obv there is none. The connection - if that is the right term - is that they emerge from a similar abstract machine... just a very brief and inappropraite answer as this blog is consuming all my internet account and i'm nearly out of pocket: yes, both emerge from one infested germ-cell but they dissociate from each other; on another level, Wahhabism (and the rest of Islamic militarism) is dissociated from its phylumic thread; mutates and takes another 216

path which is closer to the Z.crowd-infested germ-cell of monotheism (teleonomic subversion) rather than monotheism as a teleonomic appropriation. Surely, Islamic Apocalypticism is a Key. (more later) ... obv the common germ-cell can be considered as a connection but can't be brought to our discussion as an effective connection since all Abrahamic threads of monotheism share this connection. Nick Land: Reza - sorry to pass the buck, but your false modesty here is ridiculous - all my Gog/Magog references are to your previous contributions - I agree with Mark that it would be great if you brought the discussion over here (how about a GogMagog focused post?) Also Reza - could you explain financial basis of this blog? i've got no idea how it works (naive bourgeois parasitism in action) Reza Negarestani: Nick - Ok, I’ll try to post something ... the difficult step: I don’t know how to start since it needs a background (maybe Cold Me discussions work). Your financial question: this blog runs through friendly communications; Abe hosts the blog on his server, Boris maintains technical problems and I graphically designed the site :) mark k-p: Reza, am fascinated by the Wahabbism thing, but really need a LOT more help --- yr last post very dense ---- (I can appreciate why, given constraints) Nick, wasn't Reza's point about finances to do with the cost of his IP account? --- the blog is free (thanks to Abe who doesn't charge for it - anti-capitalism! lol!) But really if this is an opportunity to thank Abe, Reza and Boris again, I wholeheartedly take it ---- bravo chaps!!! Reza Negarestani: Nick, wasn't Reza's point about finances to do with the cost of his IP account? Yes ... in iran, the cost of an internet account is high (full-day account is too expensive so most of people use accounts with limited time: 10 – 100 hours in a month) Mark, thank you very much ... I try to unfold the discussion but again the difficult step is the first step (I don’t know how to begin). Think starting the discussion from a mythological / fictional point is helpful. What do you think? 217

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Anti-Kapital mark k-p (August 7, 2018) My attempt to begin to consolidate an anti-capitalist position has been posted at kpunk37. It would have been OT here, since there isn't really an explicit hyperstitional component. Comments: Anti-Kapital Nick Land: mark - Agree with a surprising amount of this. Guess i'll have to suspend the Halliburton-funded project to lure you over to the dark side for the time being ;) mark k-p: ---- though seriously, that's brilliant Nick --- be interested in what you DON'T agree with --- but think the way things are going is highly productive ---Reza Negarestani: but think the way things are going is highly productive ---Yes, I wonder how effectively this blog fusing different thoughts with each other without consolidating them along one path. mark k-p: Actually Nick, think there is a very serious point about dark libido/ devil has all the best tunes...i.e. on the face of it, it's difficult to make positive (i.e. NOT k + but zerotic) practices enticing... Conversely, though, it just involves not being aestheticist/ theoretical/ idealist about it; i.e. concentrating on practices not descriptions. Reminds me of that m. satai post on CM a while back talking about a factory producing useless tin cans forever... Tho weirdly similar to the Nazi phantom economy (i.e. unemployment eliminated by having one group to dig a ditch and another to fill it in), this is the nightmare picture of complete Kaptial take-over. “Anti-Capitalism (Some punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003823.html 37 219 Modest Beginnings).” http://k-

Can see this is deliciously, malevolently sumptuous from a certain speculative POV, but on another level (i.e. the level of practice) it is simply boring.... Who cares if it's exciting for Kapital? Why wd that matter except from an idealist POV? btw, think that in addition to their stuff on work, we need to keep alive the sit thing on boredom (Nick you and I had lots of interesting conversations on this back in the day)... and actually, Nick, as you yrself once said, making money is boring!!! maybe we can start to postulate a boredom/ excitement dp? Reza Negarestani: Mark, this is the nightmare of Capital Management (a pathetic attemp to ground or humanize Capital); the first thing that burns when the planetary Capitalism initiates its cataflight to reach its Cosmodromic openness is the image you just portrayed. Boredom is the theological (mainly Christian) consequence of an economical or a survivalist encounter (affordance or economical openness) with Capital; to see how Capital palpitates with xeno-excitations (they know nothing of boredom), first we should find a way to strategically subvert and sabotage our economical, grounded, survival-based and somehow too homeostatic, too regulated confrontations with Capital ... (think of the Z-Crowd) mark k-p: I don't see how being bored in a factory or an office is a Christian thing quite honestly ... are you saying that non-Christians are excited by working on a production line? And maybe 'owning snack time' (a phrase used last week by some corporate puppet to justify a new advertising slogan) and other such unspeakably tedious management consultancy flummery is exciting if you're not a Christian, I don't know... I still don't see how you are addressing my fundamental point about idealism. Surely you can see that what you are saying is straightforwardly idealist? Yes, as a process to think about and abstractly desribe, capitalism is exciting --- but then so are solar flares in other galaxies, all matter is fascinating if you zero on it -- but surely we can't lose Marx's fundamental insight that there's nothing more idealist than theories of matter... think there's a peculiar notion of anti-humanism going on here, the point is you can't just leap out to identification with non-human process, destratification of the human is a slow process ---point is, capital might not know anything of boredom (good for it) but its effect on human populations is to numb and disintensify them, blocking contact with the Outside. After all, it is capital that humanizes (no humanism prior to capital). 220

Reza Negarestani: Mark, sorry but you didn’t get any of my points; first, your semiTaylorian image: This kind of particular image is especially happening in the West and basically comes from a classical (purely thermodynamic / deferral-cyclic) approach to capital. Come here, travel to Tehran and see how Capitalism produces what kind of xeno-excitations in this Mega-polis. Well, sorry but your point about idealism is the consequence of your theological (and grounded) encounter (or very economical openness) with Capital; ‘A-Good-Mealian' approach or a similar strategy or course of communication needs to latch onto Capitalism and draw a line of flight from Boredom (a survivalist defense mechanism against xeno-excitations; boredom is not exclusive to Christianity -- i correct my previous words -- but fuels Christianity to the core). The idealism comes from a conservative communication with Matter. As long as you use such communications the boredom is imminent. the point is you can't just leap out to identification with non-human process, destratification of the human is a slow process ---the identification with non-human process needs creativity, sorry but it needs something that you cant find in Marx books. The identification should be strategic; the ancient Zoroastrians got it through paranoia, the cult of Druj conceived it as strategic xeno-Calls and Yazidians put the strategies into their everyday life. Sorry, Mark but I think we can’t communicate efficiently / effectively on the idealist / boredom-complex ... maybe later. Nick Land: Seems to me it's Man that's boring - whatever social system it inhabits. That's why i think a lot of this argument is rehashed Rousseau vs Hobbes - does society quash some marvellously intense human potentiality, or does it rather express the sad stratic specimen inherited from 3 billion years of organic depotentiation of molecular machinery (cowardly, conservative, resonating and choked with revolting primate characteristics) Goes without saying i'm with Hobbes all the way Reza Negarestani: Nick, many thanks for your comment. However, let’s quit this thread for now, since I suspect this debate presupposes our initiation into unmerciful anti-hyperstition mages, something that all of us try to 221

evade. Currently, there are some exciting threads on this blog which merit our full attention (Book of Paths for example). Anyway, thank you Mark. mark k-p Reza I agree. I will quit, but only - be fair - if I'm allowed to say that you have totally straw manned my views. And one final final question (what is the last glass for the alcoholic? lol) --- Nick, why the double pincer of Hobbes versus Rousseau, and why not Spinoza who as you v well know cut right through both thes positions? Nick Land: Reza - agree that 'the Kapital question' has bizarrely swallowed the blog libido - a little ironic perhaps! Also think that unmistakable signs of diminishing returns setting in. Obvious danger of taking a vow of abstinence about it is that it will creep in to the other threads instead (repression rarely works) Mark - think the Sits etc. (anticapitalist mafia) are FAR more Rousseauistic than Spinozist -- just don't understand what is being "numbed and disintensified" if not an 'idealistic and utopian' assumption of innate human creativity (of which history gives not the slightest indication) -- before Kapital arrived on the scene Europeans spent their time digging in the mud, chopping each other up with bits of metal or crawling around on church floors Absolutely don't agree that Hobbes/Rousseau is a 'double pincer' - Hobbes is right, Rousseau is wrong Anyway, think Reza basically right that we're bogged down in trench warfare in this zone, so let's at least get stuff moving elsewhere simultaneously Obvious danger of taking a vow of abstinence about it is that it will creep in to the other threads instead (repression rarely works) LOL ... you are absolutely right; it was just my personal view; we will return to this after taking some breath ;) mark k-p Think this comment from the lovely Paul Meme at k-p is worth reproducing here (hope he doesn't mind): I'm not an economics expert, but I've studied it a few times and applied it in business heaps. I'm not on top of the hyperstition stuff -- made a conscious decision not to 222

invest time there being days (hours???) away from the new baby. But I'd point out a few points that seem reasonable to me: * "markets" aren't "capitalism". Markets are a seriously ancient human institution; capitalism looks to me like a fairly recent form of economic organiation that probably won't be around all that long. * I kinda see what Simon means by "microcapitalism" but it's a bit loose -- shoulda said "traders" or "economic agents" or something but none of those terms are really satisfactory * that said "micro-capitalists" within the music biz really are very likely to be ripping people off along the way * trade, especially international trade, could be great. Free trade is a good idea -- I'd welcome it enthusiastically if someone were to seriously propose it. There's not much of it about, at least where poor countries are concerned * free markets are fantastic! I've seen very few of them -- i.e. markets whose efficiency is not destroyed by thing like negative externalities (look them up!) -- think roads / cars; not a free market at all. * people who slag off marketing do not, in the main, understand what marketing is. * the left needs to do a bit better to convince people that left politics can feed / clothe/ house the world than (pace John Eden) banging on about abolishing money. Anna Greenspan: well - as you say - a lot there. Instead of trying to address every point I will try to zoom in on what seems to me most important... from your initial post and your reply I think there is, in fact, much that we agree on the main difference is that you are using the term 'markets' for all that you affirm and support while wanting to restrict capitalism to certain negative 'anti-market' tendencies . This is of course a strategic decision - as we've said - and different strategies serve different purposes - ultimately it all depends on who you are talking to... but, though I have also used the markets vs capitalism distinction in the past, I am growing increasingly dubious about its usefulness (perhaps this is partly influenced by being in China where the distinction is forced upon you). However, I'm beginning to 223

suspect that the lack of clarity and simplicity in the distinction reveals a certain weakness or lack of theoretical rigor. I will try to explain what I mean by being extremely crass (apologize for this) First, one can imagine a social system that relied solely on self sufficient pods (each unit building their own shelter, producing their own food etc... ) if this were to have ever existed (I doubt it has) it would be a pre-market or non-market society. One step beyond this is when pod A and pod B start to trade with each other. As soon as they do this markets immediately follow (with all their obvious advantages). In this sense markets have existed (almost) always and everywhere - even the harshest forms of totalitarian communism have been unable to stamp them out completely they are thus in themselves clearly not sufficient in defining capitalism. It is, I believe, the next step which is crucial in determining the difference between markets and capitalism. This occurs when one of the traders - acting entrepreneurially - seeks to do something to improve their position in the market. This can involve, for example, finding ways to make production more efficient, aiming to increase distribution channels, making their stall more attractive etc... In order to do this the entrepreneur needs two things -- and here the analysis of Boehm Bawerk is crucial -time and capital. It is with time and capital that the entrepreneur is able to innovate . And it is this 'fundamental impulse... to create new consumer goods, new methods of production or transportation, new markets, and new forms of industrial organization....' that, as Schumpeter says, 'sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion.' In other words it is through capital (and the time that it provides) - that technological innovation and planetary transformation are made possible - - it is surely the intensity of this process that cyberpunk celebrates. It is not markets but capitalism that feeds and supports technological advance (Marx's blindness to this is the key to critiquing his analyses in Capital -for more on this see Boehm Bawerk). As far as I can see the capital that is required for entrepreneurial innovation can be produced in one of two ways - either by the despotic state or by capital markets - it is the latter that in my mind defines capitalism as system (this is why I raised the stock market issue earlier) All this is not to say that there are things in the contemporary global economic order that merit criticizing (though I think it is important to delimit these precisely and not 224

just condemn 'big business' etc - after all it is you who taught me that there is a great deal of false consciousness in deriding McDonalds when what you really want is fries and a shake). Anyway think we agree that what most needs to be singled out is what DeLanda refers to as anti-markets ( probably worth remembering that he uses this term instead of capitalism). Amongst the most despicable of these are the organizations and processes - as you point out - that block lines of openness and trade - the restriction in movement of labor, monopolistic and protectionist practices of various kinds etc. But to me how these are related to 'capitalism' is still a very open question. p.s. if you haven't already HIGHLY recommend checking out de Soto's book 'The Mystery of Capital' mark k-p: Anna, this is brilliant, could do with a bit more 'crassness' on this site IMHO lol This is the final piece in the jigsaw for me in getting a provisional anti-capital picture together. The money quote lol is obv the Schumpeter one: 'the fundamental impulse... to create new consumer goods, new methods of production or transportation, new markets, and new forms of industrial organization....sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion.' Exactly, that's what makes it a 'cybernihilistic anti-plateau' --- you have now provided a rigorously non-humanist machinic account of the way in which capital is fundamentally, integrally and irreducibly 'never satisfied' Now we can't confuse this with the constant craving (cf K-punk) that capitalism installs in its slave-consumer-reproducers, although obv the one requires the other... So: why the fetishism of the 'new'? You have to think carefully about yr investment in this IMHO.Think it is exactly NOT cyberpunk, indeed the opposite, it is Prog Tech SF Capital in person. Cyberpunk after all is about making use of (what in the chronolinear prog temporality is considered to be) superceded tech --- course on the plane, there is no 'progress', it's all about intensities and potentials ---- 225

on the level of Spinozist cyberotics it's about accessing Intensive Now, (cf John effay's extremely helpful comments on k-p), creative involution, lessness, k0... To get concrete: blogging versus share dealing. Blogging actually costs me money ie. in buying materials to write about, from the POV of RAT, it's madness --- not only am I, ludicrously, spending money that could be invested, I am also spending time that could be used acquring more money which could be invested etc. But that's SF progtech speaking. In reality, what happens is a conversion of money into anti-capital, i.e. into (for instance) collective network production, a making do with less practice that has nothing to do with guilty abstention obv --- on the contrary, let's face it, it's what you and Nick DO, much more than the rest of us stim-addicted consumers.... Share-dealing by contrast is about investing time and effort into what can never be realised -- we have to hold onto Deleuze's key point that Kapital cannot be 'realised' only converted into for instance cash --- in this way, capitalism is also antihyperstitional -- i.e. not about fictions making themselves real but about the real becoming unrealisable. think a lot of the problems I have with the pro-cap wing are its unreconstructed eschateleology. As Ray was saying to me the other day, what this seems to assume is that somehow it's easier to be a better Spinozist now than in the 13th century. (I hope Ray doesn't mind my repeating his comments here btw !) Again, this is SF, this is Prog Tech. But as Ray also said, there is good and bad eschatology. The only apocalypse counts is the one that has/ will always count: Apocalypse now. in other words: enough is as good as a feast undercurrent: this is definitely a groundbreaking post in terms of clarifying things. Hope I don't refog it all, but a couple of things immediately occur to me: (1)Firstly, as long as we interpret Schumpeters’ “fundamental impulse” as an inbuilt human or social impulse we fall prey to naturalizing capitalism rather than treating it as something alien that ‘takes hold’ of a society in a historically contingent singularity. Could it be less the case that the entrepreneurial trader spontaneously ‘wants’ to create market advantage, and thus seeks out capital and time resources to do so, and more that by isomorphically articulating value as time as money, everything _outside_ the 226

market is suddenly miraculated as an apparent _resource_ of time and money crying out to be ‘employed’; thus underproduction-anxiety is present _before_ capitalism as a function of some specific stage of monetarisation ? Can't see any alternative to this except 'human greed' as driver of K'ism. Also connected with the primitive societies ‘warding off’ of capitalism – don’t they do this precisely because once let in IT will consume everything instantly and in advance? This whole thing needs to be addressed insofar as it impinges on the question of capital as positive motor = capital as oedipalising lack-engine. (2)It’s definitely a matter of time-orientation, yes – cyberpunk sets itself the problem of making _now_ intense; progtech imagines a future that will inevitably be intense and sets about creating representations of it. Cyberpunk is pragmatic-procedural and starts in the middle in order to create futures, whilst progtech is prophetic-narrative and starts at the beginning or end in order to describe a future. (3)Given mark’s description of blogging which could with sufficient ill will be interpreted as some kind of community potlatch, we need to spend time rigorously distinguishing anticapital as intensificatory process from mere dissipation/thermostatic release, otherwise drinking beer and watching zombie movies at home would also be ‘anticapital’. This is obviously to do with something like: AntiCapital as reality-production vs Capital as unreality-production, each of which are already somehow twistedly operative inside each other – ie in some sense you couldn’t get to blogging w/o going thru M$ (which brings us back to the fundamentalist D&G position wrt profound ambivalence of the process). Local vs Global - This is just an amplification of the cyberpunk begins in the middle thing, but what also strikes me is how mark's post shows blogging as an example of a participative molecular collective of truly K+ processes (ie buying materials to write about so other people reply and recommend other things which you then write about....), whereas what seems to be celebrated by progtech-procapitalism is a totalising, universal K+ process that is always happening elsewhere so that the only possibility of 'participating ' in it is by means of an ultimately hermetic autohypnotic druj-gnosis. mark k-p Obv agree about the pub/tv zombie thing -- but couldn't this be seen in terms of the energy economy thing? i.e. sorcery of energy --- the more exercise you take, the more energy you have etc --- whereas the pub/ tv/ zombie thing is just about consuming/ energy drain. It's a question of what belongs to the labour/ convalescence of capital and what belongs to the economy of anit-capital. Think this 227

is a concrete pragmatic question: i.e. Kantian categorical judgements like 'never watch TV' are silly, the Spinozistic question is how much TV can I watch whilst still maintaining an economy of intensification? Also: obvious there are examples of blogging which ARE part of capital's subjectifiying emiserating machine. Marcello is an interesting case here --- part of it is impersonal enthusiasm, but, sadly, it all too often ends up reterritorialized as egoistic expressionism. By contrast, the network surrounding this, blissblog and k-punk is a desubjectifying network - not a 'community' of autonomous subjects. To get concrete about this: if my last post was a breakthrough, it wasn't because me the genius 'thought' of it, it was the collective machine had processed stuff such that the position could emerge. Obv the difference between that and abstract culture forum subjectifying katak frenzy AND - equally pernicious - compromise between allegedly autonomous subjects is important... Was thinking yesterday actually about China in relation to all this. Obv know absolutely nothing about China, but it was interesting talking to Rob and Cathy last night that they were saying that when they visited, in spite of all the gleaming modernization etc it didn't 'feel' capitalist. Starting to wonder if my western story that the Chinese model is 'really' capitalism, or a staging post to capitalism is actually deeply inadequate . i.e. what if the story that 'this is a cynical ploy by communists to introduce capitalism gradually' isn't a super-subtle ploy... Question might be: how little do we need to marketize/ modernize? As opposed to Kapital Prog Tech: we can't do anything until there's fifty seven skyscrapers, eighty seven layers of management consultants, and 104 tps cover sheets, business plans and mission statements lol Thing is: who do we know who spend minimal amounts on clothes, furniture and other consumer goods? Who spend as little time as possible in paid work (i.e. as part of the Kapital reproduction machine)? Who devote nearly all of their spare time to intensity production (=anti-capital) and none to kapital's emollient convalescent opiates? k-punk practice but pro-capitalist ideology? In the most important Marxian sense, surely they are on our side. lol Also think that as conceived above - i.e. accurately IMHO - capital's libido is essentially defined as lack ---228

ie what is lacking now that will be provided later by the kapiteleology? undercurrent: I like the idea of 'how little do we need in order to...' MORE=LACK? (nick can do the numbers for us ;) mark k-p: UC in response to that more=lack thing, I'm crossposting this from k-p: 'Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of us, superadded to the conflicting tastes and odors and slights of the urban environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction: the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern material life - its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness - conjoin to dull our sensory faculties. And it is in the light of the condition of our senses, our capacities (rather than those of another age), that the task of the critic must be assessed. What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more to hear more, to feel more.' (Sontag, 'Against Interpretation') Developing more feeling precisely entails being reliant on less external stimuli. Kaptial = progressively less from more. (see Downham on k-p) Anti-kapital = more from less. The AOE and the Brotherhood of Nine Reza Negarestani (August 10, 2004) The following discussion is from the Cold Me forum (has a few passages on the Koranic Gog and Magog); You can read it as a ‘foggy background’ for later posts on the Gog-Magog Axis and Wahhabism. The AOE: “The Architectonic Order of the Eschaton, an ultra-hermetic metamasonic white- brotherhood at war with lemurian influences. The AOE progresses by way of chronic internal schism, each resulting in an ever more interiorized inner society. Its traditions are therefore refracted through various apparently conflicting - front organizations (which include the Heliopolitan Hierophancy, Roman Catholic Church, Knights Templar, Illuminati, Trilateral Commission, and Axsys programme).” (CCRU, glossary) 229

Nick: Islamic account of the AOE: http://www.allaahuakbar.net/free-masons/ This is quite cool: ----------Reza: The People of the Eye: Thanks Nick; a very cool read. Although I should say, the article is based on a book about Masonry previously published in Iran (including the photos). Playing with The People of the Eye and New World Order (or as in the ancient Pahlavi texts, the Zahakian Age): exploring the ancient Persian demonology, one can stop and see the surprising similarity between Baphomet38 and Aeshemogha (also Ashemaogha or Ahemogh and later Asmodeus) the ever-mutating demonic entity through which Druj- (The Mother of Abominations) performs its terrestrial projects. Ashemogha is not a name but a unique combination of Asha + Mogh (original Persian word for Mage), the false or unholy mage or simply the False Teacher, also known as the Deceiver in Vendidad. In Avesta and ancient Persian texts it is portrayed as the Great Camel (Zoroaster also means the Great Old Camel) or serpent-camel; sometimes it is portrayed as a camel-demon with skeletal wings and winged feet, the origin of winged feet returns to earlier mythologies than Mercury who also has winged feet (Alipes); winged feet are diabolical machines of flight possessed by Fallen Angels or Demons of Death and the Underworld. While angels take the lines of flights vertically and horizontally, winged feet provide demons and Fallen Angels with a diverse range of inter-dimensional lines of flight, they multi-function like the propulsors of a helicopter. Skeletal wings are well-known because of their ability to synthesize sounds at the background of flight, musical machines making an infernal music out of the flight itself. Zohar, one of the great text of Qabalah presents Ashemogha as the great camel-serpent who seduces Eve at the Garden of Eden. Ashemogha is all Baphomet with one exception: its head has been replaced by a goat's head; possibly because in later cultures (during Sasanian dynasty) the camel was not the god of war and falseness any longer. In Persian texts, Ashemogha appears to Zahak or Dahak (Dah [ten] + Aak [plague]: ten plagues) at a place between Syria and Iraq according to modern maps, where also Dajjal, (Dahak + Druj?), the deceiver, rises (see An-Nuwas ibn Sam'an's commentaries on this): "He [Dajjal] will appear on the way between Syria and Iraq, and will create disaster left and right." The last mysterious part (disaster left and right) obviously corresponds with two giant worms 38 The name Baphomet sometime is claimed as the French distorted word for Mohammad: Mohameth 230

growing at the left and right shoulders of Zahak (earlier called Baivar-Aspa: Ten Thousand Horses, an animal multiplicity), traces left after being kissed by Ashemogha (the great Camel39), becoming One with Druj- (The Mother of Abominations); the giant gluttonous worms (nemat: thread) are supposed to feast on human brain until the annihilation of humanity. Ashemogha appears to Baivar-Aspa to tell him about the way he can scour humanity from the Earth. As soon as, Ashemogha finishes the training he becomes one with Bivar-Aspa, giving birth to Zahak (ten plagues). Soon Zahak starts to spread his New World Order (the Zahakian age or the age of ten plagues) by crowning himself as the Persian king after Jamishid (according to Pahlavi texts, Zahak is still living at Mount Damavand in Iran). Ancient Persian Satanists (as Zoroastrian renegades) for the first time, discovered the drujih machinery working through Zoroastrianism, considered Zarathustra (the great camel) and his monotheism as the most faithful prophet and prayer of the dark mother (Druj)40; they diagramed the strategic (drujih) affirmation of Zarathustra to Druj in an absolutely creative way (read A Good Meal). Through a strategic approach to darkness, they even crawled in the society of magi as high-mages, scholars and Keepers of the holy fire, promoted the so-called orthodox Zoroastrianism in the most frantic ways as it can be traced in Vendidad (the book of the law against Demon or anti-Druj law). The infested zoroastrian germ-cell (sabotaged by Persian Satanists or the cult of Druj or the People of the Eye: EYE = Siphr = Zero41) develops the Abrahamic tree of monothiesm. Qabalah as another creative and rich approach to Druj-diagrams concocted by The People of the Eye (the cult of 0) has been developed under direct and indirect influences of Zoroastrianism; there are certain documents of the great influence of Zoroastrian magi (the cult of Druj) over Pythagoras (although there are rumors of a meeting between Pythagoras and Zarathustra himself; but it is not historically evident) who has empowered Qabalah with his insights into magic geometry, cosmology and numerology (cf. the Pythagorean magical pentagram held by Baphomet) ... there are 39 Once again, follow this line: Zarathustra, the Old Teacher also means The Great Old Camel. 40 see A Good Meal and Maraka Project 41 The etymological becoming of Zero from Indic dot to Hollow Body (Saffira) or the void-enveloping Zero (The Eye) in current numeric systems: Cipher = Saffira = Sifr. In Persian mythologies, Zahak travels to India (The Land of Magic) for searching an ultimate Evil which subverts the purity of Aryans, scramble their calendar and sabotage their hierarchic culture. What is that evil artifact? Zero? 231

also many documents about the influence of the ancient heavily ciphered Persian calendar on the Qabalah's understanding of Cipher (the cult of Siphr or Zero: The Eye) ... the ancient Persian calendar ends with (or according to Persian scholars: is mapped according to) the second rise of Zahak, the second Zahakian Age, the New Pest Order. Zarathustra (the old camel) is Ashemogha (the great camel), the deceiver or the Strategist, the mastermind of monotheism, who becomes one with Druj, gives birth to Zahak (Dahak), ten plagues. -----------Reza: The People of the Cave: In Hadiths, it has been ordered that upon seeing Dajjal (again Zahak + Druj?) one should recite Surat'al-Kahf from Qur'an. This is a sura advised to be read on Friday, it has prophecies on Apocalypse and the end of the world. Kahf means cave, the sura is obviously narrating the lineaments of The People of Cave (the righteous ones) who rise once again at the end of the world, coming out of the cave to join the WAR. But there is no clarified explanation for the reason that Al Kahf must be recited upon seeing Dajjal, the ultimate evil rising from the lands between Iraq and Syria, where at the time of Jamshid, the Iranian King, the founder of the most ancient Parsi traditions, was a part of Persia, located at the border lands where Jamshid's sepah-salars (paladins) found the Dragon King, Zahak and asked him to accept the Crown of the Fallen Jamshid under direct orders of Zoroastrian mages. Zahak is also among The People of the Cave, living in a subterranean cave at Mount Damavand, waiting to join the monotheistic Omega. ----------Nick: Reza - this stuff is all really excellent - it's got to be used Islamic apocalypticism is clearly a topic in need of far more attention Certainly more questions from me on all this For now - How do Iranian traditions first become entangled with Masonic conspiracy theory? Reza: there is an approach to Masonic conspiracies in Iran especially discussed by Shia Islamists and it returns to Shia interpretations of the Koran and Hadith; in Surah AlNaml (The Ant), the lineaments of Masonic Fraternity correspond with secret missions of The Brotherhood of Nine (Brethren of the Craft?) whose murders, conspiracies and perjuries destroyed the once rich and prosperous city of Tahmud. 232

-----------Apocalyptic bonds between Masonic conspiracies, The Brotherhood of Nine and the Gog-Magog Axis: Tes'a -- Noh - Nine The Brotherhood of Nine as narrated in Al-Naml (a sura from the Koran) was actually secret groups consisting of 9 members. Also, Masonic rituals are commonly performed by 9 elected Knights who use nine roses, nine lights, and nine knocks in the ritual. The number 9 is possibly the most insistent number in Islam, recurrently ciphering events as well as bonding the critical figures and events to each other. The Arabic letter Toin or (Ta) is the 16th character in Arabic alphabet but in the ABJAD system, Ta (or Toin) is the 9th letter with numerical value equal to 9. Ta is also among the Horoof-e (letters) Muqattaat which are used as the opening verses of 29 chapters in Quran. According to Abjad, 9 is the highest number which is also the numerical value of Ta. There are many numerological discussions around Ta and 9 among which, I can point to: Actually 4 chapters of Quran start with the letter Ta and in each of these chapters the first person introduced is Musa (Moses); In Al-Naml (the Sura which also narrates the story of the Brotherhood of Nine): "Now put your hand into your bosom and it will come forth white without stain (or harm): (these are) among the NINE Signs (you will take) to Pharaoh and his people: for they are a people rebellious in transgression." (Quran: Al-Naml, chapter 27) Nine (= Ta) signs were given to Moses for taking to Pharaoh. Also, the first occurrence of the letter Ta as a Muqattaat Letter is in Chapter 20. Looking at chapter 20, the first mention of Musa is in verse 9 (=Ta). Al-Naml or Chapter 27 (2+7 = 9) Creation according to Quran has 9 signs and 9 stages. 1 Wet earth 2 Drop 233

3 Clot 4 Lump 5 Bones 6 Flesh 7 Another Creation 8 Death 9 Resurrection As you see, 9 (= Ta) is the resurrection or the sign of Qyiamah (Ghiamat or universal awakening) or Islamic Apocalypse. Mohammad has the numerical value of 92 (92 according to Abjad is Ta + Ba or the word Teb meaning CURE for human illnesses. Also other names for Mohammad suggested in Quran start with the letter Ta (= 9). And only 99 names of Allah have been revealed to Man. Other cool aspects of 9 (according to Gematria and Mayan Tzolkin matrix): for investigating 9 as the key number, see 'END TIMES Alphanumerics' (highly recommended) at http://hometown.aol.com/codeufo/endtimes_1.html (check other pages as well). ------------The Gog-Magog Axis The story of Gog and Magog (or Yajooj and Majooj according to Quran) in Quran: [18:93] When he reached the valley between two palisades, he found people whose language was barely understandable. [18:94] They said, "O Zul-Qarnain, Gog and Magog (Yajooj and Majooj) are corruptors of the earth. Can we pay you to create a barrier between us and them?" [18:95] He said, "My Lord has given me great bounties. If you cooperate with me, I will build a dam between you and them. 234

[18:96] "Bring to me masses of iron." Once he filled the gap between the two palisades, he said, "Blow." Once it was red hot, he said, "Help me pour tar on top of it." [18:97] Thus, they could not climb it, nor could they bore holes in it. [18:98] He said, "This is mercy from my Lord. When the prophecy of my Lord comes to pass, He will cause the dam to crumble. The prophecy of my Lord is truth." [18:99] At that time, we will let them invade with one another, then the horn will be blown, and we will summon them all together. [Note: Zul-Qarnain; most of Islamic interpretation consider Zul-Qarnain as Cyrus, the Persian King, founder of Achaemenid dynasty.] Following Hadith, Islamists frequently connect Gog and Magog to Dajjal and The Brotherhood of Nine who will join the Apocalypse. Ibn Khatir in his work Al-Bidayah wa'l-Nihayah (The Beginning and the End) writes: "Gog and Magog are two groups of Turks, descended from Yafith (Japheth), the father of the Turks, one of the sons of Noah. At the time of Abraham, peace be on him, there was a king called Dhu'l-Qarnayn. He performed Tawaf around the Ka'bah with Abraham, peace be on him, when he first built it; he believed and followed him. Dhu'l-Qarnayn was a good man and a great king; Allah gave him great power and he ruled the east and west. He held sway over all kings and countries, and travelled far and wide in both east and west. He travelled eastwards until he reached a pass between two mountains, through which people were coming out. They did not understand anything, because they were so isolated; they were Gog and Magog. They were spreading corruption through the earth, and harming the people, so the people sought help from Dhu'l Qarnayn. They asked him to build a barrier between them and Gog and Magog. He asked them to help him to build it, so together they built a barrier by mixing iron, copper and tar. Thus Dhu'l-Qarnayn restrained Gog and Magog behind the barrier. They tried to penetrate the barrier, or to climb over it, but to no avail. They could not succeed because the barrier is so huge and smooth. They began to dig and they have been digging for centuries; they will continue to do so until the time when Allah decrees that they come out. At that time the barrier will collapse, and Gog and Magog will rush out in all directions, spreading corruption, uprooting plants, killing people. When 235

Jesus, peace be on him, prays against them, Allah will send a kind of worm which kill them." [Note: The Worm(s) as a Savior is one of the signs of Qiyamah (or Islamic Apocalypse); compare it with the Nemats (the huge Gluttonous worms at the temple of Moloch / Molekh / Malec; or the worms / nemats germinated on Zahak's shoulders] In prophecies of Ezekiel (chapters 38-39) Gog is addressed as the prince of Rosh (Russia), rising from the north with the support of many nations and invade "the mountains of Israel", spreading out "like a cloud that covers the land". In later interpretations Gog and Magog are considered as the people of Khazar. Ibn Khatir also, writes: Yajooj and Majooj (Gog and Magog) are the people who traditionally inhabited the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea: the Khazar Kingdom. [Also according to Islamic Encyclopedia: King Joseph categorically stated in his reply that there was no such connection whatsoever. In providing a genealogy of his people, King Joseph, writes Arthur Koestler in his book, The Thirteenth Tribe, "cannot, and does not, claim for them Semitic descent; he traces their ancestry not to Shem but to Noah's third son, Japheth; or more precisely to Japheth's grandson, Togarma, the ancestor of all Turkish tribes." The Jewish Encyclopedia says that the Judaist scholars had no doubt as to the genuineness of this correspondence, in which the word Ashkenazi first occurs as denoting this sharply-outlined, hitherto unknown group of "Eastern Jews" and as indicating Slav associations. This answer of King Joseph is very significant, not only because it demonstrates conclusively that the Khazar Jews are not Semitic but also because of the following details42, the uncle of Togarma, according to Genesis 10.2-3, was Magog."] (Islamic Encyclopedia) 42 I have removed all details to shorten the text. Here more materials cited in Genesis and Ezekiel's prophecies: 236

But this not the only approach to the origin of Gog-Magog ... it is just an approach used by Shia for engineering its Hyperstitional Strategies: After 1979 Revolution, 'Gog and Magog' have been continuously considered as 'the East and the West'. The famous Iranian Slogan of 'Nah Shargi, Nah Gharbi' (No East, No West) shows all militarized, political and economical movements of Islamists are configured by the 'Gog and Magog (Yajooj and Majooj) Axis'; actually, George Bush notion of 'Axis of Evil' was a less complicated modification of 'Gog-Magog (YajoojMajooj) Axis' already suggested by Shia Islamists, an oversimplified re-modification which can be easily digested by the masses. Both within Shia and Sunni religions, there are many powerful sects enthusiastically trying to expand the dimensions of Islamic Apocalypticism and align all their political / cultural / economical / religious strategies according to Islamic Apocalypse (Qyiamah or Ghiamat) or more precisely engineer strategies to speed the Rise of Qyiamah (triggering the Apocalypse); this is why they eagerly try to lure ' the GogMagog Axis' out of its temporal peace ("luring the beast out of its cage using hunting horns, releasing it whether by means of cooperation or by means of terror"), forcing it to accomplish its final mission: starting its irreversible New Pest Order. Comments: The AOE and the Brotherhood of Nine Nick Land: Reza - suspect some information overload symptoms to follow from this (one definite possibility: traumatized silence). [Genesis, 10:2-4]: The sons of Japeth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. [Ezekiel 18:6]: Gomer and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes; even many peoples with thee. [Ezekiel 37:28] Then the nations will know that I the LORD sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore. [Ezekiel 38:1-4] The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you forth, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords. 237

Any chance of a helping hand on linking Zahak to the Gog-Magog gunfight at the K0 corral? Reza Negarestani: If the Z-crowd (Zahak x Zoroaster) insinuates the initial hacking of monotheism (or an ‘arch-sabotage’ as you suggest), then the Gog-Magog Axis is an anomaly resulted by processing this sabotaged program throughout the history of monotheism and its twisted line of development; it is an egg laid by the Z-crowd and hatched by monotheism. Zahak’s connection with the Gog-Magog Axis both comes from the initial sabotage of monotheism and the ultimate meltdown: Zahak rises two times ... first, at the dawn of monotheism and the next time, in the New Pest (Dis)order when Gog and Magog breach the dam which prevents them from assembling their incinerating Axis. + Zahak (ABJAD) = 829 + Yajooj va Majooj (the Koranic Gog and Magog) = 82 ++ According to the Book of Revelation: Gog and Magog (original gematria) = 1684 = 19 ++ Zahak = 829 = 19 = 10 (ten plagues) + 9 (the Brotherhood of Nine) Zahak originally comes from Azi-Dahaka (or the Stinging Dragon) one of the dragons which was chained by Atar to secure the Earth for pro-creationist movements (esp. the creation of human) ... Azi as an abysmal dragon come from Babylonian origins ... as you know, serpents in Babylon were both the machines of doom and fertility; this actually depends on their special characteristics; two convoluting serpents, two serpents facing each other or a spiraling serpent always diagram autonomous selffertilizing currents but disentangled serpents are usually satanic figures. For example Caduceus or the staff of Hermes (and later Mercury) is an Axis Mundi (pseudo-flux?) promoted by two spiraling (sloping?) serpents facing each other, it transfers wisdom, healing and fertility. Zahak, amazingly, has two serpents on his shoulders which point to different directions (an ABYZmal cartography), two extremes, far east and far west where Gog and Magog emerge. If Caduceus is the engine of vitalist creation, Zahak (ten pests) is the forging machine of the Gog-Magog Axis and the Unlife of War. Anna Greenspan: Reza - all this is fascinating but because it is so new to me find it difficult to follow -- would love it if you could unpack some these terms/ideas/entities. For example, 238

1. who are the people of the eye (get that they have some connection to Druj but still very hazy) 2. How does 'the infested zoroastrian germ-cell' develop the Abrahamic tree of monothiesm? 3. I can't really understand the point about Gog-Magog and the Ashkenazi Jews. Apologize for my complete ignorance of Persian mythology - are there any accessible texts that could serve as an intro? stoCur: I wonder, how does your Zahak relate to the Melek Taus (devil-peacockking) of the Yezidi? Reza Negarestani: StoCur - Thanks for your interest; as you know Yazidism is not a concentrated religion-cult (both from geographic and belief aspects) ... it has been reformed so many times because esp. in iraq, they were persecuted for worshipping Satan; now even most of them deny that they worship Devil or that Malek Tavoos (the correct pronunciation) is a satanic deity; the current bases of Yazidians locate in Iraq and Iran (Fars where I live, Kohgiluyeh va Boyerahmad and Kurdistan) ... four years ago, for the first time, I visited some of them who were still loyal to the old traditions, esp. the Parsi traditions. Malek Tavoos is obviously a Persian deity originated from Sumerian / Phoenician / Assyrian pandemonium of god-devils (the system of Evil-against-Evil): Melkarth --> Molekh --> Moloch and later in Persian Malek (I guess you have already read about Moloch in Five Billion Years of Hell-engineering) ... Actually, the origin of Yazidian returns to very ancient Shamanistic traditions of Drujieh Shamans and necromancers who later joined Zoroastrianism as they realized the religion of Zoroaster is a very effective way for communicating with Druj and its agencies (Azi-Dahhaka, etc.); these shamans, necromancers and sorcerers (the cult of Druj) believed in per-Zoroastrian (mainly Babylonian / Assyrian / Ilamie) Azhies (the Dragons of doom; esp. Azi-Dahhaka who tried to kill the first human). There are a few Greek documents that tell stories about Achemedian kings who consulted necromancers (the followers of Druj-e-Nasu) instead of mages and Keepers of holy fire. The cult of Druj slowly but effectively infiltrated the high ranks of Zoroastrians as the Keepers of Fire and high-mages; they succeeded to compile their strategic beliefs into the most influential Zoroastrian books. Among these books Vendidad is 239

definitely the most important one43 ... not because it haunted the Abrahamic monotheism but because it transformed these strategies to customs, everyday practices which easily absorbed by Abrahamic tree of monotheism as its routine customs spread among both priests and people. Yazidism as a direct line from the Zcrowd running through monotheism has been renamed many times, the current name Yazidi belongs to later islamo-christian era and Malek Tavoos obv. comes from the strategic germ-line of their religion / cult to absorb (and be absorbed) by different monotheistic branches and righteous religions. Unfortunately, there are no direct connections between Zahak and Malek Tavoos (at least I cannot detect them now since as I mentioned Yazidism has been reformed, changed and disintegrated many times) ... however, their bond to the cult of Druj and the Z-crowd is still very tangible even among the reformed sects of Yazidism, a devil or Drujih entity which asks you to be righteous and clean as a ‘sacrifice’ (however, people should appease the Malek to keep him away from this world). I know a very detailed book on Yazidism (and their origin) published by someone in the University of Cairo (it is in Arabic but there might be an English translation too) entitled Yazidian. ... have given the book to a freind, will translate some passages from the book if you want to know more about Malek Tavoos. Anna, Thank you ... some of your questions need long discussions so just for the phase 1: 1. who are the people of the eye (get that they have some connection to Druj but still very hazy) Did you read the article Nick addressed? It briefly explains about the people of the eye. The People of the Eye or the cult of Zero is an ancient Indic/Persian/Babylonian cult following Druj as untruth (0 ?) or chaos-engineering strategy. However, what I meant by the people of the eye refers to followers of Dajjal or the Anti-Christ. Here some references on Dajjal, a key figure (with one eye) in islamic prophecies and Koranic studies about anti-monotheistic movements running through monotheism: A nearly complete archive http://www.geocities.com/islam2jannat/main.htm about Dajjal: 43 Ironically most of reformed Zoroastrians deny that Vendidad is really a holy book; had difficulties to talk with them about Vendidad; they answer questions with suspicious. 240

(Note: As you know Mohammad is called Rasoulallah (the Messenger of God) ... Dajjal, the deceiver, also presents himself as Rasoulallah and becomes the falseteacher or Aeshamogha (the false mage or teacher) or the corporeal form of Druj who gave rise to Zahak through Bivar-Aspa.) How does 'the infested zoroastrian germ-cell' develop the Abrahamic tree of monotheism? A very short answer: because Zoroastrianism is the germ-cell of Abrahamic monotheism itself (Some of Cold Me texts may help you on this but I’ll discuss it later in details) ... also, I will select some English references for you. 3. I can't really understand the point about Gog-Magog and the Ashkenazi Jews. Sorry ... I think it is a symptom of mutilating the text (I removed some important details); here some excerpts from Ahmad Thompson’s text The Next World Order which is based on Islamic and Jewish encyclopedias: http://muslimsonline.com/babri/yajujmajuj.htm Apologize for my complete ignorance of Persian mythology - are there any accessible texts that could serve as an intro? YES there are some introductions; for now please read this: (http://www.csupomona.edu/~delashgari/readings/zahakstory.html) ... will try to find an online archive and organize my own posts. mark k-p: Think this makes things a bit less foggy -- but one thing I didn't get when I read some of this on CM originally was the point about winged feet: if they don't move horizontally or vertically, then how? Reza Negarestani: Mark, another coincidence, I’m writing a piece on winged-feet and demonography of flight but think you should wait one or two weeks. Plus, I want to extract some materials from our discussion about fakir rope at Undercurrent but can’t find the comments (if you remember I talked about demonographic flight). besides, we haven't talked about the gog-magog axis yet :) by the way, take a look at this picture from undercurrent (beautiful) ... i always suspected that there is something wrong (or actually exciting) about the pathetic pigeon of peace ;) 241

stocur: I mention it because I was just reading about this in Diringer's Alphabet book: The yezidis apparently have or had a syncretic alphabet to go with their syncretic devil-cult, part persian-arabic, part latin, part unknown (some letters 'seem to be arbitrary inventions' according to this 'expert'!). I also read that their 'holy book' the al-Jalweh 'consists of loose pages, made of a fine gazelle-skin parchment; the pages are roughly shaped in the form of a crescent moon, the sun, the earth, two rivers, a man's head with two ears or horns, and so forth.' I was thinking this could be a good format for future Abstract Culture issues (just don't ask me to do the folding and stapling). Undercurrent is slowly thawing at the moment, you should be able to search from the front page again now (the rope trick thread is at http://blog.urbanomic.com/undercurrent/archives/000198.html). Reza Negarestani: stoCur, enjoyed your comment and thanks very much for the address. Yes, I’ve seen a copy of their book ... I even found pahlavi words throughout the text. A part of it has been translated into Persian, has a mysterious Gilgameshian prose-style. a man's head with two ears or horns Possibly Angra Mainyu (aka Ahriman) or the true father of Zahak ... see the first picture. Notice his big ears and distorted face; do you know why he is so ridiculously distorted? undercurrent: Notice his big ears and distorted face; do you know why he is so ridiculously distorted? he probably wonders the same about us ;) the aforementioned 'pigeon of doom': http://blog.urbanomic.com/untimely/images/demonographies-winged.jpg Reza Negarestani: Anna, this might be interesting for you (it’s not new to Nick though) Both Zoroaster (the name Zarathustra means the great old Camel) and Ashemogha (later Zahak) correspond with Camel, the god of War, falsehood, and awkwardness. Camel as the Arabic word ‘Atta-o-Allah’ (God’s gift) or the symbol of patience, stamina, wealth and sobriety represents the later appropriations (word domestications) during Parthians, Sasanians (modern pahlavi and post-Aramaic 242

languages) and after Islam. Especially in pre-Achaemenid cultures, camel was a War beast. In Isaiah's dark prophecy, The Burden against Babylon, the great war of Babylon-Persia is portrayed by a chariot of donkeys and a chariot of camels (sometimes interpreted as Cyrus and Darius, the first kings of the Achaemenid dynasty). Both donkey and camel were considered evil and satanic in Avestean language and Hebrew from which Pahlavi has derived. Etruscanian Demon of Hades, the great god, Kharun (or Kharu; don’t mistake it for the greek ferryman of the Styx) is a distorted ‘Donkey-old man’ with a hooked nose (Etruscanian language also originated from a Semitic non-Indoeuropean germ-cell). Before the time of Gideon, camels were the gods of war, the demonic desert scavengers, until Gideon drove them out from the sacred lands. Also, Macarius the Egyptian was tortured by the Devil in the shape of a gigantic camel. And finally, in Avesta and Zohar, the nameless camelserpent (the corporeal form of Aeshemogha) is a demonic entity, a doom-bringer and the seducer of Eve. Besides, camel-serpents are the guardians of Eden (?!!!), (the Heart of Darkness?). BTW, I’m still searching for helpful introductions on Persian mythology ... have forgotten the urls. Pipeline Odyssey * Reza Negarestani (August 11, 2004) Here some (shortened) passages from my correspondences with Nick (think this is a bit helpful for grasping the Gog-Magog Axis and Wahhabism): * A term coined by Nick N: the 'war machine' (grasp the war as a machine) [1] includes Abrahamic escalation and monotheism as 'stimulating' components; ... [3] it consumates the technocapitalist oecumenon through synthesis with islamic monotheistic enthusiasm (subtracting the supposed potential for 'secularization' as an Abrahamic teleology) ---------includes Abrahamic escalation and monotheism as 'stimulating' components 243

R: IMHO, not merely as a stimulating function in the process but also an epidemiostrategic call for grasping WAR which in an unthinkably sinister direction (Islamic apocalypse) engineers a space through which warmachines simultaneously reach utter tactical multiplicity and their military survival is ferociously snuffed out = Qiamat the it consumates the technocapitalist oecumenon through sythesis with islamic monotheistic enthusiasm (subtracting the supposed potential for 'secularization' as an Abrahamic teleology) And this is the Gog-Magog Axis. Some remarks on Wahhabism: [...] I should add, the heavily superior position of Wahhabism in WoTerror as it is considered outside the middle east is a bit problematic ... Wahhabism cannot be reduced to the main and only current in the Islam’s complicity in WoTerror ... such complicity is the result of perhaps numerous islamic trends forged during “the violent fissions” in Islam’s history mainly intensified by Iran’s islamic insurgency toward caliphs, then similar civil wars between Al Fatemiun in Egypt and Caliphs. Such internal fissions have rendered the whole trend of Islam as a very dark process toward finality: all trends in Islam act as tactical and mainly strategic backup for each other and such backup currents are still supported and improved by horrific internal fissions driven into the most fundamental principles of Islam. Real peace and military integrity is merely maintained through Islam as an internal strategic war. Since Wahhabistic involvement of Islam in WoTerror is presented mostly as a ferocious tactical disruption [1] for western tradition of tacticity (an all familiar greek-germanic-latin line), it is believed that Wahhabism is the one superior head of Islamism in WoT. But wahabbism is somehow an effective operation shield, a distraction from what really Islam is up to: Double Death. [1] an anomalous tactical space deeply enmeshed by strategic feedbacks / feedforwards -- unknown to western civilizations -- running through Islam. -----------In contemporary Iranian references on Jihad, there are discussions around the Islamic approach toward the crusading military mechanisms or western line of tactics. According to these references, western fluxional dynamism of tactics is un-islamic since it perceives war as a ‘manifest dynamic progression’ which inevitably turns into something basically intrusive (briefly, it penetrates the walls which should be left 244

unbroken ... it forms a ‘transgression dynamics’). Such a mechanism (i.e. western tactics) cannot operate remotely or striking the enemy without being transgressive (it tactically mutates into a vector of contamination). In the wake of this trend and the Islamic principle discussing that everything spreads over paths to Islamic Apocalypse and aggravatingly functions as a micro-management toward provocation of Islamic Apocalypticism, the role of Islamic Apocalypticism is to dismantle western military mechanisms as well as promoting / intensifying them by engineering a profound endo-tactical strategy which strategically pushes western tactics toward Islamic apocalypse or utter meltdown. The contemporary inclination of Islamic apocalypticism is that since western tacticity belongs to the crusading fronts and on the other hand, jihad should be grasped as a strategic and remote assault, then a dynamic vector (other than western line of tactics) must be found to smuggle WAR to the crusading civilizations. There is no vehicle more appropriate in composing this endo-tactical strategy than oil (or your suggested “Pipeline Odyssey”). Islamic Apocalypticism has understood well that anything can be pumped into GAS pipelines and oil can slide them forward as well as permanently dissolving them (what reaches the crusading civilizations cannot be extracted from petroleum; it has got a new chemical compound). Endotactical strategies of Islamic apocalypticism swirl around gas pipelines as magnetic fields encircling an electric current. This is another reason that oil is identified as a xenochemical Insider flooded by islamo-apocalyptic warmachines which grasp oil or gas pipeline as an autonomous (and if we accept Thomas Gold’s discussion, UNDYING) tactical field on which western civilizations ironically feed thier entire advanced dynamism, from tactical lines to their military breakthroughs ... in a secret twist, they rush toward ‘double death’ or Islamic apocalypse by fusing with the Islamic warmachines running through oil. Islamic Apocalypticism has already got the picture: petroleum as a religious tactical field toward Islamic apocalypse which on certain levels is overlapped by tellurian omega (again Dean Koontz’s novel). -------------N: "Wahhabism ..." - partially agree: 245

1) accepting the Z. line (the Z-crowd) clearly complicates standard WoT centralizations o Wahhabism - with you 100% here 2) on the other hand, the rise to prominence of Wahhab, Qutb, and the Sunni chauvenist crew clearly not accidental - from out PoV this surely has interrelated petropolical and theomorphic aspects (the Wahhabis capture the twin "crudecurrents": oil-flow and theological minimization to "One God, kill the infidels" (Shia very much included) - I'm qabbalistically constrained here by the rather compelling equation SAUDI = 99, which puts Mecca and Medina right in the heart of the Double Death zone think this whole issue v. important, we probably need to wander around it with some patience because I strongly suspect it's a topic where we definitely 'ain't seen anything yet' Jihad strategy / Oil - Totally Axial - you have it in a nutshell: "... in a secret twist, they rush toward ‘double death?or Islamic apocalypse by fusing with the Islamic warmachines running through oil." --------R: Yes, you are utterly right about Wahhabism axial role in the petropolitical process of smuggling the double-death Toxin into the American empire. However, as I mentioned Wahhabistic petropolitical aggression in WoTerror hardly diagrams the ENTIRE Islamic panorama of petropolitical Apocalypse which tends to secretly bring the west into its burning fold (The Gog-Magog Axis). Once again, the strategic lines of Islam (spread through Shia and non-Salafi / Wahhabi Sunni sects) regard wahabbism as a highly exploitable Outsider: I’m sure you know that moderate Sunni and Shia sects consider the Wahhabis as Khawarij, a term defining those who left Ali’s cause .. according to Hadith, Mohammad predicted the emergence of Khawarij as Muslims who leave Islam and become infidel (Kafir). However, both Shia and Sunni sects tend to keep this Outsider as an operation shield under whose exotic petropolitical tacticity they can easily work on their double-death project … besides, the presence of Wahhabism is very crucial in Islamic Apocalypticism since with its definitely significant but distractingly exotic role for the US, the rest of Islam can safely and efficiently dissipates its petropolitical network of Apocalypticism across the Europe, poisoning it slowly to utter nervous system shutdown (letting loose a continental Zombie Flood) … then we will see that we haven’t seen anything yet. 246

To continue your guide here (SAUDI=Islam=99) [Saudi: abjad=150]: Think you’ve heard the Hadith of Najd. Abdul Wahhab was born in Najd (today known as Riyadh) ... a place which Mohammad warned would be a source of corruption and affliction (fitna). Anti-Wahhabi Muslims refer to Wahhabism as fitna an Najdiyyah or ‘the trouble out of Najd (abjad=57)’. This is the hadith from Al-bukhari: Ibn Umar reported the Prophet (Peace be upon him) as saying: “Oh Allah, bless us in our Syria; O Allah, bless us in our Yemen.” Those present said: "And in our Najd, O Messenger of Allah!" But he said, "O Allah, bless us in our Syria; O Allah, bless us in our Yemen." Those present said, "And in our Najd, O Messenger of Allah!" Ibn Umar said that he thought that he said on the third occasion: "Earthquakes and fitnah are there, and there shall arise the horn of Shaytaan. (the satan)" Shaytaan (abjad= 370) (the Satan) is known as "ash-Shaykh an-Najdi", a title given to him by Mohammad. Wahhab (abjad=14) is also deemed with the same title, "ashShaykh an-Najdi," by the Ahl as-Sunnah 'Ummah. In some Shia book, Najd is considered as the wasteland of hell (the abjad numeric value for Jahannam (the Arabic word for hell) based on ge henna or the place down there is 98). Also Wahhabism is sometimes called the sect of the Devil’s Horn (Qarn al-Shaytan). [to be continued ...] Comments: Pipeline Odyessy Nick Land: This oil topic fascinating to me (and it seems an ever increasing of the planetary population). In the interest of simplification, or at least reiteration Assuming its broadly uncontroversial that WoT/WWIV has two conspicuous poles: (1) Cultural pole associated with monotheistic totalitarianism / Abrahamic civil war (room for much discussion on definition), & (2) Economic pole in which oil is overwhelmingly prominent, due to integrated imbalance where Islamic world generally marked by stunted industrial development and vast oil reserves (thus ensuring a gradient in the system - characterized by one247

way oil flow from the Islamic world to the West). This is intensified by the fact that the 'ideological/religious' (more discussion needed) heartland of the Ummah is simulataneously the linchpin of the world's oil supply -- it even seems that Zealotry directly correlated to oil abundance (Lee Harris has a plausible argument - 'fantasy ideology ' - for why this might happen). Questions: a) Can we analytically dissociate this system for the purpose of analysis before resynthesizing it, or is it so entangled that oil sloshes over into religion without clear boundaries? b) Is it possible, kind of DeLanda-style, to make progress here by simply describing the system from a suitably wide-angle clear-eyed empirical perspective? Especially, is it possible to hack out suggestive metaphors and replace them with rigorously descriptive terms? c) How crucial is Thomas Gold to all this? (seems to me v. important - but does that mean analysis hangs on speculative geology?) d) How does the functioning of this petropolitical-religious nexus affect the understanding of hyperstitional mechanisms in general? Anna Greenspan: can I just add one more question what does petropolitics have to do with crazed oppression of women (clearly a key part of Islamofascism and therefore WoT)? - guess there is at least a possible (Marxist) answer that has something to do with labor (see Lee Harris)?? also Nick or Reza don't really get how you see Gold's contribution - can you explain? Nick Land: Anna - Three major dimensions at least: (1) PETROPOLITICS. If oil is not a fossil fuel it is more abundant, distributed differently, and to a degree 'renewable' - each aspect has huge strategic consequences. (2) MEMETIC. OK, know Ccru UEL are going to replace this language, but there's a Deep Hot Biosphere craze growing that will have an impact irrespective of its 248

ultimate scientific reliability. Interesting hyperstitional issues about how oil-related beliefs become economically/politically operational. (3) MYTHIC. If the tellurian Oil-blob was never sedimented, but instead welled-up out of original ('cosmic') hydrocarbon geochemistry it is evidently a very different type of entity, one that was not 'built by the strata' for a start. [PS. On this, qabbalism strongly reinforces the cosmic-hydrocarbons hypothesis - OIL = 63]. Reza Negarestani: Nick a) Well, honestly I think it’s possible to reach such an analytical level but as an Iranian I’ve been exposed to oil for too long and now, can’t clearly see the boundaries. ... think Iranians live in some kind of inter-dimensional realm between islam and oil, two burning spaces, this is why they have managed to survive for such a long time. Additional note: I finally succeeded to read Spengler’s article ... brilliant ... unfortunately, contemporary intellectualism (bubble-thinkers) is so busy with its quotidian survivalist / conservative lines of thought which can hardly understand the crucial aspects of such discussions (let alone their elements and compositions). Sorry, enough for the boiling rage. What I was going to mention is: I think Ali Sina is not completely irrelevant; Islamic movements have undergone a radical dissociation from their source line; a second Islam is rising through the body of the old one, and it can creatively makes everything religious upon contact; the process is so drastic that secular options of this panorama are violently erased (it never falls into the trap of secularization). This somehow complicates our analytical positions since we can not safely use Islamic religious patterns which may help us in the analysis. However, for the start, let’s try your second question (suggestion): disintegrating the discussion into empirical matrices which can hold clearly descriptive entities. I eagerly follow your guide here. What / Where is the best point for initializing this analytical process? c) as you mentioned very important ... your second question: well, I don’t think so; its relation to speculative geology is incrementally getting hyperstitional mainly because of its chemical bond to religious compositions and their epidemic dispersion, the common belief that oil resources are depleting and WoT’s thirst to assimilate all oiloriented subjects; on the other hand, Gold’s speculative geology has already been subverted by polytical currents; reading Gold’s essays, we can realize that he knows well how his discussions are developed through a political atmosphere rather than on 249

a concrete geologic bedrock ... following his new essays, it is obvious that he doesn’t try to escape it; instead he tries to push his discussions further into extravagant political conclusions. But what do you think? d) How does the functioning of this petropolitical-religious nexus affect the understanding of hyperstitional mechanisms in general? This question is both v important and deep ... need more time to think about it. ------------------Anna what does petropolitics have to do with crazed oppression of women (clearly a key part of Islamofascism and therefore WoT)? - guess there is at least a possible (Marxist) answer that has something to do with labor (see Lee Harris)? Again, a very interesting and important question but I need more time to think. honestly, I hadn’t thought about it ... sorry,it's a symptom of my atrophied masculinity, I guess. I’m sure you have deeply worked on this question ... could you share your explorations / answers? Anna Greenspan: Reza can't say I've 'deeply worked on this question' but do think its vital. Seems clear that the rise of religious fundamentalism has a lot to do with a backlash against feminism (understood very basically as women's increased power, economic independence and growing importance in public life). what this has to do with petropolitics - I'm not sure - except that perhaps oil based economies -- where women do not have to work -- help create the socio-economic conditions that keep women secluded and highly dependent. - immediate problem with this is that it does not seem to apply to Afghanistan where anti-women psychosis was most acute. Would be very interested in your opinion and experiences (I've heard conflicting stories about Iran - some claim strict segregation of the sexes others that in the private sphere at least things are quite relaxed). Also curious about whether you think gender politics is shifting in the WoT 250

Reza Negarestani: Anna, just a pathetic answer: Yes, the situation in Iran is quite different from Afghanistan; women’s life in Iran mainly runs though Persian patterns; it’s not an exclusively Islamic thing (of course, it has been entangled with Islamic customs which somehow fit the strictly Persian patterns). The majority of Iranian women has a different view about economic independence and growing importance in public life; unlike western women (let’s say American women) they have no interest for total equality with men on all private / public levels. For example, I have frequently heard a similar sentence from Iranian women, “since America has run out of effective human resources, it has started to collect fresh supplies through its feministic policies (in which women can reach men on all levels of social activities.)” Most of iranian women find this degree of equality dangerous, irrelevant and ridiculous. First as you know, iranian women rarely stay single in their life. The family cannot be uprooted from the iranian culture. After marriage, men should pay a considerable amount of money to women for various reasons (Mah’rieh, Shier-Bahaa), especially in the case of divorce (of course, Mah’rieh is always grantable). The amount of money in cities is usually so high that men cannot afford if it is requested by woman; they either should pay it monthly or go to prison. No one here considers Mah'rieh as a symptom of economic reliance or a social disrespect to women but as a ‘right’ which belongs to women; they can get it whenever they wish regardless of situation. The recent laws concerning Mah’rieh are particularly harsh to men. On the other hand, iranian women like the rest of middle eastern women tend to accumulate gold and jewelry both for their ornamental and economic value. All this has established a stealth matriarchal system in the private sphere on which men are ironically dependent and can do nothing about it. In the public, however, the atmosphere around women is a bit dense and it is mostly because of the government policies. Obliged to follow these policies, men cannot reform the situation (because such policies are enveloped within Islamic laws which are hard to fight); the harsh public sphere is mainly rises from the way women should appear in public (of course, it is increasingly becoming an insignificant factor esp. in growing cities). 251

Also curious about whether you think gender politics is shifting in the WoT Well, IMHO, it is a bit difficult to answer since WoT is comprised of very diverse gender / sexual patterns and structures on the islamic front (most of which are not decipherable by western analyses); however, the dominant trend in Arabic countries is that male-female dynamics is progressively polarized: men are losing control of the private sphere and establishing harsh sexual segregation in the public sectors; this triggers the emergence of secret micro-matriarchal structures and matrilineal tendencies in the private sphere. Anna Greenspan: Reza think your last point especially fascinating - trying to figure out a way to approach it hyperstitionally wondering whether you agree that the gendered polarization of public-private spheres corresponds to the economics of oil? Also wondering how you think this fits with 'Islamic Apocalypticism' ? Reza Negarestani: Anna, thank you, interesting questions ... if you don't mind i'll answer them later, think the whole issue can be discussed in one separate post (i'll work on it). for now, i'm curious about petropolitics and China ... what is the general perspective? Nick, what do you think about Anna’s questions, especially the second one? Nick Land: curious about petropolitics and China ... what is the general perspective? V. pertinent q. Most definitely a huge upheavel in Chinese petropolics right now, because economic growth has been so strong they've become a major oil consumer and their indigenous sources of supply are running out. Think now this has become a foreign policy issue of the front rank for Beijing, and it's only going to get more intense - involves questions about relations with Russia, naval expansion and shipping routes, the entire central Asia 'great game v.2.0', Mideast diplomacy ... etc. [I'll focus more attention on this and do an update.] 252

Not sure what to think about Anna's q.s yet, but maybe related to another issue i've been thinking about: how to conceive the connection between the generalized 'devil's excrement' role of oil as a source of tyranny, corruption, instability and social destruction (in producer countries) with the specificity of it's relation to Islam. Given that oil seems to have thoroughly screwed up Venezuela, and seems set to toxify Russian 'democracy', is there a particular Oil/Islam nexus that can be isolated from the overall pattern of despotic petropolitics? Reza Negarestani: Think now this has become a foreign policy issue of the front rank for Beijing, and it's only going to get more intense - involves questions about relations with Russia, naval expansion and shipping routes, the entire central Asia 'great game v.2.0', Mideast diplomacy ... etc. Very interesting ... so China has already been seduced to WoT as a potential strategic agency? This reminds me of the hyperstitional perspective on China’s complicity in WoT in the popular videogame “Command and Conquer: Generals”. Nick Land: Reza - China's insertion into WWIV quite complex and even contradictory - think it will try to be patient as usual, so there's probably plenty of time to figure it out. On the 'devil's excrement' question: do you think there's a relatively clear way to specify the Oil / Islamic Apocalypticism relation that differentiates it more or less reliably from the residue of non-islamic oil-fuelled disorder on the planet? Reza Negarestani: On the 'devil's excrement' question: do you think there's a relatively clear way to specify the Oil / Islamic Apocalypticism relation that differentiates it more or less reliably from the residue of non-islamic oil-fuelled disorder on the planet? Well, for now, I can think of a few reasons [needles to say, very crude at this time] but first of all: Toxin-attack against nervous system of all collective organizations is one of the intrinsic functions of the Tellurian blob and is inevitable. However, Tellurian blob can participate with certain collective agencies (the cult of the blob) as both fuel and a dynamic lubricant on which things are moving forward (Anna, we should provide you with some materials on Oil as the Tellurian lubricant and its link to the Gog-Magog Axis; you might find them interesting). 1. Oil-toxin industry is utterly ruinous for un-collective blob summoners (Latin America is an example) i.e. oil producers: in the case of the islamic front, oil toxicity has been mutated into a kind of favorable parasite (a strategic symbiosis between oil 253

and Islam’s burning core) because oil is welled-up on an ‘Islamic Continent’ not a geopolitical boundary; or in other words, ISLAM has made a pertropolitical network (linked by Islamic / religious protocols and currents) for the Islamic front which has a high tolerance of feeding the blob-parasite and on certain level, accompanying it or positively participating with it (again, the interconnection between Tellurian Omega and Islamic Apocalypticism). 2. Islam perceives Oil as an ultimate Tellurian lubricant or a radical field of tacticity (again the discussion on tactics and oil); it does not merely perceive oil as a production-based motor-grease44 but mainly as a lubricant current or a tellurian antivitalist flux on which everything is mobilized inevitably (oil goes everywhere and so things dissolved in it or floating on its surface). 3. Oil trade in ‘islamic’ network of petropolitics is primarily used to recharge the islamic network neither the wealth of country nor the production spheres. For America, ‘oil trade’ recharges oil fields but for the islamic front it recharges what we call here Hezb-o-Allah, the legion of Ghiamat [Qiyamah]; while oil makes other populations weaker, it makes Hezb-o-Allah and their bonds stronger. Nick Land: Reza - the analysis you are embarking on here is absolutely critical IMHO and deserves some careful thrashing out. I'm very interested in the role of 'lucid agency' in the account you are giving. When you say "Islam perceives" are you suggesting that an explicit strategic discourse exists, or that the actual unfolding dynamics indicate the existence of an implicit 'alliance' between the Tellurian blob-vector and the Islamist agenda? As footnote q. to this, how are the fissures within/between Islamist movements to be conceived here - is there an unconscious Islamist metaprogram (perhaps even Zprogrammed) ensuring an ultimate convergence of disparate concrete currents? But sticking to the oil patch - there also seems to be a continuing importance of the 'finite fossil fuels' question, since if WWIV marks a culmination of Great Oil Politics it is obviously being scheduled, perpetuated, perhaps even in more intimate ways 44 Instrumentalizing oil in production is like feeding on Devil’s excrement and its byproducts; there is always the danger of being poisoned to death or even worse. 254

'timed' by the reserves, consumption, substitution possibilities and extraction economics of oil. Is the 'end of the oil age' (an intriguing hyperstitional operator in itself) synchronized with the inmplicit historicity of Islamic Apocalypticism? (worth remembering Sheikh Yamani's remark: "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones ...") Final point for now: Assuming that part of what is at stake here is the emergence of new petropolitcal hyperstitions (most prominently, 'the blob'), can we produce a taxonomy of existing hyperstitional structures in this area, e.g. liberal ('markets will sort it out'), green ('omigod we're running out of everything including oil' /'omigod we're boiling Gaia in her own juices'), Western WWIV superhawk ('gotta tech-up to hydrogen and stop buying that raghead terror-sauce'), Al-Qaeda exoteric ('Allah says fair price for oil is US$144 a barrel'), Islamic esoteric ... Reza Negarestani: Very exciting discussions I'm very interested in the role of 'lucid agency' in the account you are giving. When you say "Islam perceives" are you suggesting that an explicit strategic discourse exists, or that the actual unfolding dynamics indicate the existence of an implicit 'alliance' between the Tellurian blob-vector and the Islamist agenda? Good point ... actually both of them ... looking back to Islamic ideology industry especially after Iran Revolution, we can trace hundreds of books following the same thread we are discussing here: “OIL is our holy gold” (or water?) or “OIL is the gift of Allah to Islam”, “OIL is our weapon”, “OIL ; sometimes, even it has been compared to Zamzam water in Mecca. (Note - for those who might be unfamiliar with Zamzam: http://icias.com/e.o/zamzam.htm) Also keep in mind: ‘Zamzam Cola’ is the Iran’s answer to Coca and is getting popular in Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries; from ‘Islamonline’: “RIYADH, August 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iranian soft drink Zamzam Cola, considered a viable Islamic substitute for U.S. global rivals Pepsi and Coca Cola, has started selling in the Saudi markets, the product agent said Tuesday, August 20.” (http://www.islamonline.net/english/news/2002-08/20/article38.shtml) Zamzam (ABJAD) = 94 255

As footnote q. to this, how are the fissures within/between Islamist movements to be conceived here is there an unconscious Islamist metaprogram (perhaps even Z-programmed) ensuring an ultimate convergence of disparate concrete currents? Yes, even without its intrinsic Z-program, Islamism can be conceived as a collective agency with violent continuous fissions within itself that rushes toward an ultimate convergence which has no survival value, its Ghiamat or Islamic Apocalypse. Fissures between islamist movements as Motahari suggested have fertilized Islam (having the role of strategic feedforward) to reach its ultimate goals ‘more prepared and more patient’, he continues, ‘although they are actually slowing the process, but making Islam ready to accept and interlock with its goals’. Here I should add, War and Peace have absolutely different meanings and functions in Islam. Suffice to say, the ultimate slogan of iran during the war with iraq as another islamic country (you can still see it on walls in any district) was: WE EXPORTED ISLAM BY WAR. The same thing is at work for the violent fissions between islamic movements. Islam is internally so diverse and collectively complex and disordered that merely wars between its movements can maintain its collective dynamism and its unsolid integrity for reaching an ultimate Z-infested convergence. And as the last note: It’s rather a long time that I’m working on this question and still exploring its tentacles but I can’t really give a consolidated answer; maybe I have selected wrong ways to explore this question or am too dumb to grasp the answer ... so I appreciate some discussions from your side on this question. But sticking to the oil patch - there also seems to be a continuing importance of the 'finite fossil fuels' question, since if WWIV marks a culmination of Great Oil Politics it is obviously being scheduled, perpetuated, perhaps even in more intimate ways 'timed' by the reserves, consumption, substitution possibilities and extraction economics of oil. Is the 'end of the oil age' (an intriguing hyperstitional operator in itself) synchronized with the implicit historicity of Islamic Apocalypticism? (worth remembering Sheikh Yamani's remark: "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones ...") I guess the hyperstitional program of ‘finite fossil fuels’ or as Gold suggests ‘The Myth of Fossil Fuels’ does not extinguish the burning current of Islamic Apocalypticism but violently accelerates it, rendering it as a sudden cataclysm which might be too fast for us to grasp the panorama in its entirety. According to FFF program, as soon as oil fields are depleted, a continental revolution on the islamic front happens, its main 256

source of energy is derived out of years of economic repression, petropolitical retroproduction and overpopulation (“Islam needs more children”) and finally hungry but religiously and biologically ‘hot’ populations who now search for their Holy Gold (their religious food) in the western mines of Europe and America. Final point for now: Assuming that part of what is at stake here is the emergence of new petropolitcal hyperstitions (most prominently, 'the blob'), can we produce a taxonomy of existing hyperstitional structures in this area, e.g. liberal ('markets will sort it out'), green ('omigod we're running out of everything including oil' /'omigod we're boiling Gaia in her own juices'), Western WWIV superhawk ('gotta tech-up to hydrogen and stop buying that raghead terror-sauce'), Al-Qaeda exoteric ('Allah says fair price for oil is US$144 a barrel'), Islamic esoteric ... LOL ... well, I should think about it but for now, these quotes remind me unit quotes in videogames, particularly RTS (Real Time Strategies) games which are based on the same hyperstitional protocols of clashes between civilizations. In Generals (I named it before), the Islamic GLA (Global Liberation Army) campaign have interesting quotes, you can hear these per-click quotes from each unit; guess, it’s helpful for this purpose, especially their toxin (oil) tractor which is one of the most pestilential weapons: [With some changes:] Hehe, aged to perfection Potency guaranteed We have generous portions My own special brew Would you like to try some? Fresh out of the land ... Something for the masses Guess, the blob cult uses all the above taxonomies (or unit quotes) you mentioned in a very ironic, twisted way, as you can see in the example of Toxin Tractor, a cuttingedge new weapon of Islamic GLA. 257

Nick, read the first paragraph again, just detected a missing part in the previous version: Good point ... actually both of them ... looking back to Islamic ideology industry especially after Iran Revolution, we can trace hundreds of books following the same thread we are discussing here: “OIL is our holy gold” (or water?) or “OIL is the gift of Allah to Islam”, “OIL is our weapon”, “The Great Satan loves oil and we have it more than anyone”; sometimes, even it has been compared to Zamzam water in Mecca. Nick Land: Great stuff Reza - exposing this material to the Oecumenon from perspective of Hyperstitional coldness is an intriguing prospect (it obviously cuts through the cultural pieties of all the antagonists in a viciously diagonal fashion). Specially agree with the implication of T. Gold as an accelerator - crucial. Link to game clicks also excellent - they're the subliminal 'order words' of the age. We're about to drop off into the abyss - let's try and re-start this discussion with some slight variation in angle - any suggestions? Reza Negarestani: Thanks Nick ... for now: any possibility to develop a THINGlike hyperstitional model (esp. for analytical purposes) for the technocapitalist warmachines which fuse with islamic warmachines running through oil? How do they exactly function? (or parallel to the Thing’s medical files found in Antarctica: how do they hunt?) Vysparov’s Pandemonium concordance for the Book of Paths Nick Land (August 12, 2004) After receiving Chaim Horowitz’s translation of the Book of Paths in late 1949, Peter Vysparov set to work on decrypting the ancient text. He soon became convinced that – as Horowitz had suggested – the Book of Paths could be rigorously mapped onto the rites of Lemurian demonism as explicated (with minor errors) in his Pandemonium Matrix. This work seems to have been completed by the early 1960s. 258

After announcing the discovery of the Book of Paths, the trustees of the Vysparov Library generously made available a copy of the following concordance. Rites and Paths. Rites of Lurgo (1::0). Rt-1:[1890] = Pth-1. Original Subtraction: Rites of Duoddod (2::0) Rt-1:[271890] = Pth-2. Extreme Regression. Rt-2:[27541890] = Pth-3. Abysmal Comprehension. Rites of Doogu (2::1) Rt-1:[1872] = Pth-4. Primordial Breath. Rt-2:[271] = Pth-5. Slipping Backwards. Rt-3:[27541] = Pth-6. Attaining Balance. Rites of Ixigool (3::1) Rt-1:[18723] = Pth-7. Progressive Levitation. Rt-2:[1872563] = Pth-8. Eternal Digression. Rites of Ixidod (3::2) Rt-1:[23] = Pth-9. Sudden Flight. Rt-2:[27563] = Pth-10. Jagged Flight. Rites of Krako (4::0) Rt-1:[41890] = Pth-11. Abysmal Subsidence. Rt-2:[451890] = Pth-12. Slow Cataclysm. Rites of Sukugool (4::1) Rt-1:[187254] = Pth-13. Cyclic Perfection. 259

Rt-2:[41] = Pth-14. Tranquil Drowning. Rt-3:[451] = Pth-15. Suspended Decline. Rites of Skoodu (4::2) Rt-1:[2754] = Pth-16. Supreme Balance. Rt-2:[41872] = Pth-17. Profound Renewal. Rt-3:[451872] = Pth-18. Cyclic Elevation. Rites of Skarkix (4::3) Rt-1:[418723] = Pth-19. Transcendent Resurgence. Rt-2:[41872563] = Pth-20. Alien Intervention. Rt-3:[4518723] = Pth-21. Supreme Comprehension. Rt-4:[4563] = Pth-22. Reverse Flight. Rites of Tokhatto (5::0) Rt-1:[541890] = Pth-23. Deepest Destiny. Rites of Tukkamu (5::1) Rt-1:[18725] = Pth-24. Optimal Maturation. Rt-2:[541] = Pth-25. Certain Slide. Rites of Kuttadid (5::2) Rt-1:[275] = Pth-26. Preserving Stability. Rt-2:[541872] = Pth-27. Cyclic Regeneration. Rites of Tikkitix (5::3) Rt-1:[5418723] = Pth-28. Transcendent Comprehension. Rt-2:[563] = Pth-29. Celestial Abduction. Rites of Katak (5::4) 260

Rt-0:[X] = Pth-30. Coiled Fervour. Rt-1:[418725] = Pth-31. Eternal Revolution. Rites of Djungo (6::1) Rt-1:[187236] = Pth-32. Vortical Escalation. Rt-2:[187256] = Pth-33. Jagged Escalation. Rites of Djuddha (6::2) Rt-1:[236] = Pth-34. Celestial Capture. Rt-2:[2756] = Pth-35. Erratic Flight. Rites of Djynxx (6::3) Rt-0:[X] = Pth-36. Vortical Coincidence. Rites of Tchakki (6::4) Rt-1:[4187236] = Pth-37. Indirect Escape. Rt-2:[4187256] = Pth-38. Split Comprehension. Rt-3:[45187236] Pth-39. Eventual Comprehension. Rt-4:[456] = Pth-40. Climbing Reversal. Rites of Tchattuk (6::5) Rt-1:[54187236] = Pth-41. Final Comprehension. Rt-2:[56] = Pth-42. Abrupt Elevation. Rites of Puppo (7::0) Rt-1[71890] = Pth-43. Deep Regression. Rt-2:[72541890] = Pth-44. Profound Comprehension. Rites of Bubbamu (7::1) Rt-1:[187] = Pth-45. Primal Awakening. 261

Rt-2:[71] = Pth-46. Basic Reversion. Rt-3:[72541] = Pth-47. Attaining Imbalance. Rites of Oddubb (7::2) Rt-0:[X] = Pth-48. Perpetual Bubbling. Rites of Pabbakis (7::3) Rt-1:[723] = Pth-49. Escape Velocity. Rt-2:[72563] = Pth-50. Erratic Interference. Rites of Ababbatok (7::4) Rt-1:[4187] = Pth-51. Swift Revival. Rt-2:[45187] = Pth-52. Slow Revival. Rt-3:[7254] = Pth-53. Suspended Animation. Rites of Papatakoo (7::5) Rt-1:[54187] = Pth-54. Eventual Resurgence. Rt-2:[725] = Pth-55. Upholding Stability. Rites of Bobobja (7::6) Rt-1:[7236] = Pth-56. Bubbling Anomalies. Rt-2:[7256] = Pth-57. Jagged Abduction. Rites of Minommo (8::0) Rt-1:[890] = Pth-58. Terminal Undertow. Rites of Mur Mur (8::1) Rt-0:[X] = Pth-59. Self-Swallowing Somnolence. Rites of Nammamad (8::2) Rt-1:[2718] = Pth-60. Submergent Mirroring. 262

Rt-2:[275418] = Pth-61. Cyclic Dreaming. Rt-3:[8172] = Pth-62. Emergent Mirroring. Rites of Mummumix (8::3) Rt-1:[81723] = Pth-63. Tidal Evacuation. Rt-2:[8172563] = Pth-64. Tidal Vortex. Rites of Numko (8::4) Rt-1:[418] = Pth-65. Rapid Submergence. Rt-2:[4518] = Pth-66. Suspended Subduction. Rt-3:[817254] = Pth-67. Cyclic Succession. Rites of Muntuk (8::5) Rt-1:[5418] = Pth-68. Sliding Subduction. Rt-2:[81725] = Pth-69. Prolonged Emergence. Rites of Mommoljo (8::6) Rt-1:[817236] = Pth-70. Absolute Escalation. Rt-2:[817256] = Pth-71. Erratic Escalation. Rites of Mommbo (8::7) Rt-1:[817] = Pth-72. Larval Awakening. Rt-2:[718] = Pth-73. Larval Reversion. Rt-3:[725418] = Pth-74. Cyclic Submergence. Rites of Uttunul (9::0) Rt-0:[X] = Pth-75. Seething Nullity. Rites of Tutagool (9::1) Rt-1:[189] = Pth-76. Continual Sinking. 263

Rites of Unnunddo (9::2) Rt-1:[27189] = Pth-77. Chthonic Regression. Rt-2:[2754189] = Pth-78. Deep Comprehension. Rites of Ununak (9::4) Rt-1:[4189] = Pth-79. Subterranean Slippage. Rt-2:[45189] = Pth-80. Subterranean Impulsion. Rites of Tukutu (9::5) Rt-1:[54189] = Pth-81. Buried Instinct. Rites of Nuttubab (9::7) Rt-1:[7189] = Pth-82. Plunging Backwards. Rt-2:[7254189] = Pth-83. Unending Comprehension. Rites of Ummnu (9::8) Rt-1:[89] = Pth-84. Compressed Termination. Hyper C update - The Age of Babalu steve hyperdub (August 12, 2004) Hyperdub’s45 softwar agents have been roaming street markets in south London hunting for cds rumoured to contain audio recordings of the infamous, if almost completely forgotten, Hyper C audio syndicate. It’s a strange irony/coincidence that they should be forgotten considering the unmitigated virulence of their communiqués, the sheer infectious of their encrypted rhythmic pronouncements. Recordings so far have turned up in bashment street stalls in Brixton market, next to the open fronted Chinese supermarket with the fluorescent fish nestled in beds of ice and swarms of flies. Another mixtape was purchased from a music stall on East street 45 https://hyperdub.net/ 264

market, just off the Walworth Road which connect Elephant & Castle to Camberwell. But the most intriguing find so far wasn’t bought off a seller of music but instead from a shop in Brixton market called the Natural Fragrance Company, a vendor of a myriad of pungent aromas (candles or aerosol) commonly used in the syncretic practices of African and Latin American women, and thought to bring fertility, money, and cast out the evil spirits. ‘The Age of Babalu’ was scrawled on the front cover of the cd, with a spiral diagram annotated in Spanish on the back... The text clearly alludes to the Yoruba god of epidemics, Babalu. Babalu is honored in the Santerian festival of Babaluaiye. This orisha is known to punish the results or diseases of overindulgence and excess, demanding moderation and humility in all things. Babalu, allegedly, is the wrath of the earth and will punish those that disrespect it. He is associated with both with inoculation and immunization, providing the means to cure disease or cause it. His color is royal purple, and he is identified with people who have broken or missing limbs, derelicts, beggars, and with those who have been abandoned and forgotten by society. Babalu was said to punish people with smallpox, leprosy and other viral afflictions, but was also said to bring premonitions of epidermal and abdominal maladies. Some believed that disease could be provoked by naming an enemy while placing an article of clothing on Babalu’s altar, but this was unverified and regarded as evil disinformation by many experts as the aim of the cult who worshiped the demon aimed to prevent the spread of smallpox. It has always been thought that it was dangerous to say his name, so much so that Nigerian colonial authorities banned worship of the god in 1917. Babalu, it has also been noted, is the demonic personification of that audio virus Ishmael Reed termed jes grew in his classic of rhythmic epidemiology, Mumbo Jumbo. Anyway, back to the cd. . . it was, at least according to the Softwar agent who uncovered it, completely blank. This particular agent, who we will not name for just now, has a patchy track record – she has been known to keep her best findings for her own archive, and has, on more that one occasion, been caught selling priceless Hyper C 7 inch vinyl on E-bay. Anyway the silence on the cd could be misleading. Hyper C, it has been noted, has a history of infrasonic (sub 20Hz) recordings which can only be reproduced on a sound system with the capability of responding to such very low frequency oscillations. 265

Some internet research into the acoustic epidemiology of Croatian academic Ernst Peiter Demic suggests that Hyper C’s relation to the Babalu orisha is complex. While much of the discourse in the West surrounding Babablu uses it to understand the relationship between the African diaspora to the HIV pandemic, Hyper C have referred to their own microbial transactions as the HYB virus. Prof. Demic has, in his as yet untranslated text, “Exorcise the Demons: a Study in Sonic Mneumonics” developed a theory of ‘rhythmic engrams’ to understand the infection and transmission protocols of audio viruses and sonic symbiosis associated with sects such as Hyper C. Demic locates our aquatic ancestry vibrating as a nanolevel trauma folded into the body, quantum ticks which manifest themselves in times of saline deficiency as a stomach convulsion compelled dance. Demic’s analysis of contemporary undercurrents of hyperrhythm activism, and the array of ingestives associated with them, is that dangerous attempts are being made to nurture these nanobugs, unravelling the vertical, terrestrial architecture of the body via an epileptic tidal wave of rhythmic contagion… Comments: Hyper C update - The Age of Babalu ccru: 'Is' the second image Babalu? ('Is' here, of course, to be taken strictly in the Clintonian sense) Any idea about the relation of Babalu to Bubbamu (of the Black Atlantean Aquassassins)? And Babylon? steve_hyperdub: yes…our source suggests that it is an image of Babulu. . .many images we've come across feature some bloke on crutches, obviously struct down by some plague, with a lizard type creature lurking in the background Hmm…got a hunch that to understand Bubbamu, you have to process Babalu and Yemanja together… Reza: Steve, a very interesting post ... Is Babalu the African twin of Pazuzu (the droning noise of Pazuzu is frequently mistaken for desert winds [sedam, ro’af, romad] or the silence before locust-swarm cataclysm ... think it has some powerful viro-sonic elements)? Is anyone here interested in writing a piece on Pazuzu? 266

paul "bone thugz and armoury" meme: Hmmmm, Babalu... one of those names too loaded with apparent references and signifiers to trust... but here's my 2cents of speculation: wonder if there's a link here to Babalon, a key deity / spirit in Thelema? Growth comes through being prepared to expose weakness to others, with the increasing awareness of the need to relinquish self-control at appropriate times, allowing yourself to be hurt rather than always having to be seen to be 'in control' of the situation. Therefore Babalon is equivalent to the power or ability to relinquish the ego - to transcend our self-forged fetters and embrace that which is 'more than we are'. Article on invoking Bablon here: http://www.philhine.org.uk/writings/rit_invbabs.html Decimal Phoneticism Nick Land (August 15, 2004) One topic that crosses a number of hyperstitional threads already initiated here is that of decimal phoneticism. This topic seems indispensable to numogrammatics, qabbalism, lemurology, vowelless alphabets and other recent discussions. Stillwell’s influential ethnographic analysis of Nma numeracy, subsequently developed by Horowitz, led to a search for the common protohuman roots of counting and speech. Stillwell hypothesized that a lost ‘Muvian’ culture had existed in which each numeral had a true name (although based on sounds intractable to modern human physiology). The ‘source words’ derived from this ‘Ur-Nma’ culture provided the names of the decimal numerals and basic morphological components of the entire Mu Nma language (Munumese). Stillwell’s reconstruction of Nma sorcery was based on the insight that ‘the forty-five calls’ or names of the Lemurs (as listed within Vysparov’s Pandemonium Matrix) were systematically synthesized from this lost decimal phoneticism. Tzikvik worm sorcery with its rites of the (45) ‘lemu’ further attests to the basic soundness of this hypothesis. Stillwell/Horowitz attribute sonic values as follows: 267

[0] Voweloid silence. Linked by Stillwell to the unvoiced Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘eiaoung,’ the ‘silent whisper of the ulterior depths.’ [1] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘gl,’ emanating from the sublaryngeal region (the Horowitzean ‘collapsed gargle’ or ‘glottal spasm,’ a relic from lost gilled/gulping life-forms). [2] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘dt’ (the Horowitzean ‘imploded fricative/fractured plosive’). [3] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘zx.’ It designates the ‘buzz-cutter’ sonics which Horowitz describes as a ‘swarming insectoid reversion within mammalian vocality.’ Implicates: x, cs, czs, z, zz … hissing. [4] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘skr,’ which Horowitz identifies as an anthropo-reptiloid precursor to the qabbalistic ‘hard resh.’ Implicates: sk, sc, kr … croaking. [5] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘ktt’ (the Horowitzean ‘parvocal tic’). [6] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘tch,’ approximating to the interphoneme ‘dzch/tj.’ [7] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘pb’ (the Horowitzean ‘compounded plosive’). Implicates: bubbling. [8] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘mnm,’ the diffuse subvocal hum that Horowitz links to the ‘proto-originary enunciation’ Oumn. Implicates: humming. [9] Linked by Stillwell to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘tn,’ which Horowitz describes as ‘the ultimate unutterable mystery of vocal nullity.’ 268

Comments: Decimal Phoneticism steve_hyperdub: I'm wondering how, if at all, the Lemurs intersect with African click languages Joanna Mountain suggests that "Khoisan languages of southern Africa have a putative history of considerable time depth and are spoken by Khoi and San populations. San carry the deepest known gene lineages. Intriguingly, while the Hadzane language of the Hadabe (Hadza) of East Africa shares click consonants with Khoisan, the historical relationship between these languages has remained enigmatic. Over the past century a minority of linguists has suggested that click consonants are preserved elements of human language tracing to the common ancestral population of extant humans, or earlier. Evidence supporting this hypothesis, however, has been scant. We present Y chromosome and mtDNA data indicating that San and Hadzabe are among the most highly divergent of human populations. Both DNA segments independently reveal variation consistent with the hypothesis that all living humans descend from speakers of a click language." Anna Greenspan: this point obviously key I myself was wondering where the kl sound particle fit with the system - though I was thinking clucking not clicking : ) am still looking for Horowitzian material on this question wondering what the Ur aspect is of African click language - is it the consonants themselves or the rhythmic clusters? - guess Hyper-C have a take on this. 269

Pazuzu (The Dust Enforcer) Reza Negarestani (August 16, 2004) Pazuzu, the Sumero-Assyrian Demon of epidemics (mostly the southwestern desert wind) is an occultural operative of the xero-informatic Abomination or Dust (= 100 = NO GOD), and possibly the most awe-inspiring cultist of Tellurian Dustism in the ancient Mesopotamia for wind is truly the high acolyte of Dust as well as being the Dust Enforcer. Pazuzu is specialized in scavenging the stratified Earth, its encrusted conclusion (the ground) and the surface biosphere as dust clouds or inorganic bacterial relics, then carrying them to xenochemical hydro-currents or what in ancient Greek was called cosmic wetness (hydrochemical singularities) that means working as a catalyser in the emergence of plagues; then carrying the plagues back to the surface biosphere and its ground-based economy as Dust-soaps, arid floods, mess rains, unheard-of epidemics and xero-informatic possessions (The Exorcist). This process of dust-scavenging and plague-engineering takes the form of an accelerating non-Aristotelian cycle when the terrestrial hygiene industry incrementally spreads more anti-pest agents and critically over-product defense mechanisms (to ward off plagues) which once again are scavenged by Pazuzu’s pest-industry, and ironically intensifying the emergence of plagues and dust-floods, speeding the journey of plagues back to the surface biosphere. The horror of Pazuzu is usually (but not always) transcendentalized as a winged bipedal human-like beast with talon instead of foot and a head concretized through an almost fleshless skull of a dog or lion. The long reptile penis of Pazuzu (a pest-seeding machine or a disseminator according to epidemiology glossaries) is a later pestilential modification to its ready-to-fly body (strangely two pairs of wings instead of one pair as if two wings are not enough) in the neo-Assyrian era. Pazuzu is also visualized with the right hand upward, and the left hand downward, heralding the Pest-Cycle of dust whose axis is a double-flight (Pazuzu’s tetra-winged body) or an inter-dimensional ferocious ‘line of flight’ (Deleuze and Guattari) from the Earth to without and from without to the Earth: the tactical line of the xero-informatic Abomination (Dust) and the traffic zone of its bacterial data. Pazuzu carries several morphologic anomalies which separate him from other Akkadian / Babylonian / Assyrian demons; according to the first excavated Bronze 270

statue of Pazuzu (Iraq, post-paleolithic era: 800 - 600 B.C.) these morphologic features include: 1. Extremely thin legs which bear an unusually skinny torso (chest bones are clearly visible) as if it suffers anorexia or fatigue (a body struck by famine). His wasting body narrates the cyclic desert famine accompanied by vast locust-swarms (as vehicles of desolation) and other pestilential omens. 2. Four wings instead of two; they seem feathered (later statuettes confirm this hypothesis: the feathers become visible as remiges or powerful flight feathers which provide the main propulsive force during powered flight of the rapax bird) and mainly emphasize a demonic lust to fly, to speed and migrate. Such wings engineer a flight corresponding to desert whirlwinds, dust devils and other meteorological phenomena of deserts which are believed to have been created by Anzu, the beast of flight, who stole the tablet of destiny and killed by Ninurta. The epic of Ninurta portrays Anzu as the forerunner of later flying demons, the engineer of demonic flight and beasts with feathered wings which are linked to cyclogenesis, acoustic havocs and spiraling storms across deserts. Four wings render the demon a perfect vehicle for carrying pestilence (Namtar) and other diabolical particles, and delivering them to their destination without delay (Dust Sorcery). 3. A snake-headed penis, a pest-fertilizing machine which confirms Pazuzu’s kinship with Humbaba (the guardian of cedar forest and the city of gods who defeated and killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu) who has the same reptilian phallus and is believed to be the son or brother of Pazuzu. Both Humbaba and Pazuzu could reflect the prognostic future of each individual: Humbaba’s labyrinthine face (unicursal human entrails as beard) noticeably presents the early art of ‘liver [hepatoscopy]/ entrails divination’ or Haruspicy in the ancient Mesopotamian cultures which later developed by the Etruscans. Pazuzu as the demon of the south-west wind is inter-connected with Rammalie (Arabic word: communication with other worlds and aeons through pebbles and desert sand). His roaring flight introduces rhythmic ripples as cryptovermiform parasites upon sand-dunes which cumulate transiently as short-term inorganic memories of desert winds; then, ripples and other intermittent patterns can be deciphered as runic alphabets of epidemic journeys and plague-propagations aerated by desert winds and narrated on sand. Abdul Alhazred as an adept rammal (sand-sorcerer) has probably written Al Azif through the dust-infested language of Pazuzu. 271

4. The beard of a dignitary which brings Pazuzu to the fold of ‘Evil-against-Evil’ and makes him an apotropaic character. Pazuzu like other demons (for example Ugallu) which belong to the axis of Evil-against-Evil can simultaneously spread terminal plagues and cure certain maladies. According to the neo-Sumerian axis of Evilagainst-Evil, every human is constantly a puppet of demons, suspending through the labyrinth of their molecular possessing systems. During illnesses, witchdoctor attempts to repel hostile demons from the patient and summon a protector-demon to possess the sick person. Pazuzu is among the chosen demons which could even pass the last guardian, Lamassu or the Repellent of Evil: a Pazuzu-demon is guarding the niche in the bathroom of Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh. 5. An almost fleshless head that cannot be distinguished clearly; Pazuzu’s head diagrams the metamorphosis of three carnivorous animals frequently appearing in Babylonian / Assyrian pandemonium of demons: rabid dog, Shogal (jackal) and Kaftaar (hyena). Ibn Hamedani in his book, Aja’ib Nameh (The Book of Marvels), calls Kaftaar, a terrible beast. Hyena, from an Afro-asiatic lineage, is possibly the most cursed, obscene and lewd animal in the Mesopotamian folklore. Ibn Hamedani tells horrifying stories about this desert-beast: having sex with its preys while devouring them; having a high-pitched cacophonic laughter, enough to drive a lone deserttraveler mad, etc. Rabid dogs are the spawns of Abzu (Abyss). Shogal connects Pazuzu to the Egyptian Set. 6. The right hand upward, and the left hand downward, the unique ABYZmal cartography of disease (Pest-cycle: The Wheel of Epidemics?) peculiar to Demons of pestilence and anti-immune agencies; it certifies that Pazuzu (like Ugalllu) belongs to the legion of plague-dissipating demons. See the tablet of disease: 272

Comments: Pazuzu (The Dust Enforcer) Reza Negarestani: IMHO, Pazuzu is a good start for a discussion on Puppetism; does anyone remember ‘Patient X’ from Exorcist III: Legion? There are many cinematic examples: John Trent (In the Mouth of Madness), Father Karras (The Exorcist), The Brotherhood of Sleep (Prince of Darkness), Prisoner KSC2-303 (Versus), etc. How does puppetism link to hyperstition dynamics? thistle: Any discussion of cinematic puppetism will ultimately need to include the character of Doctor Mabuse. Reza Negarestani: Thanks ... yes, actually I thought about Mabuse and Caligari as the first cinematic examples but intentionally didn’t include them because of their emphasis on who pulls the strings (Siegfried Krakauer’s book) but hyperstitional puppetism is mainly about strings (the linearity between the operator and the subject [victimhood?] is highly confounded and ‘perhaps’ dismantled) rather than the puppet or its puppeteer. ... for the same reason i didn't select Reagan in the exorcist; but i'm eager to hear your opinion on Mabuse. Anna Greenspan: not sure how this connects -- but remember some old ccru hyperstition discussions that sought to distinguish between puppets/posession and trafficking/trade -- think (tho not sure about this) that there is something more hyperstitional in the dispersed agency implied by trafick than the one way take-over that happens with puppets. 273

guess this has to do with Reza's point about pulling strings? thistle: Mabuse--I am unfamiliar with the context of the puppets/possession discussion to which anna eludes, but on the thinnest of threads and blindly, I suppose I will say the latter, possession, is the more apt term for describing how the figure of Mabuse operates. While he begins life in Norbert Jacques' original novel as a particular man with a particular history, later Jacques would intimate that this Dr. Mabuse may have been invented and adopted by a man--at which point we can no longer tell who-as a ruse. So while Dr. Mabuse is a character which adopts false identities and bends the will of other characters to act as his proxies, all in order to protect his true identity, it may be that his true identity is another mask. Yet after the death of the man who played at being Dr. Mabuse, it is Dr. Mabuse who comes back from the grave to possess would-be criminal masterminds infatuated with his legacy. This possibility that Mabuse is not himself, has no self, is what opens him up to enfranchisement. (Mabuse isn't just one of the earliest examples of cinematic puppetism; there have been over a dozen films.) piet: OK, . . hey the operator of hyperstition, Reza Negarestani, seems to be associated with what I can't unfortunately regard as mere spoof and satire anymore though they sure help make the field look ridiculous, I mean the misfiring polymaths just (re)produced a system reminscent of the one by the 'nogashell' fella (blogged some months ago) and now these 84 moronically cued 'paths' from the folks (amongst whom I hear mention of Brian Eno at K-punk((*)) and find Nick Land again, author of a great book on Bataille) who graduated into occult lore after being immersed in Deleuziana and moving out via Lovecraft : ccru.net/occultures/bookofpaths.htm announced thus: Well, all that is like a perfect inversion and perfidious perversion of what I try to teach regarding dusts. acresusa.com has an article on a very crumbly type of rock found in Canada that may turn out to become a rival for the clodbuster out of new mexico . . about which little news lately, compared to previous years anyway, wasn't it leyland taylor who distributes that stuff? So, I'm not to happy about the way these snobbily phrasing folks shine a light on dust. I've been trying to do not only that but make (a point of the logistical imperative to help) the latter absorb some of that preciously vital building block and infinitesimal energy quantum and transform it's primal trick into modern upmarketable delectables, harvestable blobs of informed water. In other words, I have been studying the ins and outs (mostly out) of fresh and suitable rock powder use (in compost, etcetera) with an eye on it's eminent and inevitable 274

nonbypassable usefulness when it comes to repairing some damage and return desertified animals to their misfunctional mass modernity's preceding pristinity. Now the most complete (and I think prettiest) digital sources for this sort of thing would be championtrees.org (use the brown 'soil' link) but I feel emboldened by your post to add my effort: the latest rambles; reactions to digital and 'distractionist' wanders but the older parts of this site are very much more (concentratedly) on target albeit a little far reaching (into the future that is). I realize yall are too sophisticated to see any peaceful and common use for dust, being into horror rather than health. I am sorry for once enjoying a book on Bataille by the guy who says he doesn't want to drive . . .etcetera does he realize stupid censorship is taking place under his nose?????????????? if the above post stays up I apologize for the censorship accusation since my first post will then have gotten glitched most likely. ps: any thoughts regarding Cernunnos and salutary dusts??? Reza Negarestani: LOL ... sorry, we are swarming here by spams lately and i've no knowledge of working with anti-spam filters in moveable type, some of them have actually quotes from writers ... possibly your comment has been deleted along them ... for that, my sincere apologies. thistle, Very interesting ... I’ve not read the original novel (have seen Lang’s original movie and later sequels) but yes, as you suggest Possession is more appropriate for Mabuse. In the same way you discussed ‘Possession’ should not be reduced to the possessor and the possessed or a spectacle of take-over; it is base-participation or radical contamination between tendencies (a becoming gone wild). Possession as a polarized puppetism or colonization is actually an old riddle invented by Cyril of Jerusalem (as a monotheistic doctor and exorcist) who thought a possessor tyrannically instrumentalizes another body as his own property, a polarizing process which colonizes a defenseless agency through an arena of faction disputes and rival tendencies (am not sure if this is originally a Western / Christian approach to possession that is conducted through signification). But returning to the ancient Mesopotamian and Indian culture, possession is a mutating journey for ‘a collative agency’ which cannot be discriminated as the possessor and the possessed; the 275

ultimate question that possession brings is WHERE or have it oversimplified: where are the possessor and the possessed through possession? Here, obv, the first thing that is uprooted is ‘I’ as a core (possession eats all traces of the ground) ... possession takes place on periphery and its anonymous diagrams not maps or segmented localities. For example, in Assyrian puppetism, demons are constantly changing and mutating through possession, the prey also becomes a demon (in CCRUoid description of Demon46) and a traffic zone for all xenochemical data-currents ... the complicity is not docile but intensively active as it attracts all sorts of xeno-currents (Deleuze and Guattari call attraction, the functioning itself). (Mabuse isn't just one of the earliest examples of cinematic puppetism; there have been over a dozen films.) Yes, there are many German and French examples on puppetism among early movies but Caligari and Mabuse are among the most famous ones, esp. because of their professional direction and modern insinuations on their contemporary atmosphere. Anna Greenspan: very intrigued by the 'old riddle invented by Cyril of Jerusalem' can you say more? Reza Negarestani: Anna Cyril’s riddle is not very special, it questions: does the property that is possessed belongs to the possessor or the possessed or in his term, the demon or the victim? And finally concludes, that it belongs to the possessed: “the unclean devil, when he comes upon soul of the man ... comes like a wolf upon a sheep, ravening for blood and ready to devour. His presence is most cruel; the sense of it most oppressive; the mind is darkened; his attack is injustice also, and unsurpation of another’s possession ... he throws down him who stands upright for he is akin to him who fell from heaven. [etc.]” thistle: A few things here and there, scattered about. Thrown down. One might say down a hole. "...A hole...deep and dark...its darkness has lasted since ancient times..." The question of where. Hole: a secret theater, a fourth wall opening on the surface. "Hypnotic behavior is meaningful, goal-directed striving, its most general goal being to behave like a hypnotized person as this is continuously defined by the operator and understood by the subject"--Robert W. White. 46 CCRU GLOSSARY: http://www.ccru.net/id(entity)/glossary.htm 276

Reza Negarestani: thistle, Yes, Hole is definitely a subject of discussion here. I think Locke for the first time talked about HOLE (I’m not quite sure). In the 90s, Achille Varzi and Roberto Casati wrote a book on Hole and other modes of super-ficial parasitism which you may find helpful, of course, if you haven’t read it yet (check The State University of New York for the articles and Amazon.com for the book). I prefer to talk about Hole as Cataspace (see CCRU Shanghai’s post on Katak and Catadromic space) or ‘( )hole complex’ since HOLE is bound to mereotopological problems (where is the surface?, where is the hole?, what is part?, what is whole? And all through mereological analyses) which somehow restrict the discussion. CATA-space or ( )HOLE Complex as you mentioned are bringing many subjects: darkness, where-ness, Falling (Descent) as Falling Angles, Diagrammatic Space, Unground, traffic zones, etc. (for more details on Cata and darkness, see: http://www.cold-me.net/text/cata.html) On ( )hole complex, please see: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003502.html Unfortunately, I’m nearly ignorant about Hypnotic behaviors ... could you open it a bit more? Piet, Sorry, I missed your question: unfortunately, I can’t help you on your question; however, there is a helpful (am not sure if you have read it or not) book on histories of Dust (both as a composing agency and an intensive operative of horror): ‘The Secret Life of Dust’ (I found it v. informative)... sorry, can’t remember the name of writer; but I’m sure you can find some information about the book via google . thistle: You asked about hypnotic phenomena (HP). I am not studied on the subject, so I can only give a fragmented account. My quotation of White above was inspired by a section dealing with the subject of hypnosis in Daniel Lawrence O'Keefe's Stolen Lightning. O'Keefe's intention is to use hypnosis as a model for trance phenomena in general, the mechanical alteration of an enframing psychology. He notes as interesting, though he doesn't elaborate, that hypnotism was injected into the West at a moment the West had rationalized trance phenomena out of the social body. The details of the medical context which he is alluding to organizes around Franz Mesmer, the inventor of the theory of animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism. Generally, animal magnetism has many of the hallmarks of magic. 1. A vagueness regarding the 277

underlying mechanism. Wikipedia: "Any definition [of hypnotism] is necessarily vague, as the underlying mechanism is little understood." I'll point out here that this vagueness is not simply a matter of the facts of neurology; it is a motivating factor. The hypnotic subject is invited to interpret what hypnosis means in the absense of adequate definition. 2. The invitation to participate [in the interpretation of hypnosis] is guided by means of demonstration. The hypnotizing agent, for instance, might enact trance phenomena by means of inducing a trance in himself or by means of a shill or former hypnotic subject. 3. As with many magics and as especially with medical magics, hypnosis takes the form of a professional-client relationship. 4. This guidance of the professional hypnotist is punctuated by a repetitious patterning of symbols of any type from the semiotic storehouse--sounds, words, images--either through discrete repetition or serialization with enumeration. 4. Particularly in the case of Mesmer, hypnotism borrows language from the physical sciences, in this case electromagnetism, which is little understood by the ostensible subjects. This has at least two effects. The first is to provide the discipline with an air of authority. But this is perhaps not as important as the second, insofar as these vague concepts offer a site upon which the subjects can graft their own interpretation. 5. O'Keefe calls the ability to comprehend hypnotic vagaries at all--to comprehend them enough to act upon them--the "agreement to agree," following Wittgenstein. That is, in the social context of hypnosis--which the demonstration of the hypnotic state rearticulates-conventionalizes the possibility of interaction and to a certain extent interaction itself. All parties agree to agree that the terms being used have an actionable meaning, even if the specifics of what those meanings are aren't totally shared. 6. The hypnotist and the client negotiate together not only symbols but subjective trance states. For O'Keefe, trance states are not only not specialized phenomena, they are (almost) normative phenomena. Any number of things can destabilize the "general reality orientation." Citing Ronald E. Shor, O'Keefe states: "Mere drowsiness, inattention, or distraction causes sections of it to blur or erase themselves. The hypnotist avails himself of this vulnerability to erase parts of the frame during hypnotic induction. Having done so, he can then develop his own modified frame..." 7. The hypnotist and client subsequent to the hypnotic session talk about the session, either in its details or its meaning, thus sedimenting in the client, but also in the hypnotist, how things will go in the future. Mesmer's 27 Propositions Concerning Animal Magnetism: http://www.unbf.ca/psychology/likely/readings/mesmer.htm 278

Great Lemurs - No.1: Katak Nick Land (August 20, 2004) Mesh-14. Katak (5::4) The Call and its Numbers The Lemur of the 5::4 rift is called Ktt’skr in the Ur Nma Tongue. Her name in modern Munumese is Katak which Stillwell translates into English as The Desolator. In the name Katak, Horowitz finds the phonic molecule kt’k, which he associates with ‘ideas of falling or sinking.’ This connection leads him to postulate an archaic numogrammatic source for the Greek prefix of descent Kata- (as in catastrophe, cataclysm, catatonic, catabolism, catadromic …). In a marginal comment on Geotraumatics, DC Barker relates the name ‘Katak’ both to the K/T missile, which terminated the age of giant saurians, and also to Krakatoa (which decimated the Dib-Nma). The Tzikvik identify her with the Kattku (or ‘madness of the great worm’). In the book of children’s fables compiled from Nma sources by Echidna Stillwell’s sister Medusa she is called ‘Takka’. Katak’s net-span, 5::4, bridges the smallest interval and places her in the centre of the Barker Spiral. She is described variously as ‘tightly bound, coiled or knotted’, ‘wound up’ or ‘compacted’. The Cthulhu Club write of a ‘Katak effect,’ when the smallest difference (5::4) has the greatest impact. Positioned on the ‘5th Brink’ (as ultimate Lemur of the 5th Phase), Katak is the only Syzygetic Lemur to be ‘poised at the edge’ of her domain, linking her to imbalance, thresholds and phase-changes. Katak’s net-span (5::4) ciphers the Ultimate Gate, or Gate of Pandemonium (Gt-45), which begins and ends in Zone-9 and echoes the completed Matrix of the Lemurs. This suggests an all-encompassing reach to the powers of Katak (which, in 279

combination with Katak’s ‘Global Rite’, comprises what the Tzikvik call ‘the Fatal Secret of the Kattku’). Katak’s mesh number (14) ciphers the 7th Lemur, Sukagool (4::1), who haunts the Gate of Submergence (Gt-10). This further consolidates Katak’s connections with collapse and inundation. The resonance between the Katakite Sink Current and the Sunken Track attests in certain respects to monotheistic, monopolistic or totalitarian ambition and reduction to unity, but also to a return to simplicity, search for origins or slippage into indifferentiation. Katak’s Sarkon-Tag is 0047. Quantities and Traits As a Syzygetic Lemur, Katak has null pitch. She is thus characterized by perfect poise. Despite her manifold associations with extreme excitability, crisis, furor and the tempestuous, along with her four Syzygetic systers Katak occupies the ‘Numogrammatic Plane’ or ‘Great Plateau’ of continuous cosmic intensities. Katak hosts 10 imps, which aligns her with decimal numeracy (while also further reinforcing her decimally-mediated relation to unity). Katak feeds the Sink Current (flowing from the Falling Drift to Zone-1). In Vysparov’s Pandemonium Matrix, Katak is entitled the ‘Syzygetic Chronodemon of Cataclysmic Convergence’. Rites of Katak The way of Katak has two paths or routes. These follow her syzygetic crossing [5//4] and her singular minor rite [418725]. In the Book of Paths, Katak’s Syzygetic Rite is described as follows: 30. Coiled Fervour. Endless waiting in the Falling Drift. The path favours patient activity. Superior subtlety leads nowhere. Poised entanglement. 280

Twinned tests make the way. Between burning excitment and arid tension. Katak is alone among the Syzygetic Lemurs in having a nonsyzygetic rite. The uniqueness of this rite is compounded by the fact it encircles the entire Hex or ‘timecircuit’, traversing complete sequence of past and future lives and ‘seizing the whole of time and fate.’ On the basis of this rite Katak is portrayed chasing her own tail, and in its ophidian manifestation (as the barking snake) coiled back into itself as an Ur-Oroborus, the Thothtodlana of the Tzikvik. In the Book of Paths, Katak’s Global Rite is described as follows: 31. Eternal Revolution. Advance prolonged by waiting brings fractured completion. The path first favours subtlety, then repeated patience and activity. Superior subtlety opens the first hidden road. Resistance prevails. Five tests on the way. Breakthrough into immersive nightmares spawns promising developments. Fluid evolution leaves a dubious inheritance. The Lair of Katak In the Lemurian Planetworks, Katak’s domain (5::4) is situated between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter (classically identified with war and sovereignty). Astronomically, this band coincides with the asteroid belt, considered by some to be the pulverized remnants of a destroyed planet. The Katak Card In the full Decadence pack Katak, as a Syzygy, is only included as one of the five (eliminated) jokers. 281

On the Atlantean Cross she corresponds to the Third Pylon, named Apocalypse, decamantically associated with destructive influences. Tales Tzikvik (traditional): When the world was born Thothtodlana entered into the secret of the Kattku and confusing herself with the universe - circled the whole of time. That was when she swam through living flesh, her hunger unlimited and furious. She seemed doomed to devour herself forever. The dead knew no rest, and the earth shuddered. It was then that Ooqvu the worm-witch arrived amongst us. It was Ooqvu that found the pattern in the folds of Thothtodlana's skin, and followed it back to Tchukululok. It was Ooqvu that called to Thothtodlana from deep in Tchukululok, and released her from the Kattku. That is why we still carry the marks of Ooqvu on our skin. Hackhammer (on the Nma, contemporary): It had all gone to hell out there. The Sumatran expedition rotting down to disconnected threads of fever, madness, and atrocity. Tak-Nma: a tribe of aggressive head-hunters abhorred through the area (and since eradicated). They had greeted him as Katak. Ominous rumblings from out in the Sunda Strait. August 1883. Pounding solar waves mix with the ceaseless delirious dance-beat of the Tak-Nma. Unthreadings into mosquito-fogged heat. Shimmerings. As Curtis records the disintegration of his soul, the name Katak increasingly crosslinks with everything that burns, raves, and devastates. 282

Everything that ends in blackened threads. Everything ... The Tak-Nma seem to revere rabid dogs. They call them Katak. There is an internally dislocated hydrophobic bark that is peculiarly Katak. Blood-stained claws are also Katak. At midday, when the sun is silent rage, it is Katak. Katak is the trampling, inarticulate flood-tide of malaria. Out in the strait, Katak growls, and smokes. Katak has come. Katak is soon to come. Katak comes. Katak comes. Incessant drumming of Katak coming. Drumming, pounding ... Comments: Great Lemurs - No.1: Katak Reza Negarestani: Katak: Katadrome or cataspace according to Cold-Me is the traffic zone of the falling angles, and Anonymous-until-Now. Forgive my illiteracy: is there any hyperstitional link between Katak and Khattak (or in English: Kattak) tribe, one of the most important Pathan tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Nick Land: Reza - no illiteracy ;). 'Khattak' is the product of (depraved) synthetic qabbalism (KHATTAK = 135, far more plausible than KATAK = 89, at least superficially). Why trust Vysparov to get the names right (you know the bastard worked for the CIA, and probably Halliburton?) Fallen angels ref. highly pertinent, but as even Blavatsky knew, its easy to misread 'falling'. 283

Obviously very interested in the A-Now angle, think a long SLOW ;) thread on this concept still to come. Katadrome - Katak's 'home' is the Falling Drift. Also - think i'm missing a whole khattak/kattak ethnographic reference in my Lemurian enthusiasm -who are the Kattak? Reza Negarestani: for example on Khattak: see http://www.peshawar1.com/htmls/history/Tribes01.html Why trust Vysparov to get the names right (you know the bastard worked for the CIA, and probably Halliburton? I just found something on Khattak tribe; they seem to have been among the best soldiers in British army in the old days. Tellurian Insurgency 2: Telluro-magnetic Conspiracy: The Core Reza Negarestani (August 21, 2004) This is not new but I post it here for archiving purposes and developing other Tellurian threads: Cthelll (the molten outer core of the Earth) has already been picked up as a subject of Tellurian Insurgency in the lackluster and ruined Hollywood movie, The Core. The movie begins with different scenes of a tellurian cataclysm: an electroconvulsive sky, disoriented animals, scrambled communication signals and agitated birds flying as suicide bombers. The Earth’s core has stopped to spin and so the dynamism of all flows and convection currents at the core. Although the churning of the Earth’s molten iron core combined with the rotation of the planet enmesh the Earth’s magnetosphere but the stoppage of the core’s dynamism effectively forces the planet’s electromagnetic bubble to collapse, exposing the Earth to cosmodevouring radiations of the Sun which will soon tear apart the atmosphere, immolating all life on the planet and exhuming the full body of the Black Earth. Earth is going to become ONE with the Sun (unity through possession?) 284

Geologists plan to travel into the core (an operation similar to Russian ‘Hot Drop’ Project) and reactivate the convectional flow currents. When the project is failed the government decides to go for the next plan, the Project DESTINY or DESTINI (Deep Earth Seismic Triggering INItiation), a super-weapon generating massive earthquakes under the enemy territories and giving the earth’s flatline the last electroshock. However unlike the movie the collapse of the magnetosphere merely causes a shift in the Earth’s dipole because even upper layers of atmosphere act as effective radiationshields. -----------------Warmachines need an abundant amount of metal to fuel their terminal multiplicity and tactical anomalies. Tellurian Insurgency does not merely run on oil and dust, a substantial part of it works with Cthelllium and spreads over a metalistic polytics. The core as a protrusive xenochemical insider tries to induce violent anomalies to the Earth’s body. Richard Muller suggests that the cryptogenic lighter components in the iron ocean of the outer core drift outward and cumulate beneath the solid mantle through topsy-turvy slopes with a very low degree of steepness. The molten iron heap eventually turns into an aggressive slope process as a result of overloading and form a bottom-up avalanche, as if the core trying to slither up the Earth’s body in a katahuming (exhuming from within?) motion. A large asteroid mass hitting the Earth at an oblique angle could make the mantle tremor so fiercely that bottom-up avalanches of vast proportions take place; abruptly, spreading agitation and disruption through the outer core, and consequently the external magnetic field ... reversing the planet’s polarity and making it more complex and convoluted. On the other hand, cthelllium is packed with schizoid anomalies: while the outer core is constituted of intensive flows, the inner core also maintains its own type of dynamism offbeat to the Earth’s rotation, spinning significantly faster than the planet. The inner core appears to have a split personality, with one hemisphere different from the other. The question posed by this radical insurgency is that how such a rebellion came to populate its polytics inside the Earth. 285

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Hyperstitional Entities of Oil Reza Negarestani (August 24, 2004) Since we are discussing about different hyperstitional entities of Oil; I thought it might be helpful to list them here (needless to say, this list is still in progress): Hyperstitional entities of “The Ancient Enemy”* or Oil as traced by the ancient cult of the Blob or the People of Naft (oil) frequently referred as Naphtanese: [Just an initial note; perhaps some of them should be merged] - Oil (Napht or Naft) as a lubricant, on which everything moves forward, spreading so smoothly and inevitably (strategic alliance with diagrams of Tellurian Insurgency) ... a lubricant on which the Gog-Magog Axis gains its Dynamic / Tellurian power. - The Hunter of the Dead Seas (Ghoul-e Naft (Oil-fiend) in old Arabic / Farsi fictions and folklore) - An inorganically synthesized blob seething up from the primal xeno-bacterial colonies swarming the bowels of the Earth (Thomas Gold and Deep Hot Biosphere) - The Black Corpse of the Sun - An autonomous Telluro-toxic chemical weapon poisoning the Capital to Absolute madness: GAS. A Nyarlathotepic neuroplague bleeding into economies cross-linked to technowave propagations of critically advanced civilizations; it attaches to all sorts of their productions to install its plane of Telluro-occult informatics within them, assembling its oily cult of Tellurian blasphemy (petropunkism). - Hydrocarbon Corpse Juice: A post-apocalyptic entity composed by the corpses flatted, piled and liquidated in sedimentary basins (mega-graveyards); geologists suggest that if a high sedimentation rate will preserve organic material, a catastrophic sedimentation rate (The Flood) would uproot, kill, and bury organic material so rapidly as to cut the porphyrin off from oxidizing agents which would destroy them in the ocean water. (an inspiring mortal entity for petro-masonic orders from OPEC47 to Bush to Wahhabism to pomo-leftists) 47 OPEC is suspected to be associated with other entities of the Blob as well. 287

- Devil’s Excrement (Perez Alfonzo) or the War-slimer; a sado-conspiracist which (under)develops populations through petropolitics to tear them apart slowly. - Gaia’s aromatic juice - The Pipeline-Crawler (also: Ghaedat-o-Naft]); a codename for an autonomous vehicle which smuggles Islamic warmachines to Western Civilizations (GAS shows up again as an assistant to make far distances accessible) - Infernotron (or simply the Fire-provocateur): “I go to Hell with a can of gasoline.” (Colonel West) - The Holy Water (or sometimes, The Holy Gold); for no production purpose; For Islamic Purposes Only (esp. Export). The Sorcery of Islamic Apocalypticism Reza Negarestani (August 26, 2004) “In the Islamic sense of time we are always in the last days.” (Norman Brown, Apocalypse And / Or Metamorphosis) "... Zaynab bint Jahsh said, The Prophet (Mohammad) got up from his sleep; his face was flushed and he said, there is no god but Allah. Woe to the Arabs, for a great evil which is nearly approaching them. Today a gap has been made in the wall of Gog and Magog like this (Sufyan illustrated this by forming the number of 90 or 100 with his fingers). Someone asked, Shall we be destroyed even though there are righteous people among us? The Prophet said, Yes, if evil increases. (Bukhari). Abu Hurairah said, The Prophet said, TIME WILL PASS RAPIDLY, knowledge will decrease, miserliness will become widespread in peoples hearts, afflictions will appear, and THERE WILL BE MUCH HARJ. The people asked, O Messenger of Allah, what is Harj? He said, KILLING, KILLING! (Bukhari)." In some kind of Kurtzoid-style (Horror, Horror), the revelation suddenly erupts through a meditative reverie ... and accompanied by Arab women keeling (screaming while shaking one hand in front of the mouth; an Arabic ululation for expressing both deep grief and bliss) because of receiving a new Hadith. 288

*** Historically if one digs up the history of numerous and all powerful religions and sects in Islam specifically Shia religion as the mega-strategic probe-head of Islam emerged in Iran as simultaneously an anti-institutional and institutionalized, militaristic and rebellion, State / Nomadic core and periphery, you can see that Islam has an utterly strong and rebelliously strategic understanding of the power unleashed by the THING or Islamic Apocalypticism (a sorcerous hyperstitional warfare which transmutes a mere crusading battle or tactically-driven conflict into an ultimate WAR which spawns warmachines to snuff them, the Unlife of War). In such a fundamentally hyperstitional and creative understanding which has already become practical during Islam history, Shia has mutated to some kind of ritualistic divination of the epidemic or what we call GAS48 or sometimes STRATEGY (which is always viciously sorcerous) that is a miasmatic cloud rising from the agitation of tactical multiplicities and knows nothing of compassion (if you listen to its typhoonic howls carefully, you can hear KILLING KILLING rattles), telos or moral blusters. It is a plague that will eventually turn to its summoners (it is perceived as the most thriving moment by Shia and Sunni religions: being laid cracked butchered open). This is why, both as a line of political survival and as a communion (in the sense of companionship and communication to the epidemic unleashed by the THING or Qiyamah), Shia has immersed into divination of this meltdown plague (GAS) as an ultimate religion and exploitable political line. G.A.S. (Gas Attack of Strategy?) as an autonomous seething gaseous machine rising from tactical multiplicities (and their conflicts) and rushing toward Islamic Apocalypticism suggests that the so-called Holy Jihad (defense and not offence) is a WAR in which tactical lines have already, melted, collapsed and evaporated to GAS or epidemic strategy where defense is already a demon-ridden onslaught taking the remote lines of attack and inter-dimensional zones of WAR and crawling through a dense Fog-of-War. This is why according to Shia, the West as a great tactician engineer of the Crusade and a space of swarming tactical lines and fluxional dynamism is 48 “Despite genre differences, GAS seems to exhibit features of Parasite Eve. Both interconnect with Pest, or meltdown-plague, since they conceive strategy as an emergent wave arising out of tactical multiplicities and their ‘coincidences,’ propagating as a hypermutative virus.” (Nick Land) -- from GAS: the Necronomicon of Deleuze, R. N., Unpublished. 289

already a loser49 since it provokes GAS or the Unlife of War (where warmachines burn) or Qiyamah or what Islam always enthusiastically looks after. Tactical multiplicities of the West summon Islamic Apocalypticism on behalf of Islam; only sado-conspiracist sorcerous triggers (from pipeline odyssey to Wahhabistic terror) are required to fuel and speed the process. Here, intense militaristic movements of Islam (Wahhabism, etc.) use unknown tactics to the western modes of militarism to interlock with them through violent but distracting and strategic encounters; briefly, they are sounding the hunting horns to lure out the beast50 and hyper-stimulate western tactical lines from which GAS or the Strategy of Islamic Apocalypticism emerge autonomously (Ironically, Islamic Apocalypticism must rise from the West as an immanent space to its tactical multiplicities and MORE-infernomatics [techno-capitalism?]). Militaristic movements of Islam act as sorcerous triggers (an agitating multitude) to fuse with tactical dynamism of the western Crusade in the most distractingly exotic and strategically despotic ways (that means unsuspected, safe and camouflaged) to suck all the potentials of GAS (or meltdown plague which is immanent to western tactical and military multiplicities esp. techno-capitalist warmachines) running through western plateaus of tacticity and transfer it to the burning space of Islamic Apocalypticism or the Unlife of War where all warmachines must burn and military survivalism is extinguished. On the other hand, these Islamic movements (terror-populations) are covertly carrying hyperstitional protocols of Shia for an ultimate WAR (and not just a conflict) or Qiyamah to the heart of the Western Crusade by camouflaging them as despotic, superstitious and gullible ideologies which are always HOT topics for western warcritics who thirst for less filthy, more oversimplified subjects, and military survivalist agencies which are effectively fooled and consequently, try to map these sorcerous / 49 In the Islamic understanding of strategy, the loser is the one who achieves salvation. 50 Both within Shia and Sunni religions, there are many powerful sects enthusiastically trying to expand the dimensions of Islamic Apocalypticism and align all their political / cultural / economical / religious strategies according to Islamic Apocalypse (Qyiamah or Ghiamat) or more precisely engineer strategies to speed the Rise of Qyiamah (triggering the Apocalypse); this is why they eagerly try to lure ' the GogMagog Axis' out of its temporal peace ("luring the beast out of its cage using hunting horns, releasing it whether by means of cooperation or by means of terror"), forcing it to accomplish its final mission: starting its irreversible New Pest Order. (from The AOE and the Brotherhood of Nine, in current volume) 290

hyperstitional protocols of Islamic Apocalypticism as revenge / avenge formulae or simply irrelevant ideological back-ups on the Islamic front; therefore, they are assisting islamic movements to remotely smuggle hyperstitional triggers to the heart of their civilization and activate the GAS plague, awakening the double-death process; involuntarily, dissipating hyperstition protocols of islamic Apocalypticism through their market and industries. Comments: The Sorcery of Islamic Apocalyptism Nick Land: As the expression goes (more apposite than ever for this material): Reza you've been blogging-up a storm. Craig: [Comment posted as following entry] Reza Negarestani: Craig, Your comment certainly opens different dimensions (for that many thanks) ... for now, I should say, it gives us a great opportunity to unfold all we have written on this blog. Unfortunately, right now, I’m on a trip and can’t write properly, the Hotel’s net café is swarming with tourists which means less time for me to write this note. I’m looking forward to discuss all the issues you discussed after I return (the coming Saturday or Sunday) ... but for now, something entirely different: I think your comment should be on the blog as a post not a comment (obv. it merits a deeper look); so if you are comfortable, I will post it under your name on this blog. What do you think? Plus, that makes later discussions smoother. I’m waiting for your permission. Best – reza Craig: Fine with me... Valkator: I know this is a dated posting, but I wanted to offer a complimentary insight that would appear to be 'another line' flowing through Islamic Apocalyptic 'strategy'. That Islamic Apocalypticism 'appears' within a similar operative framework of the Omega-Tellurian 'final annhiliation' of terra firma, another trajectory of 'development' seems to lay hidden and embedded within the physical 'cleansing' which both of these impulses herald. If we understand that 'human development' not only has a horizontal dimension that appears both cyclic and with terminating beginning and end 'points', but also a vertical one which exists as a trajectory rising -- or falling -- THROUGH the horizontal, then it seems quite probable that the socerey we are looking at is not primarily concerned with the desertification of the horizontal dimension but the METAmorphosis of those human developmental 'lines' which 'may' have the 291

possibility of 'rising' on the vertical 'axis' into an altogether different and expanded state of BE-ing -- which may ALSO be called 'the desert'. Of course, this seems predicated upon certain 'ontological' assumptions and characteristics of those able to 'see through' the horizontal dimension's limitations and, as can be seen clearly today, its very real transience in entropic terms. The vertical 'trajectory', in which one rises or falls depending on one's 'orientation', gives an entirely different meaning and purpose to Islamic Apocalyptic 'strategy' which, if we locate this within the fullness of Islamic thought as it applies to Self (Allah) and self (ego), might take on an altogether different 'character' -- even if the reality of 'action' (Apocalypticism) is taking place through the horizontal plane and appears to share the same 'goals' as the Omega-Tellurian. In other words, one 'path' is leading 'up' and 'beyond' the present 'winding down' horizontal 'state' of 'humanity' - obviously playing their 'role' as the 'natural' condition of humanity (fitra - NOT Tellurian) is asserted in the face of the 'unnatural'/'transient'(Tellurian) - and the other is leading BOTH toward the obliteration of the current horizontal plane AND the increased 'animalization' of those asserting their 'Tellurian' nature. Imminence, in this sense, cannot simply be equated with a 'Tellurian' earth of animal-humans with "big brains", but something altogether different and within an altogether different ontological 'environment'. After reading Reza's latest 'stition, I should clarify that both of these trajectories -horizontal and vertical -- are 'ontologically' within the realm of man and manifested 'being' -- so both are still transient, entropic, and only reflect differeing awareness 'levels' Within the Construct itself. The differences between the Islamic notion of 'fitra' and the 'Tellurian' seem to lie not within this 'transience' -- but in what this transient 'conditon' (vertical or horizontal) 'reflects' -- the Absolute -- or man. The 'Tellurian' believes that it is MAN at the Center -- and is the Absolute -- one who has 'returned' to their 'fitra' could make no such claims. Remarks on Hyperstition Craig (August 30, 2004) This is Craig's comment on 'The Sorcery of Islamic Apocalypticism' which is itself a complete post covering multiple topics discussed on this blog: ------------- 292

I read more and more of these blog posts and find such Hyperstitional constructs have been occuring in the meta-mythic spaces occupied by mself as a magician. As evidence for this, I produce the following quotes from my own livejournal: 'Week before this, I checked out 's dreamscape for him because something had rampaged through and wrecked things. I'd gone down, walked in the Labyrith and found dust and sand and bits of paper, along with a great wind. The sand was red, and so I traced it back to source - finding myself before two fig style trees with a ruined red-brick city behind me. Before me was a swirling mass of locusts which resonated PazU in my mind. Gut said it was a demon, and I sat down before it and cross-legged and asked it who it was. It said that it was the desert wind, the plague bringer and destroyer of cities. At this point, the locusts swarmed over me. I kep my eyes shut and also my mouth, yet saw that it was still there in front of me, only as a roiling mass of flaming eyes. Felt like it was testing me. So, in the spirit of the game, I engaged it in a staring match, seeking to match the number of its eyes. All at once, I was seated in a blue robe, festooned with peacock feathers that moved their eyes. I asked it again who it was and what it wanted. Again, the buzzing PazU. But this time it said it was my ally. I called it a liar and laughed, departing that place. Subsequent research between myself and led to the discovery that the entity was in all probability Pazuzu, Sumerian demon of the SE wind, and plague-bringer - while protector of women and children. Further discusion turned up pictures of a similar city to the one I had seen, in the Negev Desert, and we found that there was a nuclear reactor which had been leaking in the past. Needless to say, this made me a little nervous but I've learned to be a skeptic. We elected not to pursue this further, but my email to an associate for information about Pazuzu - as she was a devotee of Inanna elicted a curious response. An entity of her aqquaintance was requesting her assitance in another matter - and had mentioned in passing that it had released Pazuzu from its prison - coinciding apparently, with several big storms in the US. 293

Still skeptical, I asked her to tell me more about the Peacock-entity I had put on the form of in dealing with P. My own researches turned it up as Azazel, something she confirmed - Jewish Scapegoat and one of the 200 Grigori that mated with humans to birth the Nephilim. A bit a shock, since this correspondent and I - connected to the Horus-Maat Lodge had been having semi-regular discussions on the 'return' of Myth and the Watchers/Nephilim as giants. Spiritual forces reawakening and undergoing resurgence - though in truth they had never been away...' - Full entry here The entry on the sorcery of captialism spawned a thoughtline avaliable here "But the beauty of the Outside is that it is infectious, that is to say, any Corporation using the Outside as fuel for its expansion, essentially becomes contaminated by it. Since the Outside is inherently Non-Euclidean and Non-Local, any method of control or transmutation is temporary and illusory. The practice of sympathetic magic - that is, linkages between things through symbols and hermenutics, when applied to the Formless Outside, could be defined as sorcery in that it alows the essential nature of Alieness to be perturbed. Essentially, Capitalism is hungry for the macroscopic. It is a thing that wants meat and drink and fuck and reproduction, a virus that has indulged in symbiosis with its host - creating an entirely new organism. Meanwhile, Outside contains a plethora of simple virii whose sole aim is replication and existence AND non-existence. There is no sense of Identity Outside - if one could deploy weapons and destroy half of "It" there would be no response. The Outside permeates all things it comes into contact with. Even those things designed to act as barriers become permeated by Unlife. They still resemble the original form because the ontological pressure of that which resides within the barrier requires that the wall be there in order to maintain an idea of central egoic integrity. Thus it is that the Elder Sign, while designed to be a barrier, has also an Other or 'eldritch' association. The barrier thus becomes the signpost - the Herald, if you will, of what it is supposed to be keeping out. By repeated use of the symbols associated with the barrier, the Outside actually is revealed to be the base-stratum on which all things are built. The Outer Gods have their messenger in the form of Nyarlathotep, resident in a human form. The Crawling Chaos is both a antedilluvian evolutionary precursor of current matter/energy and evolutionary forms, and also the epitome of evolutionary adaptability..." 294

Combined with the mention of the Fog of War mentioned in this post, and the idea of defence as WAR, this coincides with something I wrote in the same entry: "Working with Lovecraftian entities literally is a difficult thing - and dangerous to the psyche - for they are named things, links and symbols for things that cannot be comprehended by the normal human mind - holes, if you will, in ordinary reality. Within ordinary reality, metamorphic properties of a thing are limited by the boundaries and plasticity of the space they occupy. However, when allowing the Outside In, one gives entrance to that which has greater metamorphic properties than the space itself. This brings change to the space, making the local reality Other. (For those who have a copy of the Invisibles trades, the nanotech factories employed by the King-Of-All-Tears in the shop, and the ensuing reality abscess are illustrations of the point striving to be made here) Once the local-reality has been made Other, that is to say, an extension of that which was allowed entrance and had the differentiation field between local and non-local removed, then that space becomes transformed. This is not always on a visible level, but can be perceived by the human in a variety of ways. However, in such spaces, one can abandon one's identity-quarantine protocols and slip out of that protective shell. In this position, the base senses may undergo shifts, and where previously one was simply standing somewhere Normal, the Transformed nature of the space becomes apparent ... [O]ne enters the space divested of the normal protections - instead putting on a highly specialized form of consciousness rather like a hazmat suit with inbuilt sensors. Banishing has given the observer a space within which to work, supposedly a 'clean room' in which to handle hazaradous psychic materials in discrete controllable amounts. However, other practice may involve no such banishments - walking into the infectious area and allowing oneself to become colonised by the infection, as it were. This will, of course, trigger off the identity's immune system. Paranoia, physical illness, fear responses etc etc are akin to the increase in body temperature when the physical body becomes infected. 295

This is essentially the action the singular self that finds its primacy under-threat. By evoking responses to percieved hostility, the self strives to remove itself from close proximity to the infection....Such identification shifts the self into a 'war' footing, a state that strengthens the sense of identity and seeks to remove the intruder. Through various methods, the intruder may be ejected. However, it should be understood that if one enters a transformed or altered space that is an entry point for the Outside, it is possible to actively encourage infection. This minimises the period of paranoia and negativity since the self become colonised and altered in such a way as to make it easier for infection to occur. By placing us on a war footing, those in control of propagating memes seek to promote self-integrity. Their self-integrity and ours. Why? Because quite simply, singular selves define themselves by their limitations in a dualistic sense - a 'I can do this, but I can't do that'... Fearful of infection by that which they have not defined themselves, the groups which maintain the self-delusion of large-scale control, attempt to transmute the Outside which is made manifest by the Inner spaces of human thought - by use of applied mimetics and social structures. To return to the idea of willing infection, we must recall that the Outside is essentially Non-Local. By being infected, the practicioner becomes Meta-Morphically an Outsider, a normal thing permeated by the Outside down at base level. What does this mean though? It's already been suggested that the Outside is the base substrate, hasn't it? What about infection? This is Key. The self is a house bult on sand. When we talk of infection, and transmutation, what is *also* being spoken of is reaccquisition. Transition from Local to Non-Local..." Seems to me that the infection of the Unlife of WAR is actually a reaccquisitional protocol. As Reza says: "On the other hand, these Islamic movements (terror-populations) are covertly carrying hyperstitional protocols of Shia for an ultimate WAR (and not just a conflict) or Qiyamah to the heart of the Western Crusade...[They] try to map these sorcerous / hyperstitional protocols of Islamic Apocalypticism as revenge / avenge formulae or simply irrelevant ideological back-ups on the Islamic front; therefore, they are 296

assisting islamic movements to remotely smuggle hyperstitional triggers to the heart of their civilization and activate the GAS plague, awakening the double-death process;" By carrying the hyperstitional protocols/viruses into the West, it stimulates the immune system of the the culture, drawing together the diffuse elements into a welldefined structure wh 'pulls together' in an attempt to regain a sense of self-integrity. Further, it daws back, to emphasise yet more difference - like a burned hand draws from the fire, not understanding that the heat within the hand is already doing more damage. By maintaining self-integrity, it actually violates Sun Tzu's advice. "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." Rather than self-integrity therefore, defence against GAS and it's linkages is is to become GAS permeable, if you will excuse the pun. Apocalypsism therefore by its very nature is thus Victory through Death, or Continuance via Infection. Those fighting to preserve integrity - the Primacy of the Western memeset in this case - will eventually be beaten by those who have already lost. In any case, keep up the great work. This site is definitely producing non-causaul shifts in the fictive space - or perhaps illustrating them. 297

September 2004 Triggers for Islamic Apocalypticism: Oil, Desert and Nomads in Saudi Arabia Reza Negarestani (September 01, 2004) The transformation of Arabia from a highly decentralized nomadic society to a centralized indigenous religio-political 'movement' that still seething with former nomadic diversities and traits from within can be grasped through the synthesis of Oil, Desert and Arab Nomads, all inspired the population of Arabia to move along an anomalous path of Islamic Apocalypticism which is too dangerous and too hot for being touched by other Islamic movements. This synthesis is still young and pulsing with energy as it belongs to the mid 20th century. The geography and climate of the Arabian Peninsula is mostly bound to formidable deserts characterized by their unique climates and geologic / geographic qualities; therefore, nomadic clusters are also dissociated from each other; each desert has its own nomadologic traits: “Three great deserts isolate Najd from north, east, and south as the Red Sea escarpment does from the west. In the north, the An Nafud--sometimes called the Great Nafud because An Nafud is the term for desert--covers about 55,000 square kilometers at an elevation of about 1,000 meters. Longitudinal dunes--scores of kilometers in length and as much as ninety meters high, and separated by valleys as much as sixteen kilometers wide--characterize the An Nafud. Iron oxide gives the sand a red tint, particularly when the sun is low. Within the area are several watering places, and winter rains bring up short-lived but succulent grasses that permit nomadic herding during the winter and spring. Stretching more than 125 kilometers south from the An Nafud in a narrow arc is the Ad Dahna, a narrow band of sand mountains also called the river of sand. Like the An Nafud, its sand tends to be reddish, particularly in the north, where it shares with the An Nafud the longitudinal structure of sand dunes. The Ad Dahna also furnishes the beduin with winter and spring pasture, although water is scarcer than in the An Nafud. The southern portion of the Ad Dahna curves westward following the arc of the Jabal Tuwayq. At its southern end, it merges with the Rub al Khali, one of the truly 298

forbidding sand deserts in the world and, until the 1950s, one of the least explored.” (from Saudi Arabia -- The Great Deserts) These deserts which accommodated the majority of human populations in Arabia had significant and without exaggeration globally unique and unparalleled nomadologic influences on nomads of Arabia. The true tellurian nomads are nomads of desert where there is no river and no trace of pasturage, nothing that can engineer a climate (klima: slope) which functions as a gravitational matrix (or a machine of correctitude) upon the tacticity and dynamism of nomads, giving them an inclination, installing a slope (klima) within their dynamism which eventually transforms to an appropriating machine, a fluxional but tyrannically grounding machine which confines nomads within a cartography of predictability, climatologic and potentially highly territorialized lines of movements, breaks, pauses and deviations, all rendering nomads as a fuel for the dynamic power of the State or its force dynamic boundary. This is why Donald Cole calls Al Murrah or the nomads of Rub Al-Khali (empty space or quarter: the Lovecraftian land of demonographic revelations to Abdul Alhazred, the Atlantis of the Sands), Nomads of the Nomads. Bound to purely nomadic ways of living and being relatively away from general factors of climatologic dependence such as water, moderate climate or diverse pastoralism (they are mostly just ‘camel’ keeping pastoralists), the nomads of Arabia could keep their truly nomadic 299

traits until the mid 20th century and rather introduced to sedentarization programs very late, a premature but late sedentarization which was itself (as it will be discussed) a trigger for Islamic Apocalypticism in Saudi Arabia. Soon after Abdul al-Aziz founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (esp. after consolidating his control over the Bedouin tribes ) and after the Treaty of Jedda (1927) which made Saudi Arabia independent of the United Kingdom, oil was discovered by American oil companies (1935) but the first commercially productive field was not discovered until 1938; during WWII oil productions suspended but after the end of the war, explorations uncovered gigantic reserves of petroleum across the deserts of Arabia especially in Eastern Saudi Arabia. Nomadic tribes which lived without the general use of money and their zakat tax was usually paid in kind rather than money suddenly introduced to narrow but alien influxes of money risen from oil revenues. The effect of this sudden rush of money based on oil production accompanied by the growth of oil industry in deserts on nomads was an unconventional sedentarization; the newly emerged climatologic spheres were in fact oil fields and petroleum oases which simultaneously modernized tribes and keep them bound to their pastoralism since oil production was not directly connected to nomads; they were neither directly associated with oil consumerism (what usually happen for nomads when they encounter natural resources, mines or factories) nor its production. Oil production and its influxes of money engineered a certain type of semi-sedentarized nomadism fueling an obscure religious State; Saudi petropolitics gathered a diverse range of desert nomads under the epidemically spreading influence of Wahhabism internalized by Al-e-Saud (Saud family) as its religio-political core during the 18th century. After emergence of oil fields and its related processes of modernization (which are peculiar to petropolitical undercurrents), Wahhabism spread in deserts and among the recently sedentarized nomads (mostly Muslim but linked to their sorcerous / occultural nomadic traditions); Wahhabism rapidly attracted their sorcerous and occultural elements along with their anonymous and diverse diagrams of nomadology. Current religio-political traits of Wahhabism (the Wahhabistic agencies of WoT) are undoubtedly are diversities and mutations resulted by attracting the occultural and alien (even to other nomadologic polytics) elements of desert nomadism which are radically different from other modes of nomadism. It is true that Wahhabism as a ferocious Islamic movement toward Islamic Apocalypticism has been simultaneously promoted and subverted by desert nomadism and its sorcerous / tellurian elements running on the periphery of Wahhabism movement, and forming everything that happens on its periphery: from its violent totally alien lines of tactics (you have seen 300

them as disruptions for western lines of tactics in WoT) to a sorcerous miasma rising from Wahhabism as a former potentially nationalistic (therefore, in the service of the State) and reformist islamic movement and now, a mutating cryptogenic probe-head for Islamic Apocalypticism, or in other words, a desert-nomad exploring the desolate scorched earth of Islamic Apocalypticism (Nick’s “Mecca-nomics”). In the wake of oil insurgency (the blob awakening), desert nomadism has turned Wahhabism into a sorcerous Islamic movement for Islamic Apocalypticism, armed with nomadologic tacticity and ferocious desert militarism (not jungle militarism), and smoothly running on minimum requirements (this is the trait of desert nomadism which needs only desert) for involving the ‘hottest’ activities (WoT or something else?). Isn’t Wahhabistic desert-complex a hyperstition adaptation of desert nomadism: All we need is desert, the xeroderm (the dust-crawling skin) of Tellurian Insurgency? To this extent, it is problematic and practically dangerous to compare the Al-e-Saud Caliphs with Ommiade and Abbasid caliphs reigning during Islam history or what is commonly believed as caliphate-culture; although Saudi caliphs have been spoiled by the same degree of decadence but their bond with Wahhabism -- which is bombarded by desert nomadism and increasingly getting hotter through its sorcerous and nomadic diversities -- has positioned Al-e-Saud as a strategic transitional zone or a medium necessary for communicating with the outside; ironically, it gives a secured channel to infidels for safely communicating with Wahhabistic agencies of Islamic Apocalypticism, rending Saudi regime as a camouflaging network over the true machinery of Wahhabism; such a Caliphate-network is obv. necessary from strategic standpoints; even its decadence makes it more camouflaged, and more complex (polyprogrammed / poly-functional) in the sense of communication with Islamic Apocalypticism. Therefore, there is an authoritative tendency to oversimplify in the prophecies about the fall of Saudi regime as the consequence of internal fissions in WoT. Moreover, Saudi State has combined with unparalleled and deeply meshed desertpolytics of nomadology which has already sabotaged and subverted the State and its functions from within following the emergence of oil fields and oily plans for sedentarizing desert nomads. Wahhabism is still hot with Desert Nomadism and its sorcerous lines of desert scavenging (survival and living in desert needs sorcery; this is what desert nomads are all familiar with.), tacticity and survival. The (semi-)sedentarization of nomads in 301

Arabia was too late for the State; the craving for desert nomadism is still palpitating within them and pervading into everything they touch. A true Irony: Saudi regime has sedentarized most of desert nomads as the militia or native guards of oil fields who wandering (migrating?) around the emerging zones of the Tellurian blob restlessly. Schwarzenegger hyperstition David Porush (September 02, 2004) Just wanted to enlist my international friends in help to free all Americans from the Schwarzenegger hyperstitional movement. An amazing concurrence of orchestrated media events has placed Arnold on center stage of the Republican National Convention, WIRED magazine, the New Yorker, and in a blitz of his movies being replayed on various cable channels. The WIRED concordance is especially compelling/horrifying because the same issue contains Bruce Sterling's reminiscence of Vinge's SINGULARITY theory (which Nick has mentioned in a previous post July, I think). The Singularity, of course, is the cenral dogma of the Terminator trilogy: the machines awaken. I recall an early interview in Esquire where A.S. declared his desire to be President of the US. I think, am not sure, the interviewer pointed out that this was forbidden by the Constitution, since A.S. was not a native of the U.S. Schwarzenegger's response was to seem surprised, and then shrug it off. Schwarzenegger has succeeded, if you read the extensive and fawning New Yorker article, by being the ultimate postmodern hyperstitial manipulator: narcissistic, utterly able to shape himself and those around him because of his complete detachment from truth, a scary, Terminator-like discipline; and of course, his enactment of hollywood's fundamentalism of the plasticity of all reality. 302

Apocalypse And / Or Metamorphosis Reza Negarestani (September 03, 2004) Apocalypse And / Or Metamorphosis by Norman O. Brown This is not a very profound work about Apocalypse but an incisive book on Islamic Apocalypticism. ‘Massignon calls the Sura 18 the apocalypse of Islam. But sura 18 is a résumé, epitome of the whole Koran. The Koran is not like the Bible, historical, running from Genesis to Apocalypse. The Koran is altogether apocalyptic. The Koran backs off from that linear organization of time, revelation, and history which became the backbone of orthodox Christianity and remains the backbone of the Western culture after the death of God. Islam is wholly apocalyptic or eschatological, and its eschatology is not teleology. The moment of decision, the Hour of Judgment, is not reached at the end of a line, nor by a predestined cycle of cosmic recurrence; eschatology can break out at any moment. Koran 16:77: “To Allah belong the secrets of the heavens and the earth, and the matter of the Hour is as the twinkling of an eye, or it is nearer still.” In fully developed Islamic theology only the moment is real.” (Norman O Brown, The Apocalypse of Islam, in Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis, University of California Press, 1991, P. 86) Comments: Apocalypse And / Or Metamorphosis Nick Land: I'm not familiar with this book (to be honest N.O.Brown has been probably unfairly - filed under the "60s nutaballs" category in my CNS) but this idea of the Moment seems to resonate with the "Islamic Occasionalism" that fascinates Jacques Vallee. One of the aspects of Islam that relatively secular Westerners have great difficulties dealing with is the absolute and continuous divine causation which makes all scientific modes of thinking redundant. Of course, the "God created the world and then it carried on mechanically" picture that seem more typical of Judaic/Christian theism is repellant from the PoV of philosophical purity, but it seems to inculcate a kind of clunky rationalism (even 'secularism' in general) by dissociating large tracts of quotidian experience from religious consciousness. This is Weber's 'demystification of the world' (which he attributed to Judaic monotheism), accompanied by a broad disinvestment of the miraculous in all its forms. Historical time is accepted as a kind 303

of intermission between moments of divine action (creation/eschaton) where common sense - science, politics and ethics - can prevail. The immanence of divinity to time within Islamic Occasionalism - with regularity perceived as a habit of God, rather than a property of the world - has huge implications for any imaginable 'intercivilizational dialogue', because if nothing happens except as an expression of divine will then no possible protocols for common understanding can be abstracted from the question of religious fidelity. Since the mental processes of infidels have literally nothing in common with those of believers submission (Islam) has to proceed any possible dialogue. Or, to reverse this conclusion, those from the 'muslim camp' able to engage in a dialogue with the West must either: (1) rely on Taqqiya (deception), pretending to share the basis for a communication that cannot possible exist (2) appeal to a 'true' monotheism latent within Western monotheism - drawing out an Occasionalist potential (found in a few mad nuns etc.). Pagans, polytheists, and atheists are simply beyond the pale. (3) enter a state of apostasy by thinking like infidels 304

The Great Lemurs, No. 2: Lurgo Nick Land (September 11, 2004) Mesh-00: Lurgo (1::0). The Call and its Numbers The Lemur of the 1::0 rift is called Gl’eiaoung in the Old Muvian Tongue. Her name in modern Munumese is Lurgo, which Stillwell translates into English as The Initiator. The name ‘Lurgo’ is apparently based on a reversal of the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘gl.’ Horowitz phonologically identifies this ‘collapsed gargle’ or ‘glottal spasm’ with the fusion of a gutteral and a liquid. He physiologically situates it in the sublaryngeal region, and associates it with lost gilled/gulping phylogenetic stages of human ancestry. Horowitz glimpsed something in the Lurgo’s ‘gl’ subphoneme that he saw as essential to the glottopolitics of English as a global language. In the course of further investigating this particle he was drawn into what he referred to as a labyrinth of “glitter-glyphs” where sense is scattered in visual confusion, and began to speak of glamours and glosses, ultimately cascading down into the “gulf-glued glug-logic of the glimmer ghouls,” although precisely what he meant by this remains obscure. Lurgo, as the first of the Lemurs, is responsible for initiations, door-openings, thresholds, guides and familiars. The Tzikvik call her Oogvhu, the Immortal Worm of primordial communication. In Haitian Voodoo her role is taken by Legba, the first and last of the Loa to be invoked in any ritual. Legba’s Lurgo-related characteristics are shared by Madame Centauri’s ‘Celestial messenger’ Logobubb. Lurgo’s net-span, 1::0, links her to elementary principles of logical and arithmetical discrimination, binary code, the origin of number, being and nonbeing. During her study of the I Ching, Stillwell became persuaded that due to her ‘elementary net-span’ Lurgo was related with special intensity to the Taoist polarity of 305

Yang and Yin, light and shadow, even suggesting that the I Ching’s code of unbroken and broken lines was the relic of a “primordial language, first enunciated by Lurgo.” In Black Atlantean traditions the ‘primal alternation’ described by Lurgo’s net-span expresses the distance between divine unity and the void, God and Chaos, an abysmal gulf crossed in every Decadence ritual (opened and closed by Lurgo/Legba/Logobubb). Lurgo’s net-span (1::0) clicks the 4th Gate (Gt-10), the passage from Zone-4 to Zone1. The working of the 4th Gate is numerically described by the ‘Pythagorean’ Tetraktys (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 (= 1)). Pythagoras evidently derived this triangulardecimal reversion to unity, and decimal disintegration of unity, from archaic and ultimately Lemurian sources. Among Black Atlanteans transit through Gt-10 offers a microcosmic recapitulation of the macrocosmic-numogrammatic route from Zone-1 to Zone-0. These relations echo the microcosmic-ceremonial subsidence of Atlantis as the sign of the Cosmic Fall or Great Decadence. As the only Lemur of the 1st Phase, Lurgo is called the First Door, and also the Door of Doors. Among the remnants of the Nma she is known as the ‘Queen of Unlockings’ and her sign is inscribed at the entrance of their temples and above the shops of locksmiths. Lurgo’s mesh number (00) clicks the 0th Gate (Gt-00), linking her to the most occulted region of numogrammatic cartography. Lurgo’s Sarkon-Tag is 0002. Quantities and Traits Lurgo has a pitch of Ana-1 (slight positive imbalance). Lurgo has no imps, a fact which can be attributed equally to her primordiality or ultimateness. As Peter Vysparov remarked: “Lurgo arrives first and she arrives alone.” In Vysparov’s Pandemonium Matrix Lurgo is entitled the Plexing Amphidemon of Openings. Rites of Lurgo 306

The way of Lurgo has one path or route. This follows her (major) rite [1890]. In the Book of Paths the Rite of Lurgo is described as follows: 1. Original Subtraction. Ultimate descent through the Depths. The path favours repeated patience linked by subtlety. Superior subtlety opens the three hidden roads. Compliance prevails. Three tests on the way. Immersive nightmares undergo an ominous transition. Difficulties annihilated in the end. Lurgo’s rite descends out of time, following the numogrammatic ‘plunge line,’ passing through the 8th gate (Gt-36) which crosses from the lair of Murrumur into that of Uttunul. Among the neolemurian tantric schools this rite maps yogic practices of Spinal descent into the nest of Kundalini (the “Thothtodlana of the Indus” – Stillwell). Lurgo’s Rite is evoked, in a mirrored guise, by the contemporary myth of the Kurtzline, travelling up-river into the Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. In the dream sorcery of the Munumese ‘Nago’ the Rite of Lurgo traverses the full passage from consciousness (1) to deep sleep (0) and thus charts a ‘line of oblivion’ which begins in time but does not travel through it. Horowitz is among those scholars of esoteric Judaism who have become fascinated by parallels between the Rite of Lurgo and the golem myth. In an appendix to his translation of The Book of Paths, he links the ‘Original Subtraction’ to the removal of the initial aleph from the word ‘emet’ (written on the golem’s head) –- an operation required if one is to ‘kill’ a golem. This connection enabled him to exhume an esoteric mystical content to the myth, in which the ‘death’ of the golem symbolizes the opening of a path into the abyss. The Lair of Lurgo 307

In the Lemurian Planetworks, Lurgo’s domain (1::0) is situated between the orbits of Mercury and the Sun. Fittingly, the Roman Mercury (Greek Hermes) is entitled ‘the messenger of the gods’ and associated with traffick in all its forms, including communication and trade. Lurgo nests Minommo (8::0), Murrumur (8::1), Uttunul (9::0), Tutagool (9::1), and Ummnu (9::8). By nesting Ummnu (final Lemur of the Pandemonium Matrix) within herself, Lurgo establishes the basis for the Munumese saying: “the end lies within the beginning.” The Lurgo Card [7 of Clubs] In the Centauri Decadence Pack Lurgo is allocated to the 7 of Clubs. When mapped onto the Atlantean cross in accordance with Mme Centauri’s system, Lurgo corresponds to a plummeting line from the 1st Pylon (memories and dreams) to the 5th Pylon (deep past). Among her oracular implications within Decadence divination are falling in the theocosmic sense, descent into hell, journey to the underworld and pursuit of the ‘Nether-Axis’ to its ultimate conclusion. Tales The Tale of How We Lost Our Tails There was a time when Orang Utan had a tail, and so did each of us. That was before Orang Utan made a big mistake, and tried to cheat the demon Lurgo. It is said that Lurgo dwells between Murrumur and Uttunul, somewhere beneath the bottom of the sea, but above the twins in the furnace. No one knows how Orang Utan found her. Maybe it was easier to swim down with a tail. In any case, everyone agrees about the deal they made down there, which was to swap the stories of the upper and lower worlds. Orang Utan was to collect all that could be told about Oddubb and about Katak, and in exchange Lurgo would open the gate to the underworld. If things had gone this way we would still have our tails. It was probably Katak who - due to her impatience - gave Orang Utan bad advice, and suggested that by climbing down her tail it would be possible to descend into Uttunul without Lurgo's help. Ever since that time Orang Utan has been too ashamed to admit anything about it, but it must have been something like that, because certainly now Orang Utan has no tail, and neither do any of us. 308

Have You Been Enjoying Yourself? mark k-p (September 26, 2004) For Reza 'If you've been puzzled by the title Eyes Wide Shut, you're not alone. According to ritual abuse and mind control survivor Arizona Wilder, it's a satanic cult term which means that whatever you've seen here is not to be revealed to anyone... or else. "Monarch [mind control] programmers use this term," says Wilder in a recent interview. "It was so cult [like]," she continues. "Put him [the Tom Cruise character] in a double bind." The movie was also reminiscent of her ritual experiences."In one of my journals from 1990, I talk about a ritual where they all have golden masks and hooded robes," she says. "It has to do with the sun god. Thye use these masks in Egyptian-type ceremony rituals. The masks mean "we are not individuals, but we have one purpose in mind."One thing they did is they never unmask." Wilder also finds a deep significance in the sign for Rennes Street and the name of the pianist whose name Nightingale means messenger from the dark. "The name of the costume shop was representative of getting to the ritual by going 'Over the Rainbow,'" she says. "The movie was making a statement. We [the Illuminati] are here. What are you going to do about it?" she concludes.' - Uri Dowbenko, Offline Illumination - Eyes Wide Shut: Occult Entertainment 'Even the street sets (criticized by the uniquely provincial New York press as "inaccurate") are expressionistic, with newspaper headlines (LUCKY TO BE ALIVE) and neon signs (EROS) foreshadowing and commenting on the action. In Kubrick's work, nothing is incidental.' - Tim Kreider, 'Introducing Sociology: A Review of Eyes Wide Shut' 'Whose idea of an orgy was this - the Catholic Church's?' 309

- Stephen Hunter, "The Lust Picture Show: Stanley Kubrick Stumbled with his Eyes Wide Shut", Washington Post Responses to Kubrick's final film can be divided into roughly three groups: there is the 'Official' view, the apparently widely held media consenus that Kubrick's adaptation of Schnitzler's Dream Story is at best flawed, at worst wildly misconceived and embarrassing; then there are the Occult Conspiracy theorists (as represented by the quotation above), who maintain that Eyes Wide Shut was a more or less accurate depiction of magical mind control techniques, associated especially with the fascinatingly deranged hyperfictional Monarch mind control meta-mythos (in relation to which Kubrick himself is positioned either as Illuminati insider-initiate or as whistle-blower, whose death was a consequence of his hubristic courage in exposing these clandestine rites to the world) ; and thirdly, there is the view - largely confined to Kubrick enthusiasts such as Michel Chion, author of BFI's short study of EWS, and the denizens of the now (sadly) all but dead alt.movies.kubrick - that it is a masterpiece at least on a par with the great director's other landmark works. Kreider's analysis is especially interesting because it begins by explicitly taking on the critical consensus that has settled around the film. 'Critical disappointment with Eyes Wide Shut was almost unanimous,' he says. Moreover, 'the complaint was always the same: not sexy'. Kreider's argument is that critics were disarmed and misled by the film's advertising, which seemed to offer the promise of a psycho-sexual thriller. With expectations so raised, critics were either bored or dismissive or both when faced with (what seemed to them) the film's quotidian longuers and pompous excesses. Indeed, critics have been frustrated by the alleged duality between these two modes, when it is the consistency and seret complicity between banal commonsense and obscene power that is the key to the whole film. Kreider's reading stresses the economic and the political or rather the politicaleconomic at the expense of the sensual. Or better: he argues that Kubrick's film shows that the sensual cannot be seen outside the political or the economic. In the politicallibidinal-economic world of Eyes Wide Shut, money and status - or to be more accurate, signs of money and status - are everywhere, even if they go unnoticed by the characters themselves. Like the audience, Bill and Alice Harford 'don't really see their surrounding mise-en-scène--their wealth, their art, the ubiquitous Christmas glitz. They're preoccupied instead with their own petty lusts and jealousies.' $ Bill's journey into an even more rarefied strata of obscene privilege takes him, famously, beyond the rainbow of 'normal' social reality to: 310

'the pot of gold, Somerton, the innermost sanctum of the ultrawealthy where the secret orgy is held. The orgy scenes in particular were singled out by reviewers for disappointment and derision. Listen to the groans of critical blueballs: David Denby called it "the most pompous orgy in the history of film." "More ludicrous than provocative," said Michiko Kakutani, "more voyeuristic than scary." "Whose idea of an orgy is this," demanded Stephen Hunter, "the Catholic Church's?" Again they misunderstood Kubrick's artistic intentions, which are clearly not sensual. When Bill passes through the ornate portal past a beckoning golden-masked doorman, we should understand that we are entering the realm of myth and nightmare. This sequence is the clearest condemnation, in allegorical dream imagery, of elite society as corrupt, exploitative, and depraved--what they used to call, in a simpler time, evil. The pre-orgiastic rites are overtly Satanic, a Black Mass complete with a high priest gowned in crimson, droning organ and backward-masked Latin liturgy. What we see enacted is a ceremony in which faceless, interchangeable female bodies are doled out, fucked, and exchanged among black-cloaked figures, culminating in the ritual mass rape and sacrificial murder of a woman.' The scene is indeed characteristically Kubrickian in its allusive and expressionistic sumptuousness. Fittingly perhaps, the 'high priest gowned in crimson' (or 'Red Cloak') reminds you of nothing so much as one of Bacon's screaming popes. Meanwhile, the 'faceless, interchangeable female bodies' clad only in masks and heels , strangely desexualised in the way that Helmut Newton's models often were, seemed to have walked out of the paintings of Delvaux or Ernst. Yet this conspicuously excessive scene - itself an echo of the ornate party scene at Victor Zeigler's house - can only be understood as a mirror to the later conspicuously banal scene in Zeigler's pool room. This latter scene was criticised for more or less the opposite reasons that the Somerton episode was targeted. Whereas the Somerton scenes were derided as limp high camp, the pool room scene was dismissed as overlong and lacking in drama; nevertheless, the end result was the same - the encounter with Ziegler, we assured, was no less boring than the orgy scenes. It is important to utterly resist this reading, and once again Kreider is so acute on this latter scene that is worth citing him again at some length: 'When Ziegler finally calls him onto the carpet for his transgressions, he chuckles at Bill's refusal of a case of 25-year-old Scotch (Bill drinks Bud from the can), not just because this extravagance would be a trifle to him, but because Bill's pretense of 311

integrity is an empty gesture--he's already been bought. Bill may be able to buy, bribe, and command his own social inferiors, and he may own Alice, but he's Ziegler's man. Although Ziegler has a credible explanation for everything that's happened--Harford's harassment, Nick Nightingale's beating, Mandy's death--we don't ever really know whether he's telling the truth or lying to cover up Mandy's murder. The script carefully withholds any conclusive evidence that would let us feel comfortably certain either way. But Ziegler does have suspiciously privileged access to details of the case: "The door was locked from the inside, the police are happy, end of story! [dismissive lip fart.]" He also claims to be dropping his façade and coming clean a few too many times to be believed: "I have to be completely frank," "Bill, please--no games," and finally, "All right, Bill, let's... let's... let's cut the bullshit, all right?" And notice how he introduces his explanation: "Suppose I were to tell you..." [emphasis mine]. He's not being "frank"; he's offering Bill an escape, a plausible, face-saving explanation for the girl's death to assuage his unexpectedly agitated conscience. (And it's one of the few things that Bill has a hard time buying--watch the way his hand adheres to his cheek and slowly slides off his face as he rises to his feet and walks dazedly across the room, trying to absorb the incredible coincidence Ziegler's asking him to swallow.) Ziegler's "no games" plea notwithstanding, this entire conversation is a game--a gentlemanly back-and-forth of challenges and evasions over a question of life and death, throughout which the two opponents circle each other uneasily around a blood-red billiards table. When Bill persists in his inquiries, Ziegler loses his temper and resorts to intimidation and threats. He reminds him of their respective ranks as master and man: "You've been way out of your depth for the last twenty-four hours," he growls. Of his fellow revelers at Somerton, he says, "Who do you think those people were? Those were not ordinary people there. If I told you their names--I'm not going to tell you their names, but if I did, you might not sleep so well." In other words, they're "all the best people," the sorts of supremely wealthy and powerful men who can buy and sell "ordinary" men like Bill and Nick Nightingale, and fuck or kill women like Mandy and Domino. The "you might not sleep so well" is also a veiled warning, and it isn't Ziegler's last. His final word of advice--"Life goes on. It always does... until it doesn't. But you know that, don't you, Bill?"--proffered with an avuncular, unpleasantly proprietary rub of the shoulders, sounds like a reassurance but masks a threat. (We immediately cut from this to a less friendly warning, the mask placed on Bill's pillow.) Bill's expression, in the foreground, is by now so tight and working with suppressed and conflicting feelings that it's hard to read, but one of those feelings is clearly fear for his life--he 312

looks as though he might burst into tears or hysterical laughter, and when Victor claps those patronizing hands on his shoulders, he flinches. In the end, he chooses to accept Victor's explanation not because there's any evidence to confirm it, but because it's a convenient excuse to back down from the dangers of further investigation. He finally understands that he, too, no less than a hooker or a hired piano player, is expendable.' To say that the pool room scene is doubled by the Somerton orgy is not to say that one is the 'truth' of the other. Or, rather, it is to say that they are BOTH the hidden truth of each other. Eyes Wide Shut is very clear-eyed about the way in which power always contains two aspects, simultaneously: excessive mystagogic staging and banal normalization are two sides of the same coin. In other words, in retaining Kreider's social-economic reading, we should not abandon the sublimely ridiculous hyperfictions of the Monarch conspiracists. Zeigler's different gambits in relation to the Somerton episode might appear to devolve into ad hoc reactive defence strategies, but in reality the whole episode - from his offering Bill the cases of scotch to his threatening of him - is part of an overall strategy of disabling opposition and producing impotent confusion: the production of what Arizona Wilder is absolutely correct in identifying as double-binds. Gregory Bateson, Deleuze-Guattari and Burroughs have all analysed the role of the double bind - the issuing simultaneous contradictory but complementary commands - in systems of control. Zeigler's implicit and explicit communications with Bill is full of such double binds: I am the Good Father of social order AND Pere Jouissance, the Father-Thing obscenely indulging in excessive enjoyment. and: What happened at Somerton was a trivial charade* AND extremely, perilously, grave. and It was fake AND the hidden reality of the social. What could be a clearer exemplification of Zizek's claim that Sade is a Kantian, that, far from demanding that we abstain from pleasure, the (post)modern superego is relentless in its demands that we indulge in pleasure. Masked woman to Bill at the Somerton ritual: 'Have you been enjoying yourself?' 313

The affectless, banal quality of the orgy that so turned critics off is in fact the truth of sex. Ironically given the Dennis Wheatley-esque ornateness of the staging, the tediously mechanical couplings are pure sex, i.e. sex stripped of any fantasmatic component, i.e. sex that is merely phenomenal-physical rather than fantasmatic-Real. The joyless Somerton sex carnival is the Burroughs-Bosch garden of earthly delights, the venal idiot-mechanical repetition of the pleasure principle laid bare. The dominant red colouring in both Zeigler's pool room and at Somerton inevitably puts one in mind of Poe's 'Masque of the Red Death', the principal intertext in the hyperfictional labyrinth of Stephen King's The Shining. Interestingly, Kubrick removed all explicit allusions to Poe's tale from his film version of King's novel, but he retained the association of Pere Jouissance Overlook owner Horace Derwent with licentious pleasure. Kreider: 'A ballroom full of naked, masked couples dancing to "Strangers in the Night" recalls not only Ziegler's party but the Overlook Hotel, whose ghosts also danced and coupled in costume. (Remember the quick, surreal zoom shot in The Shining of someone in a bestial costume fellating tuxedoed millionaire Horace Derwent in an upstairs room?)' 'Halfway through "Ticket to Ride," the band wound up with a brassy flourish. "The hour is at hand!" Horace Derwent proclaimed. "Midnight! Unmask! Unmask!"' (The Shining, 369) 'What kind of fucking charade ends up with someone turning up dead?' Bill explodes at Zeigler. Well, Bill, we call it life... Poe's story is crucial because it makes the essential link between pleasure and death. Now it is important not to fall into the easy, misleading interpretation which would see death as extrinsic to pleasure, that is to say, as a consequence of sex (via the agency of disease etc). Poe's puritan point - the view from the sober Protestant New World of a fantasticated-intoxicated Old Catholic Europe - was that PLEASURE IS ALREADY DEATH. 'Unmask! Unmask!' Red Cloak to Bill: 'Kindly remove your mask...' 314

To illustrate this point, it is crucial to distinguish between two forms of death and two forms of death drive. The intensive death of Poe's revellers is in dialectical denial but simultaneous confirmation of the organic death that awaits them. Their attempts to intoxicate themselves into forgetting this death gives their divertissements an inescapable melancholia. 'It was in this apartment, also, that there stood ... a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and for with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when... the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was cleaer and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause... to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly ... and [they] smiled as if at their own nervousness.. and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes... there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. But in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel...' ('The Masque of the Red Death'; this section was used by King as the epigraph to The Shining) The clock ticking - the chronic climax - brings the tristesse proper to all climatic libidinal economies; the little death as a presaging of big death, both disavowed and perpetually reconfirmed in the ever-climaxing, ever-resuming Schopenhauerian merry-go-round of the pleasure principle. Recall in this connection Kierkegaard's comparison of life with a large hall, entry to which is gained only through a dirty, disgusting tunnel which leaves you soiled. At the end of the night, Kierkegaard says, everyone is unceremoniously kicked out, but nevertheless, throughout the night 'everything is done to inflame the merriment.' Kierkegaard's point is not the injunction to indulgent misery that it might appear to be. On the contrary, in fact, his argument is that it is only through a constant acknowledgement of our finitude, and an embracing of life's tension - or life AS 315

tension - that life can be fully lived. Precisely in avoiding death, in treating it as an appointment in chronos that must be kept (and of which the oppressive ticking of the clock periodically reminds them), the revellers condemn themselves to a lifelong intensive death. Another way of getting to this is via Lacan's distinction of the Nirvana Principle and the death drive proper. Lacan shows that the Nirvana Principle - the impulse towards quiescent satiation - far from being opposed to the pleasure principle is in reality only the pleasure principle in its highest form. By contrast, the death drive is that which disrupts any lapsing into satisfaction, that which introduces tension back into any libidindal tendency towards slackening - in other words, that which keeps the libidinal apparatus in tension, literally intense. The first form of human slavery is to the Burroughs orgasm drug (the lure by means of which the organic death machine reproduces itself). It's inevitable that power should fixate on this bio-default as one of its principal means of exercising control. The really rather trivial transgressions at Somerton - masked sex! - serve also as an Initiatory Secret, less important for its own content than for dividing those in the know from outsiders. Kubrick's obsessively cultivated ambiguity leaves open the possibility that the whole episode at Somerton - TOGETHER WITH the later scene in the pool hall - are some kind of initiatory rite which draws Bill into closer proximity with the power elite. As if what Zeigler himself calls the 'staged charade' was, like the gate in Kafka's famous parable, meant only for him... So that Alice's final 'fuck' - the last word in the film, that is, the last word in Kubrick's last film - operates as the order word indicating the Harfords quietist acceptance of/ into the Core (or at least, in an inner circle closer to the Core). In any case, Eyes Wide Shut demonstrates that, however banal it must be in order to be normalized into - and AS - everyday life, power depends upon mystagogic authoritarian ritualization. There is always a secret society, even if the secret it protects is its own vacancy, void: 'Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers threw themselves into the black appartment, and seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.' 316

The theatrical show, the mystagogic mummery, is there to conceal this Void. Hence the power's need for (simulated) hyperstition, its tendency conspiracy theories that propagate themselves via their denial, that operate only through their victims' recovered memories. Hence also the need to diagonalize between Ziegler-esque commonsense and Monarch paranoia: Ccru: 'Like all conspiracy fictions, [this] is spun out of an all-encompassing narrative that cannot possibly be falsified (because ‘they’ want you to believe in their nonexistence). To attempt to refute such narratives is to be drawn into a tedious double game. ‘One’ either has to embrace an arbitrary and outrageous cosmic plot (in which everything is being run by the Jews, Masons, Illuminati, CIA, Microsoft, Satan, Ccru…), or alternatively advocate submission to the most mundane construction of quotidian reality, dismissing the hyperstitional chaos that operates beyond the screens (cosmological ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ - virtual, imperceptible, unknown). This is why atheism is usually so boring. Both conspiracy and common sense - the ‘normal reality’ script - depend on the dialectical side of the double game, on reflective twins, belief and disbelief, because disbelief is merely the negative complement of belief: cancellation of the provocation, disintensification, neutralization of stimulus - providing a metabolic yawn-break in the double-game. Unbelief escapes all this by building a plane of potentiality, upon which the annihilation of judgment converges with real cosmic indeterminacy. For the demons of unbelief there is no monarch programming except as a side-effect of initiatory Monarch deprogramming (= Monarch Paranoia). ... Deprogramming simultaneously retro-produced the program, just as witch-trials preceded devil-worship and regressive hypnotherapy preceded false memory syndrome. Yet, once these ‘fictions’ are produced, they function in and as reality. It isn’t that belief in Project Monarch produces the Monarch Program, but rather that such belief produces equivalent effects to those the reality of Project Monarch would produce, including some that are extremely peculiar and counter-intuitive. Within the paranoid mode of the double game even twins are turned so as to confirm a persecutory unity - that of the puppet master, the reflection of God, the Monarch. 317

How absurd to imagine that Lemurian Pandemonium has One purpose or function, or that it could support the throne of a Monarch. From the perspective of Pandemonium gods and their conspiracies emerge all over the place, in countless numbers. “My name is Legion, for we are many..” Unity is only ever a project, a teleological aspiration, never a real presupposition or actual foundation. Monarch paranoia is primordially an allergic panic response to seething, teeming Pandemonic multiplicity. Everywhere it looks it finds the same enemy, the Rorschach-blotted hallucinations of the Evil One masked deliriously in its myriads of deviations, digressions and discrepancies.' 318

October 2004 Golgothic Materialism mark k-p (October 15, 2004) I finally saw The Passion of the Christ this week. I watched it at work with the A-level Religious Studies students. They like me were moved to tears and beyond. (Tip for any teacher out there: show the film at 9 in the morning, that'll wake up any students still yawning their way into the day). Whilst agreeing with much of what Zizek says about Gibson's film in his brilliant essay Passion in the Era of Decaffeinated Belief, I think that he doesn't go nearly far enough. Zizek is right to challenge the smug and lazy culturalist consensus that religious conviction is inherently pathological and dangerous. But he is wrong to suggest that what is most important about Passion is belief. Gibson's Gnostic vision - which is simply Christ's ethical Example rescued from the institutionalized religion that has systematically distorted it in his name - makes the two traditional supports of religious belief irrelevant. Astonishingly, The Passion of the Christ demonstrates that neither Revelation nor Tradition are important for those seeking to become-Christ(ian). What matters is not so much whether the events described in the film really happened - and there is no reason to doubt that that something resembling them did - but the lifepractice which the Christ story narrates. Life as parable. Let's dismiss first of all the idea that the film is anti-semitic. Certainly, the first half of the film threatens to invite this interpretation. In the run-up to Jesus' arrest, the film appears to depict the Jewish religious authorities as near-subhuman monsters, while the Roman imperial powers are viewed sympathetically, as benign and puzzled observers of a distasteful local conflict amongst the people they have colonized. (In this respect, Gibson appears to buy into the anti-Jewish narrative retrospectively imposed by the RCC once it had come to its concordat with the Roman Empire and was keen to excuse its new Masters of any responsibility for the crucifixion). But once the notorious beating scene happens, the film goes through an intensive threshold. Here, the Roman soldiers are seen to be gratuitiously cruel psychopaths, whose excessive zeal in punishing Jesus exceeds any 'duty'. It is clear by now that The 319

Passion has no ethnic axe to grind: it is about the stupidity and cruelty of the human species, but more importantly, about an escape route from the otherwise meaningless and nihilistic cycle of abuse begetting abuse that is human History. The Gnostic flashes that surface in the Gospels are given full weight in Gibson's film. 'My kingdom is not of this world'. But Gibson refuses to give any comfort to those life-deniers and body-haters that Nietzsche rightly exoriates in his many attacks on Christianity. There is little supernatural or transcendent dimension to The Passion's vision. If Christ's kingdom is not of this world, Gibson gives us few reasons to assume that this kingdom will be the Platonic heaven of which those tired of the body dream. The World which Christ rejects is the World of lies, the consensual hallucination of established power and authority. By contrast, Christ's Kingdom only subsists whenever there is an Affectionate Collectivity. In other words, it exists not as some deferred supernatural reward, but in the Ethical actions of those, who in becomingChrist, keep his spirit alive. Again, it is important to stress that this spirit is not some metaphysical substance, but a strictly material abstract machine that can be instantiated only through actions and practices. Loving God and loving others more than yourself are preconditions for dissolving your ego and gaining deliverance from the Hell of Self. What, from one perspective, is the utter humiliation and degradation of Jesus's body is on the other a coldly ruthless vision of the body liberated from the 'wisdom and limits of the organism'. Masochristianity. Christ's Example is simply this: it is better to die than to pass on abuse virus or to in any way vindicate the idiot vacuity and stupidity of the World of authority. Power depends upon the weakness of the organism. When authority is seriously challenged, when its tolerance is tested to the limit, it has the ultimate recourse of torture. The slow, graphic scenes of mindless physical degradation in The Passion of the Christ are necessary for revealing the horrors to which Jesus' organism was subject. It is made clear that he could have escaped the excruciating agony simply by renouncing his Truth and by assenting to the Authority of the World. Christ's Example insists: better to let the organism be tortured to death ('If thine own eye offend thee, pluck it out') than to bow, bent-headed, to Authority. 320

This is what is perhaps most astonishing about Gibson's film. Far from being a statement of Catholic bigotry, it can only be read as an anti-authoritarian AND THEREFORE anti-Catholic film. For the Pharisees of two millennia ago, puffed up in their absurd finery, substitute the child-abuser apologists of today's gilt-laden, guiltridden Vatican. Against all the odds, against two thousand years of cover-ups and dissimulation, The Passion of the Christ recovers the original Christ, the anti-Wordly but not otherwordly Christ of Liberation Theology: the Gnostic herald of Apocalypse Now. Comments: Golgothic Materialism Scott: well said, it's been a surprise to watch authorities i respect chat lazy rubbish about this film. Paul: Well that was a load of self-indulgent shit. matt ingram: do you think you could explain precisely what you mean paul? Nick Land: Guess I'm just a hardcore pagan because this Jesus shit REALLY disgusts me. Enjoyed the movie, sided with the Romans (even if some of the grunts were a bit undisciplined). mark k-p: Nick, with all due respect, surely the dissing of Xianity and the advocacy of Paganism are about as boring and molar as you could get. Paganism is more or less the official religion of the european master class now, isn't it, that and zen? btw, in what sense did you 'side with the Romans'? The Romans didn't have a side, they were just hand-wringing equivocating postmodernists, allowing their dirty work to be done by grunt-level male sex virus abusing psychotics. Surely the positive line in respect of the Christianity/ Christ thing - and this is entirely about hyperstitional potentials rather than historical fact or religious tradition - is the black/ Toni Morrison/ Baby Suggs Gnostic liberation theology line - better to be dead than to be an abuser. btw, I think we can assume that the lovely and aptly named Paul is a Catholic. It's so wonderful that the victims of this atrocity-propagating superstitious child abuse blood cult confirm how rational and positive they are when their mumbo jumbo is questioned. 321

Nick Land: Oh yeah, and also: CURSE THE CRUCIFIED!!! (shrieked from a revolving head) tommy: the abusers are most often the abused lvx23: Hey, nicely done, Mark. The Gnostic Christ was simply an enlightened being reaching out with compassion to lift up others from the pit of oppression and suffering. Interesting to see some of the knee-jerk robot responses here, from both sides. Christ and the edifice of Christianity tend to be two very different things. As PKD said, The Empire Never Died. mark k-p: How can Scorsese's sexualised Christ be Gnostic? What could be less gnostic than that? As for 2,000 years of Xianity.. there have been 0 years of Xianity and 2,000 years of Roman Catholic Satanism. You need to get out more, Nick, the master class are all into zen and pagan rituals these days:-). Those that aren't participating in Satanic rituals at Somerton, that is. Osa: ..gibson's movie was purely dogmatic with not an inch given to the gnostic christ as accorded by the nag hammadi at all: the movie works on two basic principles of storytelling: gibson's film hits at the emotionally charged level of 'sin' and 'savior' and gibson's film uses snuff film motifs to the highest and even alluring levels (..watching the passion in montreal quebec at an imax outlet: i was deeply struck by the understanding that i was being subjected to the most successful snuff film using a major religious icon that has ever been conceived and made...) by tapping into that most obvious zeitgeist of dead religion -- that an infinitley wise and knowing supreme entity would sit around and judge humanity based upon 'sin' seems as obsolete and as far fecth as believing that saddam hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction because this was seen by the truly mis-understood seer nostradamus -- and yet gibson's personal snuff film makes the millions and moves the masses to tears by tapping into the 'we-as-humans-are-sinful' memetic programming that was fed to generations of forefathers whom in the name of 'g0d' slaugthered millions for not being 'like g0d's obedient children...' 322

...interesting that when the truly gnostic christ depicted in martin scorcese's brilliant masterpiece 'the last temptation of chirst' the movie was considered a dameon spawn by christians: jews: and catholics of fundamental underpinnings and lasted a mere two weeks before universal studios grew afraid and yanked the film from theatres: during that year of the movies aborted release martin scorcese and his immediate family had death threats issued to them because martin scorcese had dared to depict a vile and vulgar christ not accord to the king james' 'sanctified' savior of men (..and even in the re-written accounts of the king james gospels -- there exists plenty of passages that can be read as purely gnostic such as jesus telling the pharises at one point: '...but isn't it true that we are all g0ds...') that has been carefully milked into being this lifeless letter of the law and not a hair nor nair of 'spirit'... mel gibson's the passion represents the current spiritual zeitgeist achieved by a dying dead crumbling culture -- that as long as spirituality becomes reduced to innane gibberish fed in a loop that would make the best dj envious to the masses: then 'g0d' becomes 'feared and loved...' while all spark of gnosis (..to remind -- gnosis means simply to realise that the spark of divinity already and always belonged to the individual and that the individual must undertake the great initiation to know thyself truly....) becomes diminished and dimmed as being that 'sinful nature' of man needing g0d's infinite love and guidance and threat of punishment and denial if man continues with his or hers sinful ways...... gibson's film becomes a very powerful sygil invoked to remind anyone willing to step past the rather rhetorical analysis of the film as being more than what the film has truly been: a highly memetic snuff film projected at the willful whom never want to assume accountability to their lives but wants to pan-handle along the stagnate waters of dogma and systems of dogma to spread among the other willful.,,,,, thank you. Nick Land: Mark the master class are all into zen and pagan rituals these days but the enraging thing - that which is literally life-ruining - is that once this [unutterable expletive deleted] infects you, as it soes everyone after even at the most seemingly incidental contact - ordinary and thoughtless pagan simplicity, that is to say, merely suspending acknowledgement of the most intrinsically STUPID idea ever conceived [One God] - becomes utterly impossible 323

only spineless submission, hysterical opposition, or pitiful and hypocritical displacement activity (pseudo zen and pagan rituals) remain as options That's why JC - who's identity is indistinguishable from planetary One God propagation - is eternally a figure of abysmal revulsion for me - he stole my freedom in such a radical way that only species-terminating convulsion could ever bring it back That is why this topic is the other side of our politcs row - After the ABSOLUTE spiritual violation JC represents, only a process that is as all-encompassing, impersonal, mathematical, ruthlessly indifferent to human cries and machinically momentous as k+ technocapitalism could imaginably turn things around (anything relying on human volition - such as your cold rationalism IMHO - is immediately, or even anticipatively, subverted by the toxic legacy of the Nazarene - if 'we' get a say in the future, we just stay ****ed) thistle: Ha, ha. Declaring something as a "load of self-indulgent shit" is the height of imprecision and unmeaning. And more applicable to the comment itself than to the writing it presumes to say something about (without saying much at all). The political battle in the United States over this film was inevitably to be located outside of the film itself. But hopefully, in this context, the externalities of the film are as fair game as the contents. And, I think, most of the criticisms leveled at this film were calculated political strategies, and not necessarily unethical ones. To the anti-Semitism of the film (ie, of the story): what seems to have been overlooked is that the Christ story is not one in which the Jews killed God but one in which even the Jews are capable of killing God. In the Biblical context, even the Jews, the chosen people of God, the representives of best Biblical humanity had to offer, could harden their hearts to such a point where they could encourage the death of their foretold Messiah. Ie, nobody is safe from the sex-death/veil-of-tears circuit, not even the Jews. How much worse for the gentiles. The film, though, fails to illustrate the special status of Jews to the story, and this oversimplification is similar to that made by the Catholic church for centuries, an oversimplification which isolates Jews as a block of people uniquely capable of killing God rather than integrating them into the common body of the people generally capable of killing God. Nick Land: thanks Reza - actually this comment was a bit intemperate and has hopefully been superceded - sure you can raise the tone! 324

Reza Negarestani: Nick, it's strange ... your comment appears in the control panel but i can't find it here (a technical problem with moveable type i guess). plus, i did reposted all the lost comments. unfortunately, there is only one comment by Aisha on Abjad which has been lost and i can't recover it. since i have reposted all your lost comments, they don't appear in order. sorry for that. Uncle $cam: In order to enter the meta-verse, otherwise, known as heaven, I would sumise that one would have to be neutral. Having unresolved angst, resentment,what have you, toward Christianity or any other religion for that matter shows exactly how much of your own power you have freely given away. Sounds like a dweller on the threshold of fear to me. Not that I judge, but 360 degrees from fucked up, is still fucked up. I have the opinion that heaven is right here right now. It's interesting to know so many so called pagans whom are every bit as domatic as "some" Christians. This straight jacket of binary aristotle logic is killing us as humans. Interesting post btw...thanks. 325

What Happened? Mark Fisher (October 19, 2004) Extracts from an unpublished interview with the late Martin Bergmann by Theresa Delaney, 1996 TD: Is it true you were abused, Reverend Bergmann? Bergmann: No more so than anyone else. TD: How so? It's all a matter of degree. The reason why hypnotherapists can so easily 'recover' abuse traces is not, as we are led to believe, that they have implanted them; but neither is it the case that they are 'real' empirical memories either. They are what Freud calls trauma, and what Templeton calls a Transcendental Occurrence. When It happens, there is no-One to experience It - The event is precisely too overwhelming to be processed within the time-space-causality frame of human experience and cognition - and therefore there is no memory. Or: there is only memory. Memory stands in for what could not be experienced. Think of alien abduction narratives. We all know that they concern time anomalies. What is registered initially is precisely a gap in time. For the cogito, that is to say, there is an awareness only of a gap in the 'I Think'. An ellipsis in the illusion of seamless consciousness. This rupture first of all consists only of a question: 'What happened'? The answer is of course that what happened is a disruption of the empiricalphenomenal by an Outside. Since this can't be experienced - it is literally too intense - it can only be encountered via post hoc neuronic narrativization that is not 'false' but artificial. Anything would be 'false', is the point. Again, the event is perceptible only in the gaps in the narrative mesh. We need to remember Freud's point that trauma is originary; it is trauma that is constitutive of identity as such. To be introduced into the symbolic order always involves violence. Obviously the child 'experiences' socialization as an unbearable horror. So it isn't going too far to say that the relationship between the child and abuse is analytic: the child is the one that is abused. What this means is that there is a delirial field underlying all subjectivity that is dripping with abuse signal. 326

Take something like Cathy O'Brien's recent book [Trance-Formation of America]. Should we believe that O'Brien's claims about CIA-organized trauma-based mind control systems are genuine? Or, alternatively, should we believe that she constructed them as a monstrously elaborate fabrication? Neither hypothesis seems remotely satisfactory. TD: So what is the explanation? B: That O'Brien is drawing upon the real 'collective' unconscious of the USA. Of course, her narrative of systematic abuse by the powers-that-be is true, there's no question of that. It just might not be empirically true. TD: How does all this relate to Christianity? B: Once we've left behind Paul's child abuse cult, you can see that Christ is about a cut, a break in the cycle of abuse. Instead of being the abuse victim of Catholic iconography, Christ is a child abductor - 'only he who hates his father and mother can follow me' - the one who snatches the child from the cycle of time, from the grips of Kronos, 'the most honest of fathers'. TD: So, speaking in terms of Stillwell's Lemurian system, Christ would be an avatar of Djynxx? B: Yes. Absolutely. The cutter. Desert spirit of dust clouds. All of sudden... there they were... gone.... Comments: What Happened? Nick Land: "So, speaking in terms of Stillwell's Lemurian system, Christ would be an avatar of Djynxx?" - I hope this is some kind of ghastly joke. Mark - 1) Qabbalistic demonstration (quite miraculous) JESUS = 119 = FISHER of SOULS = 131 = CHRIST (BtW "FISCHER" Deutsch-style = 131) 119 composite no., prime factors 7 + 17 (7th prime) 131 = 32nd prime 327

Won't get too deep into numerical analysis now, except to note that dominant no. at JESUS pole evidently 7, that at CHRIST pole evidently 5. 5 locates in the "Northern Katak" abduction zone, 5th gate etc., so Bergman has something there, but Djynnx suggestion is not qabbalistically sustainable 2) look instead at 7::5 - Papatakoo (Papa took you) It's uncanny: Chronodemon of Calendric Time Ultimate success [don't like this bit at all!] perseverance, blood sacrifice rituals becoming nature Unnecessary repetition: Calendric time, blood sacrifice - to quote Bataille: "Holy Shit!" 3) Fisher of souls, big J's a fishhook Dick's obsession with the fish sign age of f**king pisces (where all the shit in history accumulates) [BtW DICK = 63 - there's your 'gnostic' djynnx connection] 4) 131 32nd prime - corresponding to alphanumeric "W" - not only the weird US stuff but also only two modern letters missing from Roman alphabet = J + W Also, W only neoroman letter to have a name Mark k-p We must have a post on the PKD/ Gnostic connection soon ---- I know Bergmann was interested in all aspects, including Mercerism (the 'fake' religion in Do Androids...) --Nick Land: Mark, disappointed you haven't responded to the Papa-took-you aspect - isn't loving your rapist what the whole religion is about? Again 328

Reza Negarestani (October 21, 2004) Finally, I’m back. First of all, my sincere apologies to Hyperstition readers for the long silence. I want to thank all friends who assisted me during this period of absence, and especially those friends who pulled me out of the swamp. Robin Undercurrent once mentioned friends show themselves through disagreement; this is enough for engineering a true bond but true friends come in the direst situations, when the act of sacrifice is the only solution. It’s ridiculous to simply say ‘thank you’ as I’m forever indebted but it is the only thing I can do for now: my thanks goes for Boris, David, F, H, Michael, Nick and T. Mark, Anna, thank you very much for injecting life to this blog. Wonderful job! Also I should thank all people who commented on this blog and saved it: Robin Undercurrent, Thistle, et al. oh, I should not forget spammers, a blog without spam is a dead blog. I will start to write soon, I just need a few days to tune myself up. Comments: Again undercurrent: There are many in the world whose disappearance would be far more welcome than yours - welcome back, look forward to reading new reza-encoded content soon! Subb-haqqua Nyarlathothep %~] Craig: Likewise. Welcome back... Klintron: Welcome back! Hope everything ok. Reza Negarestani: Thank you all. + Robin, i read your comment on that piece (Arab nomads, oil and desert) on your blog and here; thanks very much. Also thanks for that lovely welcoming post on your blog. I can see very interesting posts on your blog, but since you have turned off the commenting function, i should discuss them here. Before that nasty experience that kept me away from the world, I was writing a more comprehensible piece on sorcery, rigorous escapism (DGon line-of-escape) and necromancy (differences, dangers, 329

mechanisms, etc.). Guess, it can be used as the hyperstition note on your online translation of Houellebecq’s work on Lovecraft (which I will return to it very soon). + Craig, thanks for coming here again and your kind welcome. I’m very sorry, I was writing a piece as an answers to your comment but suddenly everything went wrong. I’m trying to attach it to the piece I just mentioned to Robin. + Klintron, thanks very much. And welcome! undercurrent: it is very annoying - even though I delete the spams and ban the IPs, I still get around 10-20 every day. A community-built blacklist might work, but it seems that a lot of these spams are originated from dial-up addresses so they change each time - and one doesn't want to block a whole range of IPs since there may be 'real' users there too...thanks for the links though, I will check out some of these and let you know if I find any that work. Otherwise, the only way to stop them is to subscribe to some sort of 'membership' scheme whereby only 'validated' people are allowed to comment. Myself I find this 'feature' extremely irritating and counterproductive on other blogs (if I have to log in, I don't bother to comment), so I don't want to implement it myself. If you choose deregulated information flow, you have to live with the consequences! I just turn off the comments sometimes to have a break... infinite thought: Very glad you are alright, Reza. Did your friend tell you I was trying to contact you when I was in your perplexing and vampiric land? Anyway, best. tachiiru: glad that you are back reza. hope to see some more interesting stuff on the site .. would it be too personal to ask if your experience offline has provoked any interesting developments in your own thinking? Reza Negarestani: Nina, Thank you ... yes, he told me ... check your inbox. Tachi, Thank you too ... i'm working on more intresting posts and please check your inbox, i just sent you some answers. 330

Meatology of the Redeemer Reza Negarestani (October 22, 2004) “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” (John 6:53-54) I saw the movie two times; first time, just one week after it released. I was expecting a Baconian surgery of the crucifixion (the diffusion and slow melting of Cross into spinal cord, gradually gnawing at the root of the brain as a bio-occult prosthesis programmed to introduce body to forces and intensities, ungrounding the face from within) due to all propaganda about the movie that it has a brilliant anatomical narration on the event of Crucifixion -- Event-as-Entity in a Deleuze-Guattarian term -- but I was rather disappointed (should confess enjoyed the movie though), it was too Brave Heartish; plus, found it corresponding to this version of crucifixion (cross as a flying machine set to eat the body, chewing its meat, and consume enough flesh to give the body a lightness capable of handling the process of religious levitation, making it much more easier to fly and reach its idealist lightness). And the second time, nearly two months ago, I watched it in cinema at 11:00 pm, a perfect time to taste Golgothic Materialism. I was with a friend, we knew what expects us but a small group of moviegoers apparently had no clue about the notorious scenes. Everyone had a pocket of popcorn and chips, enthusiastically talking about the movie and the fact that such a blockbuster movie has come to Iran with no delay and no resistance from authorities. When lights turned off, I could hear them eating, cracking sounds made the atmosphere too noisy, but as soon as the notorious scourging scenes started all sounds faded. People moved in their seats in discomfort. Step by step, it made them more nervous but no one left. The edgy mood continued until the last breath of the Crucified, when his eye closed. A child loudly and with so much curiosity asked his parents, “Did he finally die?” it echoed in the salon as the perfect climax of the movie, the utter subversion of Crucifixion as a horror story. A question which is always asked at the end of a monster movie, the final death of the last Boss in videogames, the last breath of an undying demon whose death signals hundreds or perhaps thousands of sequels (The Christ Resurrection, The Christ: Genesis Project, The Calvary Massacre, …). what I expected 331

He told his cult: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” The act of self-mutilation to spawn and creates, to breed little Sons (little christs) and seed a cult only correspond with the demonic passion to spread a vast progeny, a snide and bloody answer to God’s creation engine. Did anyone remember the article, The AOE and the Brotherhood of Nine’ and its opening image? Angra.minuy or Ahriman It was Angra.minuy or as linguistically oversimplified Ahriman (the supreme deity of Xrafstra (Khrafstra), the pest-legion). I asked Robin undercurrent if he knows why his face is bizarrely twisted, ridiculously disfigured and he has funny big ears. The question went unanswered from my side. In mythologies, Gods or Titans are mostly self-fertilizing or fertilize each other to create but there is an exception, Ahriman’s method for creation is to turn his own body into a bloody slaughterhouse factory of creation (an ironic answer to clean pro-creationist dimension of cosmogony); whenever he desires to spawn a legion, to create, he cuts a part of his body, lacerates an organ, rips a piece of his flesh, mutilates his body and from that piece of flesh (nasu) he creates a legion, a cult, a religion devoted to himself. The wounds are cured in time, but scars remain, everywhere a machinery of fibrosis and mal-healing is at work, hordes of collagen molecules integrating in the regions of malefaction (criminal creation), new meat over wounds but always in the form cicatrix (more meat than is needed to heal the wounds): Ahriman as the traumatic Redeemer or the other way around. The fungal resistance of the Christ (prolonged dying without climax or Did he finally die?) suffers no pesticide or anti-fungal solution, in the presence of pesticide or heat, it mutates, developing a new mode of endurance, living stealth and quiet, moving under wraps. If Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ looks as an anti-catholic movie, it is because Catholicism has been mutated long ago to what Gibson slyly maps in his work. Reversing the panorama from the bricks of a catholic Church to the flying pieces of the Christ’s flesh when he is scourged, it is the same old but hideously mutated politic of Catholicism. The demonic endurance of the Christ in Gibson’s movie is the bloodless heart of Catolicism itself: the beast never dies. (This is a fact that a Christian involuntarily misses.) This is why Ibn Maymun, the ultimate occult-saboteur and Hyperstition engineer, recommends that the best solution is to sabotage Catholicism and all other modes of monotheism from within, poisoning them with their own toxin. Direct use of pesticide is too dangerous. 332

However, I have no hatred for the Crucified, simply because I am a Muslim. If I’m right, Robin Undercurrent wrote a piece on the movie and discussed that the hatred for the Crucified is much based on the duration and intensity of being exposed to its corruptive radiations; fortunately, as an Iranian I have not been exposed too much to its radiations. Besides, following Quran, if I take the islamic version of the story, I can say that the whole story of crucifixion is a lie; consequently, Gibson’s movie can be regarded as another stealth political maneuver of Catholicism (or in a more general sense, the Cult of the Crucified, the traumatic Redeemer). “I do not look into monotheistic religions as Serat-o-al-Mostaghim (the direct path), nor do I curse them as ghouls of repression. I simply see them as generous mothers pregnant of their minorities, thousands, millions of them; a female scorpion devoured by its own children, ripped apart from the belly. This is what Ibn Maymun taught us.” (From Jay’s correspondences to Col. West) Watch the Passion of the Christ as a stimulating carnographic horror movie (swarmed with sequels). PS. I’m with Osa who finds strong snuff elements in the Gibson’s movie. As a movieaddict, I have followed necro-snuff movies for a long time. Yes, he is right. If you have a strong stomach and you can find this very hard-to-find title (Aftermath - 1994), watch it and see the similarities of this brilliant necro-snuff movie (full of references to Xianity and the flesh of the Christ) with The Passion of the Christ -- directed by another whacky Spaniard, Nacho Cerda. Comments: Meatology of the Redeemer thistle: Reza, it's good to have you back. Your description of Ahrimanic creativity got me thinking once again about the graticule, the grid/system of crisscrossing lines overlaid onto the map to facilitate representational clarity. Something I hadn't written about it over at dehiscence: the zeroing in on the detail is made possible by the multiplication of internal frames which replicate the form of the external frame. This gesture carries with it the associative chain which is associated with the map as a whole: the arbitration of an area of consideration, the possibility of demarcating measuring lines internal to the internal boxes, the system of coordination facilitating detail work (and intelligence gathering), but also replicating Drureresque invention of the outside on the inside, the oceanic dragons and chimeras slithering into the interior of the map, at last making possible 333

the overwhelming of the representational image by monsters. Again, see the painting of Empedocles [http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/s/signorel/brizio/5/8decora3.html ]. The airiness of the area: By the Golden Dawn associations at least, there is a clear relationship of air, knife, and eye. Air comports light and makes vision possible. Spatialization being the also the possibility of the visual discernment between objects in their identity (necessary for things becoming property or possesssions). The area over which the graticule is laid is always seen from an aerial perspective, a bird's-eye view, eagle's eye, all-seeing eye, and eye in the heavens. And graticule lines were often indexed on early maps by daggers at the border. [Disciples: literally pupils [round windows which receive]. And death is always consummated with the closure of an eye.] Craig -- Fascinating stuff. Early last summer, partly as a result of reading Crowley's The Vision and the Voice, I had a dream I, as a child and along with a lot of other children, had been abducted by a half-man-half-scorpion creature. Craig: The phage got it again (reza) ----Reposted cause the phage got it... Reza: 'I simply see them as generous mothers pregnant of their minorities, thousands, millions of them; a female scorpion devoured by its own children, ripped apart from the belly.' Mark also wrote in the previous post: 'Christ is about a cut, a break in the cycle of abuse. Instead of being the abuse victim of Catholic iconography, Christ is a child abductor - 'only he who hates his father and mother can follow me' - the one who snatches the child from the cycle of time, from the grips of Kronos, 'the most honest of fathers'.' My own experiments have led to interesting conclusions, the mention of the scorpion touched off an association cascade within my experiences, so please forgive the impending ramble. 334

Consuming several tabs of LSD a little over a year ago, I communed with what I term the Scorpion Gods in an episode that I can explain either as an alien abduction experience or the awakening of kundalini. Being confronted with a vision of a Giant Scorpion, I was informed that the knowledge of 'soul-killing' would be imparted to me. This an interesting referential link to Morrison's Invisibles, which I had read - King Mob deals with the scorpion loa and the 'Assassin Gods'. FWIW I suspect a personal-cultural gloss was being run but am not sure. The scorpion then proceeded to sting me, by some freakish non-Euclidian means, inserting its tail through the anus and pumping venom into me, which I noted, began its passage up through my spinal fluid towards my brain, igniting the chakras as it went. Seeing/feeling flesh quiver as the poison progressed, I was informed that the knowledge of fluidic transmutation would be made inherent within me - through the death of ego, One would recall how to manufacture soma or venom in such a way that transmission of said bodily fluids would have an effect. Physical pain was experienced upon egoic death at the point of exiting the crown chakra. In the Western Mystery Tradition, Gabriel stands at the West, directly behind the magician in the LBRP. Symbolically his creatures are the scorpion and the snake. Barrett associates him with the Moon. It is said that a scorpion will sting itself to death when ringed by fire, suggesting it is by nature open to Death as a transformative process. Consider the parable of the scorpion stinging his mount even while they are in the river - acting solely according to its nature as killer. This is of course backed up by the legend that it was Gabriel who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. It is said that Gabriel transmitted the message of the Lord to Mary prior to her being overshadowed by the Spirit. He also appears to Daniel to explain his vision. There is also a legend in the Talmud that Gabriel saved the baby Moses from initial slaughter by the Pharaoh, and because of that is responsible for his speech impediment by guiding the babe to press a heated coal to his lips, proving to the king that the child was not a threat. He also told Zechariah about the coming of his son, John the Baptist. An interesting note is that the Mandean religion (which is extremely gnostic in nature and deserves looking at) holds that John was actually the Messiah. It appears that John 335

was a Nazarite Jew and Gabriel is also said to have foretold the birth of Samson another prominent Nazarite Jew. The Nazarites took a set of vows that set them apart from the rest - in effect dedicating them to God. According to some commentators, the town of Nazareth was so named because of the high proportion of Nazarites within its population. It is entirely possible that Jesus eventually took the Nazarite vow, and that his interactions with John the Baptist were related to their shared choice. In any case, if we take Gabriel as the Agent of God when dealing with Mary, the injection of bodily fluid - in this case meta-semen into the womb as soma provides the initiatory kick to allow the generation of the fusion of God and Flesh. Intriguingly, to the Germanic peoples, the Moon was male and went by the name of Mani. This is related to the rune Mannaz that has associations with the achievement of maximal human potential and essential connexion to the gods. Could this be yet another reference to the achievability of Divinity or Messiahood within each of us? In terms of Tarot, the Moon deals with the realms of watery unconscious and the socalled psychic sensorium. There is an implication again of fluidity. It is associated with Yesod and thusly the ninth path in the QBLH. Associated with Joseph as seer of dreams - and when Joseph was sold to the Midianites he was stripped naked, God sent Gabriel to transform the amulet he wore into a long garment that covered him. He wore it as Potiphar's slave and later as Viceroy of Egypt. Gabriel also taught Joseph the languages required - 70 - to be ruler of Egypt after which he added ‫( ن‬heh) to his name. Heh means window, or revealer. It also means 'the'. Thus in this context, the addition of the letter makes him Joseph the Revealer. Being as Gabriel is the mechanism of transmission, the Messenger of God who brings knowledge to those who he interacts with, the suggestion that Scorpion-Snake as Announcer and Initiator and Poisoner-Assassin that uses the fluids of the body seems indicative of some relation to DNA. Notably, the sacramental priests of Judaism are descended from Aaron. It should be noted as well that it was Aaron who turned Moses staff into a snake, and who stretched out his staff to cause the first three plagues on Egypt. In Lower Egypt, snakewands IIRC were carried by the priests, and for the Egyptians there was no distinction between religion and magick. According to 336

Jewish tradition it is Aaron who read the signs for the elders before they went to see pharaoh too. So we have Aaron performing magick as an initiated man in the court of the pharaoh - just as the sorcerers of the king. Aaron making a golden calf and saying to the Israelites here are your *gods* plural. Aaron of the tribe of Levi, first High Priest or Kohein Gadol or Israel, ancestor of all kohein or priests. The C/Kohanim are the hereditary line of priests who perform functions in the Temple involving animal sacrifice and other sacred Mysteries. They have the rights of aliyah or first blessing over the Torah on the Sabbath. Recent studies carried out on populations of kohanim have indicated common elements in the Y chromosome indicative of a common male ancestor. One of these populations is the Lemba, Black Jews of South Africa, just for kicks. (see: http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/the_cohanim__dna_connection.asp) One should note that after the destruction of the Temple, the importance of the Kohein lessened, and rabbis took over mostly. However, it appears as if descendants of a sorcerer served the mystic function of the Israelites. Further, if one recalls the fact that only the High Priest was able to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple. In the first Temple period, this small room contained the Ten Commandments, but after its destruction was supposedly kept empty, with only the High Priest entering once a year. Zechariah was High Priest, meaning that John the Baptist must have been kohanim, being a descendant of Aaron. Elisabeth, mother of John was referred to as a Daughter of Aaron and since those within the tribe of Levi intermarried, there is a possibility of that DNA being passed onto Jesus since Mary and Elisabeth were related. Whether or not Jesus carried Aaron’s DNA is unclear, however it’s not really a problem if we realize that Jesus was of the line of Jacob. Joseph was Jacob’s son, and he had experiences with Gabriel as already mentioned. Further some sources suggest that it was Gabriel who wrestled with Jacob and displaced his hip. The genetic heritage of the Israelites, and by possible extension, the Semitic peoples in general, is traced back to Abraham – suggesting the possibility that the DNA structure remains somewhat similar. 337

So then, could it then be that the Messenger, the Scorpion-Snake is the form taken which enables an individual to ‘read’ their DNA by directly experiencing it in sensory form, achieving Illumination in the context of consciousness? 9 is the number of psychopomps such as Anubis and Odin/Woden. We see that Gabriel is associated with the Tarot card of the Hanged Man. Woden is known as Hangatyr – or lord of the hanged – Gallows Lord and other names which relate to his hanging upon the World Tree for 9 nights, sacrificed self to self with a spear in his side. At the end of the period, the god wins the runes which he then uses in sorceries. Barrett associates 9 with Hod which seemingly contradicts its relation to Yesod and the Moon until we consider that Hod performs analysis and coolly draws forth from the chthonic forces of Yesod. Its planet is Mercury with all that it implies, being associated with the Tarot card of the Magician. It is thusly associated with Aaron, while Netzach is associated with Moses. Thusly, Magician/Adept/Revealer/Opener of the Ways is in actuality one that is able to ‘descend’ to the watery realm of the Ancestral Memory/Land of the Dead and bring forth knowledge of the Memory forth into the world. Uniting the spheres of Netzach and Hod, and performing operations within Yesod brings the Adept to Tiphareth. Where Netzach and Hod are Feeling and Thinking respectively, so we see Woden as being served by Huginn and Muninn. The similarity to uniting the hemispheres of the brain is striking. If we consider the Flesh to be that which is brought forth from the DNA, then in the case of Jesus, Gabriel brings the Anointed One into being. Christ-as-Adept then performs the operation on his physical intrusion into the sphere of Yesod – being the DNA found in his blood, as DNA is the physical record of all life on this planet and begins rendering it as Soma-pathogen to allow his disciples to do the same. Being the agent of self-mutilation and DisEase, Christ serves as Adversary to the Jewish Law. Body and blood, he is an infectious viral agent that tears down the structures built – being Arihman attempting to break free of the prison placed around it. Providing the Golden Soma, he transmits the elixir of immortality in direct contravention of the decree of the Demiurgos in order to allow humanity to regain what was taken from them by the tyrannical Creator(s) for daring to express free will and following the words of the Serpent Sammael-Gabriel and gaining awareness of ‘nakedness’. 338

The knowledge of Good and Evil is self-awareness. The knowledge that the Demiurgos fears humanity because we are its equals and thusly we have been blinded. The sacrificial nature of the Adept, that is, one who is ‘holy’ or set apart is indicative the true nature. By altering one’s consciousness through interactions with the SerpentKundalini – undergoing the transformative states of Death, one is resurrected and aware of one’s place and potential. Now set apart, one becomes an infectious agent, an initiator, and agent provocateur. In control of one’s own body, one may access what lies within to serve as elixir of Death-Illumination. Regarding Christ as abductor of children it is interesting to note the synchronicity that the translation of INRI in English is King of the Jews. In Germanic mythology there is an entity known as the erlking – supposedly a spirit that works much mischief and abducts children. In Middle English, erl means warrior or noble. In Danish, the same entity is called ellerkonge – or king of the elves. The OE form of king is cyning from the P. GMC Kunningaz. It is possible that this relates to the word cynn which we now source for our word ‘kin’ suggesting that the king is the one who has rulership of his family/people – or is of noble birth. Upon looking at the P. GMC root of the word, English speakers may see the similarity between kunningaz and the English word ‘cunning’. That word has the P. GMC root of kunnan which means to be mentally able or have knowledge of. This is related to the OE word ‘couth’ that only exists today within its own negative – uncouth. Kunnan has PIE roots in ‘gen’ and ‘gno’. The ‘gen’ may be the source of ‘ken’ but this remains unproven. Meanwhile, most are aware of the meaning of gno. Thus, king may mean ‘One who has knowledge of his people/race/family’. Further, it should be noted that the erlking is said sometimes to lead the Wild Hunt, a function mostly performed by Woden in Germanic countries. Further, the god is often seen as a warrior, lending a strange synchronicity to the name as ‘warrior-king’. The symbolic links between warrior and Adept are well known within the symbolism of the occult. Knowledge of one’s bloodline/potential and the uses of that information leads back to the practices of the Adept. It should also be noted that to the Jews, the Messiah was one who was to set them free from the Romans – indeed, some of Jesus’ disciples were Zealots and many expected a warrior-king. However, instead of an overt leader leading an army, in Jesus they discovered a disturbing ontological terrorist, whose very flesh and blood was viral in nature – the heresy of the transmission of the emissions of internal alchemy, mutating and hijacking its new hosts to produce new strains of the plague. The prolonged death of 339

the Crucifixion had Christ keeping the Door open as long as possible to allow the Outside in. At the Ninth hour, Jesus died. Returning three days later as a fully transmuted being, and on Pentecost the Adept ignites the fire of Kundalini in his disciples, allowing the Virus to fully colonise the forms of the disciples and begin the further transmission. The horror of the Crucifixion is, at base level, horror that one would choose to stand on the Threshold through choice for so long. The androgyne Satan moving through the crowd provokes discord, speeding the events that will lead to the Death of an Adept. ‘Did he finally die?’ is a wish for it to be over, for the door between inside and outside to remain open for as short a time as possible. Catholicism, with its ritual nature, subconsciously understands the underlying structures that reveal the Mysteries. Gibson’s glory of the Crucifixion is the glory of the Crossing of the Threshold. The damage to the body is revealed in unflinching detail – even with glee – sanctifying it, making it holy by lingering on it a way that, in every day life, we would wish it over with quickly. This emphasis on the holy nature of Christ is a direct attempt by the makers to inject Otherness into the increasingly homogenous society. An attempt by Catholicism to point out its qualifications once again as a Mystery tradition in the face of an increasing drive towards looking for the sense of sacred divinity. Yet, by focusing on the mechanism by which their Master Adept achieves his status, the Church actually shoots itself in the foot. Revealing the central Mystery as baldly as it does, it leaves no room for build-up. The money-shot without the foreplay – leaving those it wishes to come to it with the answers right in front of them. 340

Mistmare: From Fog to the Un-manned Reza Negarestani (October 24, 2004) Fascinating and excellent comments by Craig and the erudite Thistle. Here my pointless remarks, irrelevant comments on comments (the spirit of blogging). Thistle: The airiness of the area: By the Golden Dawn associations at least, there is a clear relationship of air, knife, and eye. Air comports light and makes vision possible. Craig: Further, it should be noted that the erlking is said sometimes to lead the Wild Hunt, a function mostly performed by Woden in Germanic countries. Further, the god is often seen as a warrior, lending a strange synchronicity to the name as ‘warriorking’.51 Should add Air actually invents certain visions: from a Wargasmic angle, it blocks all visions and engineers a type of vision associating with its own blinding functionality. Aer is actually the Fog of War, the vision-machine of warmachines as well as the source of their blindness (Col. West discovered every warmachine is born blind and only through the fog of war it can see, seeing other warmachines moving, copulating and finally being devoured by War). For the first time, Anaximenes rigorously introduced Aer as what is commonly known ‘Air’ (what makes vision possible); as you know, Anaximenes belonged to the cosmogonic tradition of Unification (Unificatory Cosmos) so his comments on Air tend to integrate with his other cosmogonic remarks in one body which narrates all cosmic processes as mechanisms of unification or more precisely a ‘union-separation-union-separation-union-sep …’ spiral (a spiral of quietness corresponding to Kerotakis or Reflux Condenser) whose objective is to distill all cosmic processes into one unified body … this was of course, a cosmogonic view which was incredibly inspiring for Plato and Aristotle; as you see, the discursive logical methods they developed have emerged from this cosmogonic tradition, Platonic con-solidation and Aristotelian contemplation are the apexes of this cosmogonic tradition. Theophrastus, as the academic slave of Greek Philosophy, resurrected the concepts of cosmogonic tradition and powerfully encored them within Aristotelian philosophy, ensured the history of philosophy that the 51 Both of these are responses to comments from “Meatology of the Redeemer” (in present volume). 341

cosmogonic tradition of (compulsory) Unification will live forever through a new host -- philosophy. The Air that Anaximenes reinvented in his philosophy was based on appropriating processes that Anaximander had already employed in his theories i.e. the pro-creationist process of apokrisis (or ekkrisis) or ‘regulating separation’ which distributes elements economically according to their affordance-based mutual relationships with their environment (economical / regulated openness); it actually stratifies universe into properly arranged layers which make unification as a dynamic process possible. This separation process is prerequisite for the cosmic union/separation machinery of the ultimate unification (I’ll discuss it in an article about sorcery and necromancy), the final union. Anaximenes, however, developed the process of apokrisis to two processes of rarefaction and condensation (you can follow these processes in the unificatory mechanism of Kerotakis which was invented and designed according to cosmogonic traditions of alchemy), the Air which he exported to future (the Air we know) was a vision-machine through which everything looks clear (that is to say already consolidated, forced to take the path of unification), this Air does not make vision possible but actually artificializes a vision that is consolidating, a cosmic-securing vision, an appropriating machine which gives anthropomorphians an artificial safety, rendering an artificial trust: an artificial clarity which gives you the opportunity to believe but also, at the same time, prevents you from reaching positive unbelief since the vision it gives you is a consolidated (‘clear’ in a unificatory sense) vision, already processed, already distilled. However, prior to Anaximenes, Aer was not a clearing machine but a blinding machine. Aer actually meant fog and darkness, not darkness as Tenebrae (from Sanskrit origin, tamas) (the darkness of shadow, the blinding space of shadow or the darkness that belongs to the underworld realm of death) but darkness as the greek omichle (the darkness of fog, mist, dust-clouds, the Mistmare). While Tenebrae belongs to death, Aer and omichle belong to war, the fog-of-war (those who play strategy-based videogames know the fog-of-war very well). During the War of Troy, the battlefield was darkened by Aer but after the legendary pray of Ajax to Zeus who begged: “Save us from Aer”, Zeus removed the Aer (the fog-of-war) from the battlefield to let them fight in the securing clarity of lightness. I have already discussed the fog-of-war here. Aer as the fog-of-war or the radical vision of warmachines is very relevant to Thistle’s brilliant comment on grid system of the panorama. Aer gives its wargasmic clarity merely as a kind of radical blindness. Moreover, Aer while is a vision-machine is also a cooling system for warmachines, engineering a meshwork (in a Deleuze-Guattarian term) which modifies the dynamism of Deleuze-Guattarian anomal, giving warmachines the unique opportunity of getting hotter, immersing 342

more in War through becoming, participating via anomal. Aer as a vision-machine attracts warmachines to War itself; it eats representation, evaporates the eye, bleaches the eye-vision. Warmachines do not see with eyes, as they have no eyes; they see, detect and sense with their movements, their exclusive dynamism (tacticity) customized by the fog-of-war, the Aer. Probe-heads are the protrusion of the surfacedynamics modified by the fog-of-war, infiltrated into warmachines. One should not miss the fact that the fog-of-war is also agitated and contagiously spread by the frenzy of warmachines, their dynamism and lines of tactics. Denser fog carries more violent warmachines. Disciples, now, are the occultists of the Aer, the mistmare. Interesting links between Fog and War in Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead (and John McTiernan’s movie, The 13th Warrior which is based on the real diaries of Ahmad Ibn Fazlan52 -- not Fadlan -- and the tale of Beowulf): the fog belongs to Odinn-Wodan, the darkest recesses of the Unlife of War. Both in the book and the movie, Fog or Aer is an Outsider, it accompanies (and aids) the frenzied Wendol which must be, in fact, the famous Berserkirs (bear-warriors) and Ulfhednars (wolfwarriors from which lycanthropy has emerged), the true and the most enthusiastic initiates of Odinn-Wodan and War. Dumezil writes in Les dieux des Germains, “in the ideology and practice of the Germans, war invaded everything, colored everything”, and so the Aer, the fog or to be exact, the fog-of-war. There is an intriguing connection in Crichton’s book and McTiernan’s movie, it is the connection between the Mother of the Wendol (who lives beneath the earth and should be the mother of the black earth, the underworld -- Hel) and the Fog. While the Mother protects them beneath the Erath, feeds them and opens its children to xenoexcitations to see WAR, the Fog directly engulfs them with xeno-excitations of war, implants a radical vision within them to be absorbed by war, and simultaneously makes them blind (blind war-crazed aliens from the realm of Odinn-Wodan). Interestingly, the fog gives them an infernomatic dynamism, they look as a dragon, a giant serpent as they come through the Fog. The mother is the war-sorceress of the Earth’s nether and the Fog is the war-diviner of the surface, so there is a bond between darkness as Tenebrae (the darkness of shadowland, the underworld and the Earth’s tellurian insurgencies -- Hel) and darkness as Aer (the darkness of the mist, 52 There is only one original copy of Ahmad Ibn Fazlan’s diaries and it is in Mashhad, in ‘Astan-e Ghods- e Razavi’ library. 343

the inter-stellar dust, atmospheric pollution -- the Mistmare), both are creeping toward one anti-vitalist becoming of the Earth, the Tellurian Omega through which the Earth reaches utter immanence with the burning core of itself (Cthelll) and the Sun. Those who have seen the movie may remember a strange statuette, an idol left by the Wendol in the slaughtered village, an artifact which strangely frightened Beowulf and his warriors even more than the fact that the dead bodies have been eaten. It was a swollen figuring with no head, legs, hands, but merely two large breasts which had lost their firmness obviously diagramming an old woman who has given birth to many children, a Mother in the shape of a BwO (Body without Organs). Technically, in archeology, these religious sculptures are called Venus and are not peculiar to specific regions. Usually they have no organs other than breasts but sometimes they have legs, hands and swollen faceless heads. The most ancient Venus discovered by Dr. Naama Goren-Inbar in 1980, the sculpture belongs to 23300 to 80000 years ago (archeologists have different ideas about the absolute dating). They all remind Jay’s remark, that motherhood directly connects to the most mysterious depths of occultism. [This has nothing to do with nature or the fact that nature is frequently represented as a mother; the functions of pregnancy, carrying, bearing and giving birth are themselves connecting to a deep occultism; or following Jay’s remark, they interconnect with a profound anti-creationist Ahrimanic creativity (pestilential creativity) and minority engineering] And should be added that in Greek elementalist tradition ‘the Mother’ directly connects to Khaos, the oldest mother, the first mother who is the goddess of Aer (air) – the Mistmare. As the first goddess of the Protogenoi (elemental gods) she was the mother or grandmother of the other incorporeal deities of the air: Nyx (Night), Erebos (Darkness), Aither (Light) and Hemera (Day), and the various Daimones. Comments: Mistmare: From Fog to the Un-manned Reza Negarestani: Dark fluidities ... Half-man-half-scorpion You guys are communicating with Tiamat’s agents? See Enuma Elish, Tablet III. 344

Craig: "One should not miss the fact that the fog-of-war is also agitated and contagiously spread by the frenzy of warmachines, their dynamism and lines of tactics. Denser fog carries more violent warmachines. Disciples, now, are the occultists of the Aer, the mistmare...Fog or Aer is an Outsider, it accompanies (and aids) the frenzied Wendol which must be, in fact, the famous Berserkirs (bear-warriors) and Ulfhednars (wolf-warriors from which lycanthropy has emerged), the true and the most enthusiastic initiates of Odinn-Wodan and War. Dumezil writes in Les dieux des Germains, “in the ideology and practice of the Germans, war invaded everything, colored everything”... While the Mother protects them beneath the Erath, feeds them and opens its children to xeno-excitations to see WAR, the Fog directly engulfs them with xeno-excitations of war, implants a radical vision within them to be absorbed by war, and simultaneously makes them blind (blind war-crazed aliens from the realm of OdinnWodan). Interestingly, the fog gives them an infernomatic dynamism, they look as a dragon, a giant serpent as they come through the Fog. The mother is the war-sorceress of the Earth’s nether and the Fog is the war-diviner of the surface, so there is a bond between darkness as Tenebrae (the darkness of shadowland, the underworld and the Earth’s tellurian insurgencies -- Hel) and darkness as Aer (the darkness of the mist, the inter-stellar dust, atmospheric pollution -- the Mistmare)" Irrelevancy Reza? I highly doubt it. Woden's Heiti, which are names, but in their earlier form of namn - being a combination Aspect/Form/Power wherein Foucaultian unpeeling of language /has not occurred/ and thus the name of a thing /is/ a thing - seem to back you up. Gapthrosnir -"One in a Gaping Frenzy" Gunnblindi-"Battle-Blinder" Helbllindi -"Host Blinder" Hroptr -"Tumult" Svafnir -"Sleep Bringer" Oðinn -"Frenzied One" Oðr -"Frenzy" Inspiration" ,"Fury", Viður -"Killer" "Divine Ginnarr -"Deceiver" Biflindi - "Spear/Shield Shaker" Gizur -"Riddler" Böðgæðir -"Battle Enhancer" 345

Bragi - "Chieftain" Hjaldrgegnir -"Engager of Battle" Darraðr - "Spearman" Hjaldrgoð -"God of battle" Drighten of the Spear Hjalmberi -"Helm Bearer" Geirloðnir -"Spear Inviter" Hnikarr -"Spear Thruster" Geirtyr -"Spear God" Hroptr -"God" or "The Maligned One" or "Hidden One" Geirvaldr - "Spear Master" Gunnar -"Warrior" Rognir - "Chief" Herjafoðr - "Father of Battle" Sváfnir -"Closer" Hergautr -"Host Gautr" Thrasarr - "Quareller" Herran - "Lord" Valgautr - "Slaughter Gautr" Herjan - "Harrier" Herteit - "Glad of War" Váfuðr Gungnis Gungnir" - "Swinger Hertyr -"Host God" Völundr rómu - "Smith of Battle" of Hildolf - "Battle Wolf" With his three brothers, Villi and Ve, Odin made mankind from the trees Aske and Embla. Odin gave These three are actually hypostases of each other Thus, Woden gave them the divine breath, or ond. This is found to be not simple breath, but rather the air that teems with the potentiality inherent within Divinity, seen in the roiling storm-clouds with their chaotic ions as lighning crackles among them. The Slain the Valfather chooses for Ragnarok are thusly War-Machines. They fight each other, destroying each other, yet return to health before each day in Valhalla is done. Their tactics become ever more and more complex, ever more formless and chaotic in order to achieve victory over the Primal forces of the Sons of Muspell. The death of the heroes and their Lord is the epitome of formlessness. By dying, they may infect the enemy and hijack him to their own ends. This is the case when Woden 346

is devoured by Fenrir - the Wolf being the 'solve' portion of the great alchemical maxim, the devourer and destroyer. Fenrir is then torn in two by the Valfather's son Vidar the Silent, jaws forced apart to allow Woden egress. Formless, the god leaves, permeating the new world formed after Ragnarok. I believe that it is no accident that I have beheld the Old Man in manifest form on misty days, or those with heavy rain or drizzle. Nor am I surprised by the fact that Nifelheim, where Hel has her hall, is a land of darkness and mist. Woden is present in all three planes (Upper, Middle, Higher) that reside on the vertical axis of the World Tree. He is present upon the Mound in Hel's domain, from where he calls up the Voluspa or Seeress. Draugadrottin - Lord of Ghosts" Hlefreyr -"Mound Lord" Gestumblindi -"The Blind Guest" Present in Midgard as Wanderer: Speedy One, The Farmognuðr - "Journey Empowerer" Vegtamr -"Way Tamer" Farmoguðr - "Journey-Empowerer" Viðfraeger -"Wide Famed" Frariði -"One Who Rides Forth" In Upper: Fundinn -"The Found" Bragi - "Chieftain" Gangleri -"Wanderer" Fimbultyr - "Mighty God" Gangraðr - "Journey Advisor" Foldardróttinn - "Lord of the Earth" Gestr - "Guest" Goðjaðarr -"God Protector" Gramr Hliðskjalfar - King of Hliðskjalf Haptabeiðir -"Ruler of Gods" Haptaguð - "God of Gods", "God of Men" Haptasnytrir - "Teacher of Gods" Harri Hliðskjalfar Hliðskjalf" -"Lord of Hár -"High One" 347

There is evidence that Tiw was once the primary god of the Germanic pantheon as Sky-Father in the classical Indo-European way, but was supplanted by/stepped aside for Woden. This may simply mean that Woden's nature as Chief god is purely due to his status as Adept-Assassin-King. Further, mist is formed from water droplets - melted ice. Hagalaz is the rune of hail dirty ice. When moved from a two-dimensional space into a solid, Hagalaz is capable of containing the entire Futhorc. Whereas the realm of the Dark Mother/Hel/Tiamat is associated with the waters that is, all things linked together in a liquid form, so Aer is the essential potential that permeates and is also permeable. Gaining knowledge from that Goddess - Tiamat giving the tablets to Qingu, Woden gaining a seeing from the Voluspa, the Aer rises up. Smoke/Mist on the water. The Mistmare thus also penetrates and is engulfed by the Waters - clumped together to form more water. Thus, at its most rarefied and High, it is composed of the same stuff as the thick waters Below, teaching the essential Mystery of As above, So below. If we see Mid as Earth then what we have is the waters coalescing, grouping together to give Form and solidity, while the Aer is the breaking apart of the Earth into Dust in the High. It should be noted that Aer, Earth and Water are equally present in all worlds/planes. The movement within these bodies gives rise to movement of Electrons. In certain conditions, the Electrons make themselves manifest in the form of an electrical storm, thus uniting Sky and Earth in the form of lightning, that brings Fire. Those who are Dragons come through the Aer as products of the Waters, the cool blood of the waters given hard outer form (shell/scale) by their passage through the Aer. The agents of Tiamat are thusly the Warrior-Adepts (Assassins/Knights Templar/Ulfhednars/Berserkers) coming forth to recruit folks in the War/Jihad. 348

The Outsiders given form to infect Hosts which will turn upon the Kings of the World in Wars of Ontology - Warriors striking as guerilla ontologists against the status Quo and the children of Marduk who brought it on themselves. thistle: No time, no time, no time. Only: Reza Negarestani: Craig, see 'Grasping war as a machine' And ...Following the long list of these exciting names, I can only re-confirm Dumezil’s quote. I thought Nick has also written some passages on Berserkeresque lines-oftactics and the way they were resurrected in Vietnam war as an exclusive tacticity of the West. If you haven’t read Nick’s book, I strongly recommend it; it’s out of print for quite sometime but you can check this for reading the synopsis. From Amazon: An important literary and philosophical figure, Georges Bataille has had a significant influence on other French writers, such as Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard. The Thirst for Annihilation is the first book in English to respond to Bataille's writings. In no way, though, is Nick Land's book an attempt to appropriate Bataille's writings to a secular intelligibility or to compromise with the aridity of academic discourse - rather, it is written as a communion . Theoretical issues in philosophy, sociology, psychodynamics, politics and poetry are discussed, but only as stepping stones into the deep water of textual sacrifice where words pass over into the broken voice of death. Cultural modernity is diagnosed down to its Kantian bedrock with its transcendental philosophy of the object, but Bataille's writings cut violently across this tightly disciplined reading to reveal the strong underlying currents that bear us towards chaos and dissolution - the violent impulse to escape, the thirst for annihilation. Ibn Maymun, a legion Reza Negarestani (October 24, 2004) Wandering among many emails I have received during the last month, I encountered a note from a fellow countryman and Hyperstition reader: he has pointed out that the man I’m speaking about as Ibn Maymun is not Persian and is not an occultist so I have given wrong information. He has added Ibn Maymun is a Spanish philosopher and physician. Answer: well, it depends … there are many Ibn Maymuns in history but two of them are very famous. 349

1. Abu Imran Musa ibn Maymun ibn 'Ubayd Allah (or as simplified in the west: Maimonides), the Jewish philosopher and physician born in Cordoba (1135-1204), famous for his scholarly and influential studies, he is also known as the Second Musa (Moses). 2. Abdallah ibn Maymun, Iranian occultist, occult-saboteur, Hyperstition engineer, the founder of Batiniyya whose main activity was concentrating militarism and religion through collective occultism (later, Batiniyya completely dissolved into Isma'ili sect, leaded by Hasan I-Sabah), one of the hidden Imams of Isma'ilis and a disobedient conspiracist. There are few texts on Ibn Maymun and they are mostly in Farsi and Arabic, I couldn’t find important English texts on his life especially because his thoughts and occult theories are entirely unknown to the western tradition of occultism and Hyperstition engineering (Attn CCRU Shanghai). Suffice to say, he has been called the faceless man, infamous for his thirst to rebel and undermine all institutions, religions and schools of thought. His theories are so complex and deeply rooted in eastern thought that western occultists can hardly understand. However, this enigmatic person changed the history of the Middle East. It is not an exaggeration if I say that the perplexing contemporary polytics of the Middle East is highly connected to his cultural / religious sabotages in the region during the most sensitive times in the history of Islam and the Middle East (he has messed with Middle Eastern religions and cultures too much). Attn Undercurrent: Studying Ibn Maymun is also important for he was a Muslim/Jewish/ Zoroastrian /Yazidi (or Yezidi) who turned syncretic Yazidi beliefs into practical military / political strategies and theories. I am not sure; I may translate a collection of his remarks and fragmentary texts in the future. For now: I could find two articles about Ibn Maymun and his activities on the net; I should warn they are based on incomplete or sometimes wrong information scrambled by western interpretations and personal oversimplifications but they can give you a clue about this advocator of the Z. crowd and Hyperstition puppetism. Blogs: no. 1 Reza Negarestani (October 25, 2004) 350

Undercurrent has started an excellent project on his blog and it is translating Michel Houellebecq’s work on H.P. Lovecraft (Contre le monde, contre la vie: Against the world, against life). I’ve already read a part of this long essay in Farsi, a friend of mine translated a part of it along with Gabrielle Wittkop’s controversial novel Le nécrophile and 50-60 pages of Pierre Guyotat’s tour de force Eden Eden Eden (which was better than the English translation), of course these translations were not supposed to be published in Iran. I read Lovecraft very late; well, because the monstrosities in his stories have been always too inspiring for Hollywood superpowers. Finally some essays on Lovecraft (including Houellebecq’s essay) and Nick’s intriguing and as always exciting comments on Lovecraft overcame my resistance. As Undercurrent mentions, what Houellebecq suggests is some kind of nihilism on/of life. I think like many writers with similar trends, Houellebecq has mistaken the process of survival or live-ing (libban, liffan: leaving life) or what we generally call life with Life as a germinal space in which survival should be appropriated as a fluxional and at the same time grounding process to simultaneously feed on Life and simply endure or survive from its unlife (a process of appropriating based on an economical openness towards life). The unlife of life as a radical abyss of openness is external to survival economy. Therefore, all communications of survival process or live-ing to Life are confined within the sphere of affordance and capacity since survival cannot digest radical openness unless through appropriation or filtering processes, it can only transform openness to affordance, the process from which it guarantees its survival, and eventually death. The communication of survival economy (again, what commonly believed as life) with Life should essentially be channeled through capacity which is the foundation of survivalism (the so-called pro-life). The functioning of capacity or boundary as horizon does not narrate the closure of Survival Economy, on the contrary it depicts the economical openness of boundary: boundary (horismos) starts from the edge to the outside not to communicate with the outside but to accommodate it. In the same way, pro-life is actually a pro-survival position, a pacified and passive position to conservatively interact with the (Un)life itself. Anti-Life, predictably, falls in the same trap; it becomes an agent of survival economy and economical openness as soon as it mistakes live-ing with Life. I’ll discuss all this soon in a long essay on Sorcery and Necromancy. The other issue, I think Houellebecq’s view on Lovecraft’s racism (it is too visible to be ignored) is arguable. I have discussed it in the fully updated version of A Good Meal which will be posted here before I make it online again or publish it in an anthology. 351

Undercurrent also talks about the necromantic invocations of the Old Ones when he speaks about the consequence of Lovecraftian cosmic nihilism; this will be also discussed in the essay about Necromancy and Sorcery. Does necromantic call is the consequence of this cosmic nihilism or it is an entirely different undercurrent which is too complex to be demarcated as sorcery and narrated through the dynamism of lines of flight? (Will be discussed in the essay) Anyway, many thanks for this great project … I know that free translations always need encouragements (let aside donations) so I ask other bloggers to encourage Robin Undercurrent. The process of translating must be exhausting so only warm encouragements can fuel the translator. Comments: Blogs: no. 1 undercurrent: thanks! Actually I'm just finishing the next part ('techniques of attack') which will be posted later today. The worst bit is that since I don't have a volume of Lovecraft's letters I have to translate them (with all adjectives) back from French, you can imagine how much fun that is, lol! I do think this is a remarkable book, a book that I could only dream of existing (like Thousand Plateaus). It's as if someone is describing the morbid reveries of my childhood back to me...! And now having read some of his other stuff has proved to me that Houellebecq is a writer who has developed (at least) an original and fascinating articulation of nihilism, obviously inherited in part from this early involvement with Lovecraft. I'd also like to respond to your comments on life/Life/anti-life soon Reza. I realise I have skirted the issue (partly because I don't have a quite clear understanding of it). I recognise the distinction though. As for Norwegian Omelette, there are plenty of other similar things in ATP that need decoding too...but meanwhile it gives the clone-army of Deleuze scholars some ideas for their nice dinner-parties ;) and btw I was an addict of Doom for many years...nick can tell you my first 'academic paper' was delivered to a drum&bass; soundtrack and projected backdrop of Doom! Reza Negarestani: I do think this is a remarkable book, a book that I could only dream of existing (like Thousand Plateaus). It's as if someone is describing the morbid reveries of my childhood back to me...! And now having read some of his other stuff has proved to me that Houellebecq is a 352

writer who has developed (at least) an original and fascinating articulation of nihilism, obviously inherited in part from this early involvement with Lovecraft. Absolutely … this book goes into my listmania in which books like A Thousand Plateaus, Blind Owl, Thirst for Annihilation, Artaud’s final works, Heroes and Tombs, and even the complete works of Plato and many other titles have already rested. I'd also like to respond to your comments on life/Life/anti-life soon Reza. I realise I have skirted the issue (partly because I don't have a quite clear understanding of it). I recognise the distinction though. It was just a pathetic remark … think I should develop it in this long essay about sorcery / necromancy. It’s 12 pages but still I’ve not started the section about necromancy yet. and btw I was an addict of Doom for many years...nick can tell you my first 'academic paper' was delivered to a drum&bass; soundtrack and projected backdrop of Doom! Curious, what do you think about Doom? I liked Doom but my favorites were Ultima and System Shock. Doom 3 however, despite all flaws and silly parts is truly a great work. For a long time, I was trying to look for a way to develop a narration-module based on videogame’s narration diagrams (mainly PC games) together with Nick. Finally we gave up, the narration in videogames is embedded within interfaces and interactions and it loses many of its features as soon as we try to domesticate it by writing; however, we could come up with a couple of interesting narration-modules to fictionalize Mecca-nomics, Gog-Magog Axis and Petropolitics hyperstitions. I remember you once discussed (possibly here) that story-based videogames suck. That’s true especially for playstation games; what I think stinks about playstation games is that they directly impregnate the videogame with traditional narrationmodules, they work horrible with interacting machinery of videogames. However, in recent years, PC games have succeeded to scramble traditional stories in videogames by different narration-modules and simulating techniques. The results are quite astonishing, I think. PS2 has also started to imitate the current trend of successful PC games (see The Suffering for example). Doom 3 has intentionally selected the old plotless ‘shoot n run’ style but it simultaneously forges exciting poly-plotlines at its margins while you blindly run through corridors and sectors, killing everything that pops up behind or in front of you. The developers have used a very simple but effective trick to immerse the gamer within a real story (Since as you know in Doom353

style videogames, every narration is a setback in the game’s architecture, a disruption in speed and timeless interaction): You have a PDA, you can connect it to all computers in the complex and download all data stored in PDAs of engineers, scientists, guards and workers; this includes their emails, spams, voice logs, reports, diaries, etc. Actually you must obtain some of them to unlock doors, shut down malfunctioning systems or get weapons and ammo. However, you are always tempted to search for all PDAs in a sector and figure out the puzzling story. undercurrent: what a bookshelf ;) Quickly - I just hate narrative in videogames ; that is, forced narrative (that's why, although I enjoyed it as I'd enjoy a film, I was never really _possessed_ by system shock as I was by Doom). IMHO the strength of doom is that it is less a _story_ than an annexation of the Human Perceptual Operating System. As we know, Doom was very much constructed as an OS, so that players could create new levels, monsters, etc. It was an open system, like the diametric opposite of a topdown agatha-christie operation such as Myst. And in all great videogames (space invaders, mario, pacman) , the nervous system comes first. The 'story' soon disappears when you become a twitching electrified insectoid, and any ensuing attempt at narrative intervention, puzzles, will always weaken this. Of course this makes the games of 'limited interest' (although each game, because of its intensive coordinates and mappings is extremely different) but this is the price of their experimental purification. sorry, I didn't reply about recent games, just because I haven't played any of them. I just got totally disillusioned with the whole genre. Reza Negarestani: What a bookshelf ;) Well actually I should say, it is just a listmania, I massively give my books to friends and never take them back so there is no actual bookshelf ;) Quickly - I just hate narrative in videogames ; that is, forced narrative (that's why, although I enjoyed it as I'd enjoy a film, I was never really _possessed_ by system shock as I was by Doom). Yes, I can understand; maybe the reason that I didn’t enjoy Doom very much at the time it released was playing it without sound. Years later, I returned to it but after playing hundreds of games, it had not the same effect. Plus, I should add I was not possessed by neither System Shock nor Ultima, the only game that really possessed 354

me was Thief: The Dark Project; for the first time AI leaked into your nervous system and tried to mess with your cognitive patterns by a neither-quite-digital-norcompletely-real intelligence. You could sympathize with pulp-horror movies that diagram videogames AI as something truly hideous trying to step into your nervous system, not merely suck you in as a digtal swarm but eating your intelligence or radically render it artificial; to play thief, you should always try to simulate your intelligence according to the AI and not vice versa (not like other videogames trying to imitate your cognitive patterns). Plus, Thief, I think, was the first bug-based videogame: you do not play, you just attempt to be part of the AI which in most cases is full of bugs, inconsistencies, crash-based behavior. The weak point of Thief was the lack of multiplying option; I always wished to see how collective playing works with this game. Open games: well, today, almost every game has an open editor with many parameters you can modify; neverwinter nights series, for example. So, it is not a very exciting feature nowadays. Jungle / Desert militarism Reza Negarestani (October 27, 2004) To pursue the difference between Jungle Militarism (ex. Vietnam War) and Desert Militarism (ex. WoT), first we need to slow down and grasp the difference between at least three Tellurian entities: Desert, Jungle and Forest, their dynamics, the lines of tactics they exclusively support (and the ways they customize these lines) and finally the distinct fog-of-war peculiar to these tellurian entities. First Jungle / Forest: Nick who has already worked extensively on Junglism must have incisive comments (he is busy atm so he can’t write on the topic soon); Looking forward to your discussions: Anna, Craig, Mark, Robin, Thistle and all other Hyperstition readers. This article is somehow intriguing from some aspects esp. for the reason that it criticizes Deleuze and Guattari for their imperfect understanding of Tropical Forests. That’s a precious position when blind-reading of DG is ruthlessly spreading among both academics and non-academics and Deleuze might join the racialized boneyards of dead philosophers and erect one of the deadliest regimes of philosophy. 355

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Comments: Jungle / Desert militarism Craig: Tackling Forest first: Etymologically speaking it arises from Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin forestis (silva), outside (forest), from Latin fors, outside. In England, the Forest was an area set aside by the monarch within which to hunt. A profusion of trees is the key here, though not in the D-G sense. The space within the Forest is permeated by the root systems of the trees. The tree is the most obvious illustration of the rhizome, in terms of its roots and branches. The tree roots hold the soil together while the branches extend to provide shelter. It is the Emission of the rhizome, illustrated as the leaves springing forth from the branch, which fill the spaces within the rhizome of the Forest. That is to say, movement takes place in the spaces between root systems. The ecosystem of the Forest takes place under the guardianship of the trees. The trees serve as gods of the Forest, that is, they are symbolic and immanent manifestations of the /genus loci/. Whether these be dryads, or the Green Man, the Trees serve as boundary-markers, inherently jealous of their territory - so much so that at their height, even light is impeded from entering their domain. Within this domain, the flora and fauna are shielded and enclosed in a fashion that renders them more mysterious - that such things may exist inside the enclosure that the Trees guard so zealously infuses them with a sense of Otherness. See Tolkein's work regarding the Ents for an illustration of the function of Trees in relation to other flora and fauna. They have a seemingly unswerving dedication to guardianship - the Trees may live centuries performing their function, a fact that dwarfs the human life-span and hints at the essential non-human nature of the forces within them, and the spaces they guard and pervade. It is interesting to note that originally, it was only the king who was allowed to hunt in the Forest - they were essentially his to do with as he willed. See my comments on the Meatology of the Redeemer regarding the etymology of the word king. 357

Essentially, the king is symbolic of the Adept of Humanity. Thusly, it may be said that the king must have ties or attachment/links to all the entrances/exits to the Telluric Spheres within his own particular domain which is given to him by his people. The Indo-European roots of Forest lie as deep as actual roots: dwher - Door, doorway (usually in plural). Originally an ablauting noun *dhwor, *dhur-, in the plural, designating the entrance to the enclosure (*dhwor-o-) surrounding the house proper. In suffixed o-grade form *dhwor-ois (locative plural). Thus the Trees that form the Forest to the eyes of most of humanity are in fact only the Doorkeepers to the enclosed spaces Within and Between the rhizome. The Forest is a realm of darkness, and as such, the Fog of War within its environs is soup of Aer and Erath, with a larger proportion of Erath involved. Thusly, WarMachines involved in Forest campaigns are essentially camouflage based, producing autonomous colonies which interact on a parasitical level with the Trees themselves. Within the spaces of the Forest, the Hunter-Seeker-Dweller WarMachine complexes use the all-pervasive root systems of the Trees to be become almost non-local in nature. Thusly, blending with their environment, the HSD becomes a unified structure of the Forest-Space on a quantum level, able to observe/feel movement and disturbance within the Forest, accessing the totality of information within a broken tree-branch or a footprint. The rapid dissemination of this information within a network of HSD's leads to the instantaneous transmission of information, allowing pinpointing of the prey or interloper within the space. Examples of mythic, large-scale HSD complexes can be found in the mythology surrounding Robin Hood, Merlin, and Herne the Hunter as well as countless others. Jungle-space is essentially similar to Forest-Space in a variety of ways except that the environment itself is inherently more hostile. If we regard Vietnam and the Rainforests of Brazil as Jungle-Space then one may see that again, Trees play a great role, in providing enclosure. As the article Reza commented on suggests, JungleForest space has a tendency that bars and encloses – a place of openings and closings, irregular, organically grouped spaces within a space that is Outside – thus those who function within it ‘trust their feelings’. 358

Each telluric space/sphere has its own distinct method of encoding its information. The War-Machines that attempt to colonize such places must adapt, becoming /like/ the place in order to function – essentially hijacking already present mechanisms and thus becoming part of the information network of the space by digesting and integrating its protocols. While singular Forest-Space has large-scale hostile predators in the form of wolves, bears, boars etc, so singular Jungle-Space has fewer large-scale, and more small-scale predators that are equally harmful. Poisons abound and the one who enters into this space must be able to decode the meanings and dangers within. Jungle-Space is also inhabited by Aer-Erath Fog of War though there is a higher proportion of Water than in Forest Space. Thusly, Jungle WarMachines exist in a soup of MUD – Multiplexial Universalist Deontology, with lesser emphasis on the darkness/blinding brought about by Aer than Forest-Space. Popular Culture places the film ‘Predator’ as the epitome of maximal effectiveness within the context of the Wargasm in Jungle-Space. The chameleonic Predator moves easily through the jungle, hunting and killing the soldiers by becoming unified with the environment. Ultimately however, it is Arnie’s covering of himself with MUD that enables him to disappear and kill the alien. At the other extreme, Desert-Space is Empty where Jungle-Forest space is Full but both exert heavy-duty ontological pressure upon observers. Jungle-Forest Space contains a distribution of information and noise that is fairly regular, however DesertSpace is a great expanse of noise under which certain hostile hunters – that is scorpions/snakes burrow. Meaning, therefore, and resources are grouped in oases which desert inhabitants travel between in order to trade and gain complexity by sharing information and creating ‘new’ messages. DUST being the medium of the War in the desert, those who travel within this pestilential fusion of Aer and Erath are infected by it, becoming its agents, breathing it in. Desert tactics therefore require that one operate from the network of oases in a nomadic fashion, moving under the cover of Darkness imposed. Further, if one wishes to attack in the desert proper, one must bury oneself in the sand/DUST which lies quiescent, operating /under/ the noise. Similarly, there are those who must follow the underground tunnels formed by long-dead Tree-roots within Forest-Jungle – and those who dig their own, in order to protect the Trees and the essential enclosed space – Hunter-Burrowers-Priests. Operating under the noise of the sand-leaf-litter, the 359

burrower-hunter-killer-dwellers occupy the subtlest of positions, thus enabling them to strike from positions where the enemy/prey has no erected defence because he believes his foe to be elsewhere. DUST is primarily a construct of Erath and Aer with very little of the Water – that which exists in the Desert-Space is found in oases or deep down by the burrowers. There is however, a fourth telluric space. Just as Jungle and Forest make Jungle-Forest Space and its accompanying tactics, so Desert has a brother in Mountain. Mountain reaches high into the Aer, its ontological pressure both has a looming and also a penetrative quality. Upon the summit of the Mountain, that High place with roots that stretch cavernous and cave like Below, Aer facilitates blindness of another form, leaving Mists which delude the eye and conjure phantoms which may drive those on the Mountain over the edge to their deaths. It is no accident that Hassan I Sabbah was called the Old Man of the Mountain. High above, even Aer thins, leaving us with a second form of blindness – that of the previously Unseen. Blinded by such crystal clarity those occupying Mountain-Space must either descend, or be rendered completely disconnected from the world below. Mountain is Much Erath and Aer with more Water than Dust Further, consulting with the legend of the Assassins we find that the Order held valleys and passes from which they drew their resources, secure places which were networked by the hidden trails and mine-workings which led them /down/ into Mountain-Space without actually leaving the space and returning to ground level. The tactics of the Assassins are well known, their combination of mysticism and expertise, taught to them by one whose very title speaks of his union with the space, are indicative that the fluidicswarm nature of the War-Machines must essentially unify with the Space that they occupy, injecting themselves into a symbiotic relationship which allows the nonspecific Hunt-Seek-Dwell-Kill to occur. Reza Negarestani: Craig, brilliant stuff ... it takes time to answer this; have problems with my internet connection (perhaps modem). in the meantime, i should take some sleep. insomnia is exhausting all energies. Against The Worldly mark k-p (October 27, 2004) 360

For all its superficial silliness, the news that the British navy is to admit a practising Satanist into its ranks is a cultural event of some magnitude. At one level, this is simply yet another sign - after the ridiculous vampire example I cited over at k-punk - that, so far as the Secumenical west is concerned, nothing is beyond the pale. (Except Christianity of course, which, as some - though, praise Uttunul, not all of the responses to my Passion of the Christ post confirmed, is embarrassingly unacceptable to the postmodern, post-Enlightenment, patholiberalized west.) The RN Satanist episode could seem simply comic, and indeed it is uproariously funny. What next? An al Qaeda operative being welcomed into the US military? A Nazi claiming political asylum in Israel? Given that it can only be fear of litigation that has prompted the Navy's tolerance, this incident is further confirmation that in the west, Lawyer Plague has long since gone virulently endemic, a sick and sickening cultural virus eroding all personal responsibility and ethical accountability in a kind of perverse fusion of corporatism, Derridean deconstruction and Clintonian equivocation ('it depends what you mean by "is"'). In the lair of the blurred, the lawyer-liar is king. (Or Prime Minister). At another level - and this perhaps amounts to the same point differently put - the sublime hilarity that the Royal Navy Satanist evokes indicates that the Wittgensteinian logic of mystagogic 'tolerance' has reached its inevitable, absurd conclusion. Repudiating the Logical Positivist philosophy to which his early work had contributed, Wittgenstein famously argued that religions were 'language games', 'forms of life' which could not be rationally analysed or assessed by those not participating in the 'way of living'. Logical Positivists were wrong to demand that religion (or any other discourse) be subject to logic or empirical verifiability because both logic and science were themselves only language games, no more - or less - valid than any other. There was no meta-language game, no transcendent perspective 'outside' the play of different discourses which could legitimately claim to arbitrate them. It's a short step from this to the now widely accepted postmodern 'incredulity towards meta-narratives'; no surprise, then, to reflect that Lyotard leant so heavily on Wittgenstein in The Postmodern Condition. Now, as we are all well aware, for Wittgenstein, as for his postmodern successors, there would always turn out to be a meta-language after all - the meta-language of language games itself, with its implicit, unworkably paradoxical ethics of obligatory tolerance towards all cultural groups. The incredulity towards meta-narratives wasn't 361

itself a religious conviction, just as cultural relativism isn't a cultural position. It is - in the unstated view of its adherents in the Secumenon - just 'normal', a state of disbelief those not fortunate enough to be members of the Western elite can look forward to one day attaining. One of the many virtues of John Gray's work is to expose the appalling hubris of the Secumenon's unstated presuppositions about the superiority of their vacuous quasiscientistic anti-theism. In Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern, Gray demonstrates that the positivist cult of science is in effect a religion, with its own unargued assumptions, priests and observances. This could sound like language games all over again, but Gray is no postmodern relativist. Rather, he is an anti-modernist Schopenhauerian pessimist, gleefully-gloomily eviscerating what he identifies as the West's deepest religious commitment: faith in Progress. Yes, everything is religious - especially the militant atheism of the White Euroisie but some religions are more dangerous, more pernicious than others. Hence Gray's paralleling of Islamofascism with the CrUSaders is not a banal gesture of moral equivalence ('they are both as bad as each other'), it is a recognition that al Qaeda and Bush are both fundamentally modern, both fundamentally modern(ist). For Gray, the way out therefore seems to lie in a rejection of the disastrous modernist myth of Progress and a qualified return to the pre-theistic cyclical time in which history is without any meaning, redemptive or otherwise. Gray is rigorously Schopenhauerian in his belief that the problem is the Western subject's belief in itself. It is precisely Ego that is the problem, the hell in which we are trapped, burning. But this Ego is merely maya, appearance, phenomena: the task for human beings is to suspend these mirages in order to flee the Burroughs' 'penny arcade peep show', the endlessly turning ferris wheel of desolate hedonic repetition, the Garden of Delights. All of which brings us back to Chris Cranmer, the Navy's Satanist. Cranmer is a member of LaVey's Church of Satan, which holds that 'Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence' and 'Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification.' What could be more drearily banal than this weary black candle-lighting for egoistic carnality? It might be uh tempting to decry Cranmer and LaVey's version of Satanism as a sad travesty of 'true' Satanism, but isn't the uncomfortable reality for the transgressive Marilyn Manson panto crew that Cranmer and LaVey's tawdry cult of 362

Self is a kind of fundamentalist Satanism, a pure Satanism stripped of all extraneous stage-setting histrionic devices? Satan is well known to the prince of Lies. With this in mind, we must concede that Blair and Clinton, in this respect if no other, are much more Satanic than Bush who, as s The Economist has long argued, is at least honest about what he is. Devil's Advocate was an atrocious film, but its premiss - that today's Satan would be the head of firm of lawyers - was compelling and provocative, because it appreciated that the postmodern - the cultural logic of late Kapitalism, Jameson was right to insist - might be defined as the moment in which ubiquitous Law displaces - or, to use Kafka's terms - indefinitely postpones, Justice. And postmodern Law is precisely not some transcendent absolute but the bad immanence of a Kafkaesque legal abgrund, a selfsupporting, literally interminable, bureau-labyrinth. Yes, Satan's dominion is the realm of the worldly. Hence the crucial scene of temptation in the desert: 'Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus turned back from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for forty days and for forty nights he was put to the test by the Devil. During that time he ate nothing, and by the end of it he was hungry. "If you are the son of God, command this stone to become a loaf." But Jesus replied, "Scripture says, 'Man does not live by bread alone'." Then, leading him to a height, the Devil showed him in a moment of time all the kingdoms of the world and said to him, "To you will I give all this power and their glory, for it has been handed over to me, for me to give to whom I choose. Worship me, and it shall all be yours." But Jesus answered him, "Scripture says, 'You must worship the Lord your God; him alone must you serve.'" Then he led him to Jerusalem and set him on the highest parapet of the Temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said to him, "cast yourself down from here, for scripture says, 'He has commanded his angels to guard you,' and again, 'They will bear you in their arms lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" But Jesus answered him, "Scripture says, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Having run through every way of tempting him, the Devil left him, until the opportune moment. (Luke 4:1-13) As Jack Miles observes in Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God: 363

'In this episode, which gave rise to the proverb "Even the Devil can quote scripture," Jesus and the Devil confront each other as duelling Jewish intellectuals.' The issue is: what kind of power do Jesus and Satan have? It is clear that Satan's dominion extends to everything in the world, including Jesus' own organism (which he is able to physically transport). The temptation, here as in the Passion later, would be to submit to the carnal cravings of the organism, to take the easy option offered by the pleasure principle, and therefore to grant credence to the worldly. Yet, here as later, Jesus is impassive. He is precisely not Passionate; his strength lies in quieting the relentless demands of his own organs, in overcoming the default human tendency towards Spinozist passivity. As The Passion of the Christ makes clear, the Devil, however, preys upon the passive. Not only the militantly psychotic Roman soldiers who gleefully beat the upstart Messiah, but also the apathetic passers by, the crowd who either participate in the baiting, sneering and humiliation or else stand by quietely and permit it to occur. What then, are the 21C equivalents of the Romans and the passive Crowd? Well, for the moment, if not for that much longer, Amerikkka is the Spectacular-Optical Kapital of the carnal-worldly. Military might and the power of the $ and the degraded hyperstitions they generate - there's no point doing anything, global Kapital is inevitable, unstoppable - these are the means by which Wordly passivity weighs upon us, inducing us to wall ourselves up further in our the luxury padded cells of our OedI-pod Hells. Satanism is not aberrant, transgressive, dangerous. It is normality in person. Grasping war as a machine Reza Negarestani (October 28, 2004) Craig, I love the way you have disintegrated the discussion into numerous diabolic particles. It’s really hard to track each one of them and write a deserving comment 364

but for now (first check the “No Subject” post for some recommendations and read the following piece as a brief and dense answer to one of the threads you discussed): Craig: The Slain the Valfather chooses for Ragnarok are thusly War-Machines. They fight each other, destroying each other, yet return to health before each day in Valhalla is done. Their tactics become ever more and more complex, ever more formless and chaotic in order to achieve victory over the Primal forces of the Sons of Muspell.53 *** Together with Nick, I have started to search for a way to grasp war as an autonomous entity (grasp war as a machine with machinic particles / parts without raising any moral bluster ... a dangerous and difficult task of course, I know that) ... briefly, it can be formulated in this way: “War spawns warmachines to devour them and snuff their military survivalism; this is the Unlife of War.” This model increasingly distances itself from Deleuze-Guattarian model according to which the collisions of warmachines ‘produce’ war as a conclusion of (re-)heated warmachines (a model according to which war is somehow thermodynamically grasped through the conflictive tacticities of warmachines). In the model of WAR-as-a-Machine we have undercurrents (instead of the main role of tacticity) on which warmachines move forward and according to which are customized (you have already noticed that petropolitical undercurrents, for example, function as Telluro-occultural lubricants on which everything slides, moving forward in all directions); another certain element of this model is that it works through incinerating spirals: war constantly pumps cooling Aer (fog-of-war as a cooling system) into the battlefield to simultaneously cool down warmachines (strategically offers them new opportunities to get hotter) and incinerate their bodies, even their trajectories. The spiral reaches a meltdown point -- DEEP-SHIT or SNAFU -- from which there is no return (warmachines gradually hit autonomy in forming the spiral to reach its incinerating point), it is an infernomatic heat-death instead of a thermodynamic re-heating which is the required impetus of warmachines and can be transformed into their dynamism and military survival (the fuel of warmachines and their collision engine). At the meltdown point warmachines are emptied of their survival militarism (but not become suicidal in the way we imagine), they sorcerously initiate as the hunting particles / parts of WAR (war hunting warmachines). Either cremated to ash (Dust-to-Dust) or evaporated as GAS, 53 This is referring back to Craig’s comment on the post “Jungle / Desert militarism” (in the present volume) 365

warmachines disappear into the fog at the meltdown point: a tempest of diverging particles. And one should remember that ‘particles’ constitute the al-khemy of any sorcery. In this model, warmachines’ principle of navigation (probing) or simply C&C; (command and control or command and conquer) apparently becomes impossible at the subjective level. This model has an extremely complex machinery functioning at the level of strategy rather than tactics. The incinerating spiral works in a similar way to Adept-Warriors of Valhalla you described, who dust themselves and are resurrected tirelessly (Dust to Dust model which we have discussed) In the videogame series, Max Payne, Project Valhalla is also a secret militaryhyperstition experiment for triggering the hyperstitional dissolution of the State, all its denizens, with everything at its margins (junkies, nomads, renegades, etc.) The archeo-demonographic figure of this spiral, as you suggested, is Dragon or as in the ancient Persia and Babel (Babylonia), Azhi54. The coiling spiral-drake (drake: dragon; 'draco-spiralism') becomes highly pertinent in WoT (War on/of Terror) as you have noticed in the Pipeline Odyssey: petropolitical undercurrents are directly associated with the agencies of Islamic Apocalypticism; Islamic warmachines55 are smuggled within oil undercurrents to the west -- they are also supported by their cults (for example the oligopolistic OPEC) -- when they reach their destination, they start to fuse with berserkeresque warmachines of the west which are actually feed (or rather feast) on oil. Western (techno-capitalist) warmachines are attracted to (or actually become thirsty for) oil resources and petropolitical entities, and since already (stealthy) programmed by Islamic warmachines smuggled through oil, they militantly rush toward Islamic warmachines or in other words and more precisely, they are attracted to Islamic warmachines by an internal force already mutated them from within (via thier oily nervous system); during the collision which happens on the level of tactics but triggered by strategy, western warmachines are depleted of ‘oil’ and ‘the mutating programs of Islamic Apocalypticism’ (a twisted enthusiasm to interlock with Islamic warmachines) already implanted within them by petropolitical undercurrents; 54 Jahangir Cooverjee Coyajee has an excellent essay on Azhies / Dragons (esp. Zahak or Dahak and Tiamat or Tiah’mat) and the Apocalyptic Literature in his book, ‘Cults and Legends of Ancient Iran and China’ (Bombay, 1936). 55 Islamic Warmachines: Adept-engineers of Islamic Apocalypticism, or Ghiamat (Qiyamah) where the military survival of each warmachine should be consumed, snuffed out. 366

therefore, as soon as western warmachines are depleted of their fuels and propulsive programs (in WoT), they run for more blobby and more subterranean dimensions of petropolitics, engaging with more complex entities of Islamic Apocalypticism; all this makes a spiral-drake (at each sequence constituted by a petropolitical cycle directly linked to Tellurian hyperstitions about Oil: whether Thomas Gold’s panorama of infinite and rechargeable oil resources or FFF program, the myth of Finite Fossil Fuels) to the unlife of war (WAR-as-Machine). This model (grasping war as a machine) has more machinic parts which I will discuss later. There are many people who accompany us in this massive search for deciphering petropolitical undercurrents and positively disintegrating war as machine parts with machinic functions: Abdulah Ibn Maymun, Thomas Pynchon, Judge Holden (“War endures ... War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. ... war is god”), Jay or Jeh and finally Colonel West among ‘many others’ (the Z. Crowd). Summarizing above discussions: The effective way to grasp WoT is to grasp War as a Machine. Deleuze-Guattarian model fails to exhume undercurrents and subterranean entities and processes at work in WoT (WWIV). This is why Delta Force (the former secret military society of Col. West) had no success to NAMify the growing desert of Islamic Apocalypticism. This is not Vietnam, this is not jungle, desert is always ready to subvert all human thoughts, to suck warmachines dry. The sado-conspiracy of desert is to let warchmines be easily camouflaged; that means it brings the ultimate nakedness to warmachines, brutally exposing all their properties, trajectories and inner mechanisms, peeling off all camouflages from their quivering bodies. Desert does not camouflage warmachines; it camouflages War itself. Comments: Grasping War as a Machine Craig: If we treat the Shoggoth as the original primal Machine-Technology employed by the Elder Things, then by analogy, these mindless Metamorphic Entities are first used in War against Cthulhu and his Starspawn, along with the Fungi from Yuggoth, just as War-Machines are used. As the battle continues and Shoggoths are eliminated, so a sense of self-prservation kicks in, a kind of primitive sentience which raises the Shoggoths to a new level of consciousness. [http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/danthropology/papers/shoggoth.htm] 367

"Elderian mythology holds that the Elder Ones, on planets they inhabited prior to arriving in our solar system, had gone through mechanical and electronic ages just as mankind has. But mechanisms such as automobiles and airplanes are of little use for creatures that live mainly underwater, walk fast on land, and fly through the air. But during those ages, they did develop the science of artificially manufacturing the building blocks of life their own form of genetic engineering. ... Later man would create machines of metal like tractors and cranes to do his work. The Elder Ones, on the other hand, created 'machines' by reshaping or mutating organic substance into an animals capable of fulfilling a necessary function such a stone cutting or earth moving. Of these 'organic machines' the most impressive and useful form were called the Shoggoths of which Abdul Alhazred, the mad author of the Necronomicon, swears that none were ever bred on this planet, that only dreamers drugged on a certain alkaloidal herb could have conceived them, that they are the invention of primitive myth. The records Dyer discovered seem to tear away the mad Arab's attempts to hide the horrific facts. ... Elder Ones were able to manipulate deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and cytoplasm to create self-duplicating, clear cellular creatures which were electrically charged to cling to others of their kind. Some of this creation process was performed by the physical manipulation of matter...The Elder Ones carefully encoded the beings both a lack of self initiative and the ability to transmogrify on command. Shoggoths, therefore, had a constantly shifting shape and volume. But they held the ability to reform into entities with the imitation of the form, organs, processes, and actions of other lifeforms. Under the control of their Elderian masters, the Shoggoths would mutate temporarily into whatever shape was required for a specific task. ... Shoggoths were easily controlled by the Elder Ones, much the way a queen ant or bee controls her hive. Through their genetically encoded programming and telepathic contact, learned their functions quickly. 368

As other alien forms found the planet, a long period of warfare began with the Elder Ones battling such newcomers as the Great Race, Cthulhu and his spawn, and the Fungi from Yuggoth. During this period, the Shoggoths began to mutate on their own. This may be due to the use of Shoggoths in warfare where a natural instinct for independent survival began to emerge in the loathesome creatures. Whatever the cause, the Shoggoths began to evolve independently as they reproduced by means of fission. ... Perhaps the muttered, disjointed phrases Danforth uttered to Dyer before he took his life give us a glimpse into this horrorifying end of the Elder Ones: "The black pit," "the carven rim," "the proto-Shoggoths," "the windowless solids with five dimensions," "the nameless cylinder," "the elder Pharos," "Yog-Sothoth," "the primal white jelly," "the color out of space," "the wings," "the eyes in darkness," "the moonladder," "the original, the eternal, the undying."..." Cthulhu and his Spawn, the Octopus-Headed-Dragon of the Waters, where He dwells in sunken R’lyeh, not Dead, simply dreaming is the initiator. When the Stars are right the Priest of the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods will rise and devour the world in icy waters. Drake within the Mythos, the Destroyer of the structures of Mankind, it consumes the War-Machines in battle, invoking self-preservation instincts in the ShoggothMachines which then turn to Hunters and begin to Devour the Elder things in their horrible mimicry of Elder Speech “Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li” Cthulhu, Minister/Priest of the Outside brings a new kind of existence to the Machine-Shoggoths. The Carven Rim and Black Pit are the Holes, tunnels of Holey space through which the Unlife may seep through. That proto-shoggoth is Unlife itself, the seething chaotic profusions of value-stripped War that repels us with its Strangeness, and in a desperate attempt to comprehend the blackly Numinous labels it a place of Soul-Shattering Evil. As Yog-Sothoth, the Key and Gate, WAR dwells hidden until the War-Machines achieve Hunter Status. Once this occurs, they become the intrusion of WAR into our phenomenal reality – beserk WAR-Machines whose Feyness (see the link in thistle’s comment on ‘No Subject’) renders them with no Ontology other than WAR 369

Even the addictive properties of the Oil engineered by the Islamo-Apocalypsists are made invalid – replacing the hunger for fuel with the hunger to Hunt. This Hunger is Greater than the addiction. Just like Shoggoths which combined to perform tasks, so the urge of Western War-Machines to fuse with their IA counterparts is a symptom of the Desire of the Unlife of WAR to become an Emergent Property of our Universe. Being inherently a property of Universe-B, Unlife is already present in this Universe – being as our Universe is a hologram formed from the intersection of Universe A and B (See vesica pices for illustration, - the ideogram of two hyper-spheres overlapping) the existence of War-Machines which have passed through the Dust to Dust process becomes a compression of Unlife in phenomenon form. Essentially, Hunter-Seeker-Killer Machines are the Annointed Ones or Messiahs of WAR . The Fog of War acts as a cooling system for Machines by blinding them, that is, preventing them from sensorial overload that will render them ineffectivive immediately due to the omnipresent profusion of targets. To stare WAR full in the face is to become paralysed by its nature – defeating the point of the Machine’s existence. Instead, the Machines of the West seek out their Enemy-Twins in darkness, a silent protocol that requires construction of an elaborate probability scale and huge processing power. It is this tactical simulation and attempt to gain SIG-INT that causes overheating – the Machine’s Neuro-processor core eventually burns out, leaving only basic motor functions. These Machines, now mindless on the battlefield, are recycled by any machine who comes upon them, the records of the intelligence gathered assimilated and used to run better attempts at tactical simulations and predictions. By processing some much data from various differing units, the Friend-Foe signals become increasingly harder to interpret until this interpretation itself adds to the strain on the processor and Burnout occurs. The thicker the Fog of War, the more machines are present, since the area that is most hidden requires the most intelligence to be gathered about it. Consequently, both sides of Machines automatically gravitate to these thicker areas. Thus, while more simulations are run, each Machine finds more sensorial echoes within that space to factor into its simulations, thusly again increasing the operating temperature by an almost exponential factor. 370

Areas of dense Fog are littered with the Corpses of Machines that are constantly being devoured and reused to increase Functionality and therefore speed of burnout – the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Therefore, there comes a point for Machines where the Friend-Foe signals become the same, being as it has become impossible to differentiate between the two. Thus, without the distinction, the Machine is no longer paralysed by its programmed associations because they disappear. Everything becomes prey and the Machine is now able to regard the Face of WAR as the fact that Everything is Prey-Food. By breaking the imposed taboo of Friend-Foe, the Machine slips into the State of Unlife of WAR. The words of Hassan I Sabbah echo here: “Nothing is True, and Everything is Permitted.” None of the simulations the HSK Machine runs are taken to be optimal or true, rather, all must be explored and all targets within those multiple simulations must be engaged. Yet as it moves through the Fog, it gains yet more simulations, yet more targets. It is always on a Mission. Never able to stop, always moving, always Hunting, taking what it needs and moving on – existing only to WAR.. Reza Negarestani: Craig, sorry for the delay ... I’m writing some answers to your excellent comments; will try to post them tonight. tedrud: War as machine; a useful similie for evoking grinding, autonomous man eating force of nature. James Hillman speaks from the depths and draws a similiar picture of the "machine". A terrible love of War synthesizes and elaborates many of the core ideations floating around in this hyperdimensional discussion. War as archetypal, (Mars), force would give us an interesting direction to metaphor in... oh yeah.. speaking of cults and petropolitical undercurrents..check out the roots: Sayid Qutb', pan-arab apocalyptic teacher/guru to OBL and others - and his archetypal nemesis: Leo Strauss--megademigod of the neocons...u of Chicago, socratic and obscure. The synchronicities and intrigue will draw you deeper into the subcurrents sweeping worlds together. Strauss is fun. Others complain of his obscuranity and esotericism but u will recognize these as hallmarks of his genius when you appreciate just how influential his thought, philosophy has become. its worth the effort. Qutb is still a challenge. i dont know him yet but i sense his presence.. 371

Reza Negarestani: tedrud, thanks very much for the comments; yes Qutb, Faraj, Strauss, and many others ... i think you have read Paul Berman's book on Qutb (Terror and Liberalism); we had a brief discussion a long time ago on Berman's take on Qutb (victimology and lex talionis + Jihad: The Absent Obligation). You should definitely check all other posts on Islamic Apocalypticism, WoT, Petropolitics, Jihad's desert-militarism and the US hegemony. Take a look at Hyperstition's Index (del.icio.us/Hyperstitionarchive) it will help you to find the topics (Xerodrome;Mecca-nomics;Desert-militarism, War-as-aMachine, Petropolitics;Blobjectivity;Naphtanese, Napht-nexus(West-Jay) and GogMagog-Axis in particular). BTW, if you want to read Qutb don't miss Faraj's book. Hyperstitions within Hyperstitions: Lovecraftian name-anomalies Reza Negarestani (October 31, 2004) Background I: Reading Undercurrent’s translation of Houllebecq’s work on Lovecraft, I suggested a minor correction about a misspelled word which I suspected should be actually a French modification to the original name: Rűb-al-Khâlie instead of Rűb-al-Khâlid (the original spelling in the book which is not correct); following this correction I asked Undercurrent about the motives behind Lovecraft’s unique selection of Rűb-al-Khâlie (excluding its exotic desert-ness and the rumor of being inhabited by Jinn and Jnun) as the region where Al Azif has been revealed to Abdul Al-Hazred, its related hyperstitions, etc. He recommended this fascinating page. This article56 is teeming with ‘wrong’ Arabic / Aramaic information, but they are all hyperstitionally interesting in the following ways: Background II: The Post-911 THING has imported an entire Arabic or more precisely Middle Eastern vocabulary to western countries; one can protest and claim it is just like what happened during Vietnam War. No, Vietnam War merely unloaded its vocabulary into the battlefield; it was exposed to American soldiers or those who were in contact with the War. Only soldiers or perhaps their families knew the 56 The website for this article no longer exists. 372

meaning of phrases such as caca dau, choi oi, mama-san or Gung Ho. Besides, the Post-911 Thing (as an entity in a Deleuzian term) did not expose western countries to a culture of a country but an Islamic continent with multiple, convoluting, stillemerging cultures, lines of communication; and since civilians were the first people who witnessed the emergence of the post-911 Thing, the tide of Islamic (Arabic/Farsi) vocabularies hit ordinary (non-military) people first. Interested people enthusiastically started to learn Arabic language and people in general tried to learn several Arabic words at least to be on the front line. Moreover, since Islamic culture has already contaminated the West as its viral adversary, enthusiasm for diving into the Islamic Orientalism of the 18th and 19th centuries revived in a more convoluted, viral and multiplying form -- exclusive to the 21st century -- in the presence of the post-911 Thing. However, the fundamentally rebellious / alien Arabic alphabet for western readers soon started to dissipate its traumatizing tendrils via the Post-911 Thing within western (Latin/Greek/Anglo/German-based languages) phonetic, vocal, linguistic, writing systems; slightly cankered each throat speaking a Western Indo-European language (a process which is progressing and shows no sign of termination); but among English speakers who were in a direct contact with the Post911 Entity, its sabotage was more complex, more contagious; it produced amazing hyperstitions based on the fusion of the diseased Arabic alphabet with the userfriendly English language, a fusion still giving birth to mutants, and rootless hybrids. Westernized or fanatic Farsi / Arabic intellectuals take the panorama as a menacing installation of a new and totally sophisticated cultural invasion or as here called: cultural ambush. None of them realized that it is the western civilization exposing itself to the virus. Beside the fact that Eastern cultures have developed an artificial nervous system capable of participating with viral agencies whose infection is lethal for the west, one should keep in mind that the germ-cell of these plagues have developed in the Middle East. From Jan Potocki to William Beckford to Burroughs, all adventurers of hardcore Orientalism (as discussed in the coming essay on sorcery / necromancy) know that Orientalism is not about the East, it is the interzone of the East and the West, emerging from an eastern-infested but genetically obscured germcell. As Burroughs shows, Westerners are more prone to the anthropophagic diseases of the Interzone rather than local Arabs. The post-911 Thing has triggered interesting hyperstitions by importing Arabic vocabulary to Western languages especially English language which can never afford the alphabetic (phonetic/writing) systems of Arabic language; its nervous system engineers extraordinary anomalies which are symptoms of this radical inability to 373

digest (or interlock with) an entirely different language and culture. We discussed a few of these examples in the past. Some examples from old posts to elucidate the discussion, and prerequisite for following the discussion: Mark paraphrasing Burroughs: “But when it comes to Oriental languages you are using a whole different set of muscles and neural patterns... so you're bound to have a sore throat, just like your legs are sore after riding a horse for the first time... And Arabic is frankly the worst.. It literally cuts an English-speaking throat... Spitting blood is one of the first symptoms, though not necessarily the worst.. It is the stutter of neural response - remember when you first tried to row a gondola? The way you couldn't possibly get it, and you r muscles knotted up and you were making spastic gestures with the oar and the feeling in your stomach and groin, that sort of packing dream tension almost sexual...? And then suddenly you could do it? Well it's like that, only worse... And there is the gap between languages that can be terrifying... the great silences... And erotic frenzies when the patient feels himself sexually attacked by Arab demons... "About ten days in the hospital... You realize that you don't talk with your mouth and throat and lungs and vocal cords, you talk with your whole body... And the body keeps reaching back for the old language - it's rather like junk withdrawal in a way.. The erotic manifestations always occur... It's like the subject is being raped by the language, shouting out obscenities in the injected idiom.” --Me: Jay frequently reminds Col. West that Delta Force simply failed in its anti-AlQaeda operations because it never grasped what Al-Qaeda really is: It is not Al-Qaeda. It is Al-Ghaedeh, included a letter unknown to all Indo-European languages (Latin/German/Greek, etc) and is almost impossible to be pronounced correctly (let aside fluency) by Latin speakers; it is the pharyngeal letter ‘Qaf’ (i.e. Ghaaf) oversimplified as ‘Q’ in English. Nick: [...] Also, Ghaaf issue reminds me of a bizarre episode when Condi Rice and Powell began talking about "Gutter" rather than "Cararrh" when referring to Qatar just triggered media snickers at the time, but guess it was exactly the same translational nexus you're pointing to here. 374

Me: Excellent! (Once again, you probed right into the core) ... yes, it is. Qatar also is another symptom of the Ghaaf (or Qaaf?)-Complex. Me: It has strange letters whose vocalization processes are not linear at all. The letter Ghaaf, letters Ha and Haa, letters Ayn and Ghain, etc. As I’ve previously discussed it with Nick, these letters are the curses of Arabic pronunciation system for speakers of other languages. Even Farsi speakers usually have difficulties. One should be a crazed wolf and at the same time breathe as a lycanthrope to discharge the sound of the letter Ha. To vocalize 'Ghaaf', one should be a partly blocked tube attached to nothing. To initiate as a Jay’s disciple, Col. West must be able to pronounce the letters Ha and Ghaaf; this ensures Jay that he has finally kicked the Delta-Force Qaaf-Complex out of his mind and mouth. *** Lovecraft like Potocki and Beckford but in a far more rigorous and profound approach realized the way that Arabic or Semitic-based languages generate hyperstitional anomalies when they are implanted within English language. He used this hyperstition technique to engineer names, absolutely alien to English readers but in a way vaguely very familiar to all Hebrew/Arabic/Farsi speakers (the most famous of which is Cthulhu). What is interesting here (including the page that Robin Undercurrent suggested) are the attempts to decipher these names in recent years through methods which are also based on the hyperstitional panorama which we already discussed i.e. the inability of English language to digest Semitic-based languages (not only languages but also their cultures, viro-occultism and hyperstitions) and thus pathologically giving rise to symptoms and anomalies which soon are sucked into other hyperstition vortices. Now, the article that Robin Undercurrent suggested (a few examples): 1. Cthulhu not in fiction: Possibly similar to the Arabic Khadhulu. The word occurs in the Koran, meaning "forsaker" or "abandoner." This is truly worth pursuing: I wondered what really this word is since I had never heard this Arabic word before; especially a word that occurs in Koran should not be a completely obsolete word. I 375

searched the web and found many references to this word in texts about Lovecraft and Necronomicon. The word is from Sura Furghan (or Furqân, The Criterion, The Standard): (25:29): Laghad azallanee AAani althzikri baAAda ith jaanee wakana alshshaytanu lilinsani khazoolan Translation: "He did lead me astray from the Message (of Allah) after it had come to me! Ah! the Evil One (Shaytân, Satan) is but a traitor to man!" The word that has been referred as Khadhulu or sometimes Khad-hulu (in other texts about Necronomicon) corresponding to Cthulhu is in fact, Khazoola or as it has taken ‘Tanvin’ in the Quran, it is pronounced Khazoolan. The letter that has lead English writers to imagine this word is similar to Cthulhu is the letter Zal (ABJAD = 700); like letter Ghaaf (the western Qaaf-complex) it cannot be pronounced by an English speaker. For Farsi-speakers who read the Quran, it is also relatively hard to pronounce this letter correctly despite the fact that the letter Zal IS in Farsi alphabet. The phonetic construction of this letter is the result of an anomalous alliance of three sounds: d, h and z (dhz); however, the emphatic sound is Z; therefore, in Farsi it is pronounced just like the letters Za and Zoin. When the letter Zal is imported to English language; it can only be pronounced and oversimplified as a sound oscillating between d and h, and loses its central sound that is ‘Z’. This oversimplification which of course is hyperstitionally intriguing is extended to English writing system in the same way. Letter Zal is written as dh instead of Z which is the most correct and acceptable sound of the letter Zal. Khazoola, Khazula or as in the Quran Khazulan (from Khazala meaning to discontinue assisting one in reaching a goal, abandoning and sometimes betraying, becoming traitor) is the correct spelling and pronunciation of this word. The information presented in the article is based on the following oversimplification (superficially reductionist but hyperstitionally complex): There is nothing in Arabic as Khadhulu: the English appropriation transforms the original word in this way: the letter Zal in ‘Khazulan’ is disintegrated to only two marginal sounds of the letter Zal i.e. d&h; therefore, dh is actually the mangled form of the letter Zal as a symptom of the vocal incapacity of English speakers to pronounce Zal. The tanvin at the end of original word is also simply replaced by ‘u’ (‘oo’) sound. 376

Kazoolan ---> Kha[dh][i.e. zal]oolu ---> Now, the writer(s) has imagined that ‘d’ is separated from ‘h’ in the word Khadhulu and has directly connected it to Cthulhu like this: Khad-hulu. The fascinating point is that most of critiques and texts on Necronomicon and Lovecraft's name-anomalies are based on this ridiculously wrong but hyperstitionally absorbing mis-understanding. Just type Khadhulu or Khad-hulu in the Google search box and see how many texts have been propagated based on this technical misunderstanding and virally mutating oversimplifications (not oversimplification as a negative reduction) and follow all hyperstitions and thrilling extravagant conclusions based on this fusion-anomaly and its associated interpretations (Khad-hulu or Khadhulu for Cthulhu); to this extent, I don’t see it as the dissemination of a wrong piece of information but an artificialized viral hyperstition ovum which has been mobilized by numerous transmitting vectors, sucked into hyperstition vortices which engineer new hyperstitions, new radically artificial beliefs, all autonomously generating new Cthulhuoid hyperstitions. 2. “Also note that in Aramiac Ketul-hu means, "he who is imprisoned.” I contacted my friend who is one of the most erudite researchers in ancient Semiticbased languages and assisted me to learn Pahlavi (of ancient Persia) language. He answered there is no such a word or phrase in the Aramaic language, in none of its three periods of development. So this must be another anomaly artificialized by the phonetic virulence of Aramaic imported to English language. 3. “Also R'lyeh is an acceptable transcription of the Arabic Galiyah or r'allyah since the "g" is a glottal "r" sometimes rendered by an "r" or "r'" and galiyah means boiling.)” There is no such a word as Galiyah in Arabic language; the original word is from Ghalayan (boiling) beginning with the letter Ghaaf. Sometimes Letter Ghaaf is appropriated as ‘G’ instead of ‘Q’ (it is another symptom of the famous Qaf-Complex as we discussed in conversations). Consequently, the hint about the vocal connection between ‘g’ and ‘r’ is symptomatically narrating another anomaly triggered by the familiar hyperstition of ‘Qaaf-complex’, a rootless connection which has given rise to many hyperstitions about R’lyeh. Again, use Google to see the results. 377

4. “ Chennghiz Khan [Chinngis Khan was a title, his actual name was Temujin], and was considered a "Mongol Hercules," half bestial, half divine, endowed with superhuman strength. ” These fictional characteristics (based on orientalistic fascination of the West by Chengiz khan as a paranormal fictional figure and western legends around him) render Chengiz khan as an exceptionally hyperstitional character much like a hyperfictional / hyperstitional character in Comic Books capable of coming out of / entering to a book simultaneously with no trace, an inter-dimensional entity. 5. “Carter would not change something Smith wrote; ergo Xoth is another place. Since Carter, in the story "Curse of the Black Pharaoh" chose to write the Arabic word "Djinn" or "Jinn" like this: "Xin," I assume then that Xoth is pronounced similarly as Djoth (the "dj" said as in the word jar) or Joth, using a soft "J" sound in the word or using Joth, such as the soft "J" sound in the word "de jure" or as the "z" is pronounced in the word "azure." ” The widely known word ‘Djinn’ -- which has also used by CCRU, diagramming the Outside (Zones 6:3 or Djynxx) in the Numogran or Decimal Labyrinth -- is another phonetic anomaly emerged within English language. The Arabic word Jin (or Jinn) refers to a race created by God before human, made out of fire thus capable of shapeshifting (unlike human which was created from Dust and Water: the bacterial mess of Dust-Soap). In the Quran and Islamic stories, unlike in Christianity, Shaytan (Satan) is not a fallen angel but the first Jinn (the Man’s nemesis) created by Allah. According to the Quran, Angels have no Will; as a result, they have no ability to disobey or choose. But Jinns as experimental anti-humans with unfathomable intelligence can choose their paths, they have the Will to disobey or obey, be loyal or traitor (Khazoola). Jinn or Djinn is male, the female side of this race is called Jnun (in plural form), a rich word which also means delirium, maddening love and terminal madness. In Persian mythology, Jnun are descended from Jeh or Jay or Jahi (also Jehika), the first anti-creationist agent engineered by Ahriman’s own body, the daughter of Ahriman who awakened his father from ten thousand years of sleep to spawn a pestlegion, Jahi is the first woman whose mission was to undo the entire pro-creationist / survivalist project of Ahura Mazda. In Arabic folklore, Jnun are daughters of Lilith. Rűb-al-Khâlie, in which Al-Hazred settled for ten years, was inhabited by Jnun (a female legion) not Jinn (Male ones); so following CCRU’s suggestion that Djynxx diagrams the Outside (zones 6:3 or the warp region of the numogram), Abdul AlHazred has communicated with the female side of the Outside (Jnun) for writing his 378

nocturnally enciphered Necronomicon. The other side of the Outside, is ‘It’, the epidemic, the ungrounded becoming, the cosmodrome. Jnun possess not to take over but to make open -- lay, crack, butcher open (As in the case of the Moroccan jinniya, Aisha Qandisha, or Aiesheh Ghediseh who is also called the Opener). 'Being possessed by Jnun' (things that never rest), this was the only solution Abdul Al-Hazred found to communicate with the Cosmodrome of the outside. Becoming woman via Jnun is a direct link to ‘It’, the cosmodromic current of the Outside. There is another fascinating hyperstition here: Why does Lovecraft frequently call Al-Hazred, the ‘mad’ poet or the ‘mad’ Arab? Because while communicating with Jnun (who in Arabic / Farsi folklore narrate untold stories to the one who becomes open to them, as in the case of Lilith who tells forbidden stories to travelers before devouring them) as the female current / agencies of the Outside, radical madness is inevitable; for Jnun, once again, means delirium, maddening love, terminal madness as the result of being laid open by the Outside. Jnun is not compatible with the western definition of Madness. It cannot be translated properly, but suffice to say that it is mainly constituted by three elements and is developed through their compositions: Possession, Love and utter Openness. Abdul Al-Hazrad is a majnun, a man laid open by Jnun and at the same time, a majnun man, a madman (majnun) who immediately reminds us of Leili and Majnun, their love story which is converged upon madness, openness, and a delirious love -- the Forbidden. ATTN CCRU: maybe you should rename Djynxx (male jinns) and engineer a Jnun(female side)-derived name which is highly connected to the Outside (6:3, also Jay=63); or compose them with each other. 7. Irem is very important to Arab magick. 'Irem Zhat al Imad' (Irem of the Pillars) is the city's name in Arabic. [...] The 'Pillars' in 'Irem of the Pillars' has a hidden meaning. Among Arab mystics, 'pillar' is a code name for 'elder' or 'old one'. Thus 'Irem of the Pillars' is really 'Irem of the Old Ones'." Imâd or Emâd, this time, is an Arabic word; meaning pillar, any tall building or verticals; but there is no such a mystic aura around the word pillar (Imâd). There is a famous reference to pillars in the Quran as mentioned in the text (Erama Zate alImâd) [89:7] (Sura Al-Fajr, Dawn) “Eram on (erected or positioned on) pillars: Eram or Iram has been frequently mentioned in Arabic / Farsi stories and Hadith. It can be translated as Heaven. Eram means both the skies (heavens) and Paradise (Heaven). Islamic scholars consider pillars sometimes as hidden forces of the universe in the absence of which the Earth 379

and cosmos will collapse (according to the Quran, in Qyiamah or Ghiamat, the skies collapse as a result of falling pillars57), and sometimes as the force of gravity, similar to Deleuze and Guattari’s usage of this word for “the verticals of gravity” (“The Space of Pillars”) [A Thousand Plateaus, p. 370] The reference to ‘elder’ or ‘old one’ is also incorrect: Imâd simply means an old wise man, a pious man, or a man with dignity (not necessarily old). These are just a few examples of many twisted pieces of information (esp. on the Arabic front) presented in the text. All symptoms of the viral Arabic culture(s) / language oozing into the nervous system of English language / culture(s) and producing cryptogenic diseases, anomalies and mutants which are instantly pinpointed by hyperstition probe-heads. They should not be regarded as baseless, invalid or valueless information but anomalies generated by certain fusions between viral agencies of one language and its associated space and the immune or nervous system of another language -- involuntary fugues which violently traverse both languages; off-channel communications cross-contaminating two different spaces, facilitating and triggering the emergence of new entities, poly-hybrids, uncontrollable minorities and hyperstitions; enmeshing worlds with their own spaces of the virtual, the actual and the real. In trade with Islamic countries, the axial role does not belong to imported Arabic warmachines but the ways, they fuse with Western systems and how they breed cryptogenic unnamable hybrids, entities which are always anonymous until Now. Comments: Hyperstitions within Hyperstitions: Lovecraftian nameanomalies Mohsen: Reza, while brilliant as usual, your analysis of this phenomenon is fantastic. Do you think western intellectuals can ever grasp what you really say? Your thoughts are very lucid and important for people who live here; don’t you think so? By the way, Happy Ramadan. Pierooz Bashie! Reza Negarestani: Thank you and welcome ... 57 See Sura Al-Takwir [The Overthrowing] (Sura 81) which begins with the most poetical, mysteriously rhythmic and passionately musical verses of the Quran, scenes of collapsing universe, or according to the text on Lovecraft, the Return of the Old Ones. 380

your first question: well, it depends on my attempts to develop and open the threads I’m discussing; one of my mistakes in writing materials for Cold Me was introducing rather new discussions to readers with no introduction, quickly and densely (besides, the information overload in each text is also a problem). I guess if I slow down a bit, the whole process becomes 'smoother'. second question: strangely, my friends in Iran or those who read these texts (even in English) have less difficulties. Yes, you are right. Pierooz Bashie! You too, and thank you for your questions. murray: For further mutation, in my Middle East-servicing McOffice the Rub alKhali is always referred to in English as The Empty Quarter – though that would clearly not be a direct translation. It's a huge area of nothingness where energy companies have been given concessions to explore for gas, and I imagine near or not far from where Mohammed would go out for weeks on end and experience his visions/hallucinations/nightmares/journeys. Also, the Oxbridge Arabists/Orientalists present take great care to pronounce Qatar as something to akin to Ghattar, Gattar or Ghattr Reza Negarestani: Murray, thanks for your comments ... some answers: For further mutation, in my Middle East-servicing McOffice the Rub al-Khali is always referred to in English as The Empty Quarter – though that would clearly not be a direct translation. Yes, Rub’Al-Khalie can be translated as both Empty Space and Empty Quarter; the Arabic word includes both of them, the first one (empty space) mostly refers to its hyperstitional desertness, ghoulish dimensions (ghouls or infernal grave-robbers -adept exhumationists -- and necrophagus creatures originally come from three places in Arabic / Farsi folklores, Rub Al-Khalie, Mesopotamia and Cental Kavir [desert] in Iran) and jnun-infested recesses. ‘Empty Quarter’ is mainly a geographic translation. Another term which can describe Rub Al-Khalie is Na Koja-Abad (a farsi word which has recently entered the English language via pulp-horror stories and videogames, a true Lovecraftian word); it literally means ‘a place made habitable at nowhere’, it is a place that cannot be mapped, a desolate place, you can neither find it on the Earth nor in the space. 381

It's a huge area of nothingness where energy companies have been given concessions to explore for gas [...] Yes, we have a hyperstition piece on oil / gas companies in Saudi Arabia, the role of desert, War of/on Terror (WoT), Wahhabism and desert-nomads; you can check it out here: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004053.html (Triggers for Islamic Apocalypticism: Oil, Desert and Nomads in Saudi Arabia) and I imagine near or not far from where Mohammed would go out for weeks on end and experience his visions/hallucinations/nightmares/journeys. Exactly! Donald Cole suggests his paths of regular journeys (esp. during childhood) spread throughout deserts of Arabia, and Rub Al-Khalie in particular (and they enriched his views on the Earth, Nomads and their warmachines). He must have seen the old ancestors of Al-Murrah, a sorcerous nomadic tribe which are still roaming in Rub Al-Khalie and are called, “Nomads of the Nomads”. Al-Hazred must have been influenced by these people too, during ten years of solitude in this brutally naked-tothe-sun desert. Mohsen: Apologies for the time-gap. You gave a very honest answer, Reza, I appreciate your bravery on all fronts. Another question: What do you think about Iran’s intellectual atmosphere? Tom: You speak of things I never heard of. Fascinating. By the way, I seldom use spell-check programs. They are 'context-stupid' in a way not so unlike the translators you mention. The spell-check program happily substitutes 'temper' for 'tamper' or 'weather' for 'whether.' I see this all the time. Incidentally, has anyone noticed that when Iran tangles with the United States, the Americans always end up looking like idiots? Lisa: Thank you Reza and all commentators for enlightening me to both subtle and glaring errors. Reza, you must write a book! I very much enjoyed your thoughtful analyses of the previous information on the etymology of words transliterated or otherwise grossly changed in other ways when transferred to English. I found your post by examining another page you discuss concerning "Cthulu" and the horror fantasy writer, H.P. Lovecraft's use of Aramaic and Hebraic sounding words. I am writing several different (none in the mythic stream as yet. But, I found your discussion most helpful and thought-provoking. Thanks, Lisa 382

Sorry I forgot to say a complete sentence at the end of my previous post, as well as failing to close a parentheses!I posted too quickly and didn't catch the errors. Oh well! My thanks still stand.I meant to say that I am currently working on four stories and my creativity has been freshened by your work and the comments others have posted. Lisa Reza Negarestani: Mohsen, Well, I have promised Infinite Thought to write a piece on Iran, most of the text IS about Iranian intellectuals. Will post it soon. Tom, Thanks! lol, yes, spell-checkers are annoying; but if they were more creative, we could use them to turn any text into the most stylistic avant-garde piece ;) Incidentally, has anyone noticed that when Iran tangles with the United States, the Americans always end up looking like idiots? Well, it’s an old nationalistic slogan that Iranians are always smarter; also a symptom of the absurd high self-esteem the Iranians suffer from (including me). Lisa, Very glad the site is useful for you. We appreciate if you could tell us more about your stories. Lisa: Hi Reza and others: I am so sorry I couldn't answer I had surgery and other hurdles-I didn't realize I had been answered and am sorry for the long conversational pause! I am an eclectic writer and I have a number of things I work at as my health permits. I write children's stories, SCI-FI, and dark adaptations of classic European fairy tales, some humorous bits, some opinion pieces and some essays and a bit of journalism (PR for my writer's org.)I found this website as I researched a storyline for a mythic piece I was interested in writing. I have another one on the "Yamdoot" I am currently writing. I hope to come back and talk with you all soon. Lisa 383

November 2004 Aisha Qadisha Reza Negarestani (November 1, 2004) Before posting a full article on the Moroccan jinniya, Aisha Qandisha and the role of Women in WoT (Anna’s question), this passage extracted from Vincent Crapanzano’s extensive researches on possession in Morocco might be useful for readers who are curious about the reference to Aisha Qadisha in ‘Hyperstitions within Hyperstitions: Lovecraftian name-anomalies’ Aisha Qandisha or Aisha Qadisha or Ghediseh is one of the most popular and fearsome Jinniya (female one) in Moroccan folklore; beliefs and rituals for Aisha have been continued to the 21st century. She is both a hunter and a healer, sometimes appearing as a beautiful (irresistibly seductive) woman and sometimes as a Hag. When she possesses a man, she does not take over the new host but she opens the man to the storm of incoming Jnun and Jinns, demons, and sorcerous particles of all kind; making the man a traffic zone of cosmodromic data. This is why she is feared. And she never leave, she always resides in the man to guarantee his total openness which is not always pleasant. According to Moroccans, the only way to feel comfortable with Aisha (the new partner / lover) is participating with her especially through passionate and wild music rites. Those who remember the end credits of Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, may remember the acknowledgment to the master musicians of Jajouka who perform music rites for men possessed (opened) by Aisha (also see Aisha and the role of music in the Hamadsha). Vincent Crapanzano, Mohammed and Dawia: Possession in Morocco, 1977. “Mohammad’s ambiguous sexual identity is well illustrated by the following sequence of drawings (Figure 1). I asked Mohammad to draw a man (time to completion, five minutes), then a woman (six and a half minutes), then anything he wanted to (four minutes), and finally himself (eight minutes). The last request took him aback and caused him great anxiety (as it had caused in my other Moroccan informants). Note in his self-portrait the presence of both male and female genitalia and the absence of bodily closure (as in his drawing of a woman). The depiction of ribs and knees was not unusual my informants; that Mohammad only drew knees on his woman and himself is, however, unusual. The hedgehog and the snake occur in Moroccan folklore. Mohammad had never made a drawing before.” 384

Sorcerers and Necromancers: sorcery and the line of escape part I 385

Reza Negarestani (November 4, 2004) This is a lengthy text on the difference(s) between Sorcery and Necromancy (dangers, their mechanisms and exclusive functions); also a marginal note on Houllebecq’s work on H.P. Lovecraft. This text is partly a tactical analysis and partly an exploration of strategies. Not an easy text, I should confess, but can be traced step by step especially for those who are familiar with Deleuze and Guattari. I am still writing but it does not hit the point of terminus. The only solution is chopping the text into digestible pieces and posting them here once in a while. This part is somehow a quick introduction, questioning the subject from the outset. The only passage that is very important to follow the entire text, in this part, is an excursus on Nomadology and Climatologic determinants, a case study which is highly recommend to anyone interested to follow my discussions on this blog or DGon Nomadology. *** The sorcerous line-of-flight is not necessarily a line which moves away, departing or fleeing away along the vertical axis or in other words a process diagramming deterritorialization and reterritorialization functions on / of an assemblage; it is not necessarily a line of escape corresponding to flight as levitation or overcoming the gravitational pull, becoming light (levis) and evading the conclusion or effect of the core by cutting through it and sliding off from the matrix of its gravity which functions as a machine of correctitude upon any type of dynamism or migration. Line-of-flight as a line of escape (towards the polytics of periphery) is frequently associated with sorcerers. The difference between sorcerers and necromancers is not the matter of contradiction, or alignment (molecular arrangements or taste) but difference in perceiving and moving through the matrices of gravity, their grund-based processes and finally polytical functions whose task is to initially work through these matrices and turn them to something else (al-khemy or the practice of turning ground to unground). It is the difference between different mechanisms of engagement with the matrices of gravity and grounding processes, difference between polytics for passing through gravitation which can loosely be defined as a machine of striated space in which attraction is mapped or rather economized through biunivocal bodies or points which make any movement or instance of dynamism metronic, transforming attraction into a multifunctional machine of appropriation or correctitude acting as a heavily climatologic sphere for appropriating and utilizing intensities whether by despotic consolidation (sedentarizing or capturing processes) or impregnating intensities with a climate (klima: slope) rendering intensities fertile for the ground -386

pseudo-fluxes transcendentalizing the ground, irrigating it, lavishing its landscapes and enhancing its solidus industry. Is the difference between sorcery and necromancy is similar to what diagrammed in Beckford’s Vathek and Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, works written by two eccentric advocators of Orientalism (i.e. the occidental interzone of the East) which despite many similarities are fundamentally different, although both Vathek and van Worden (the two protagonists of Beckford and Potocki’s works) share a common initiatory zone and it is the grund and its machineries (they engineer lines-of-flight on monotheism, one on the Islam of Mahomet, the other on the Spanish Catholicism) but their journeys are different with their own exclusive dangers, set-backs, participation and convoluted creativities. This is a difference which can also be extended to the difference between radical polytics of Deleuze-Guattarian foaming teeming epidemics (dark fluidities) or the dynamic (tactical) journey to the end of the river [darkness] (whose elements compose junglism, boat, river and its tributaries or lines of escape and foaming sorcerous tropical entities) narrated by Col. Kurtz, and the hyperstitional expedition of Col. West (who came to this conclusion that War has (Un)life of its own, independent of warmachines), his desert scavenging expedition, dry dusty epidemics, and his lefthand path religion for interlocking with the Z-crowd. It is also the difference one can distinguish between two sorcerous war-populations, spawned by jungle militarism (Vietnam War) and Desertism (Xerodrome, or Nick’s Mecca-nomics) of WoT i.e. WWIV. The first task of sorcery comes through a question: How is it possible to pass through gravitational spheres and cutting through the boundaries that the force of gravity engineers, evading the grund’s climatologic horizon? The least hyperstitional answer insists that merely sorcery and engineering a line of escape -- a tactically dynamic line-of-flight whose continuous actualization requires a continuous impetus -- can qualitatively overcome gravity; but who can guarantee that sorcery and its lines of escape will not be trapped by diabatic (i.e. transitional and dynamic processes of the ground) climatologic operators which directly utilize and exploit intensities, impinging on the mechanism of any movement. For a sorcerer, the danger of residing through the reterritorialization side of the line-of-flight (as the vertical line-of-escape) is constant since the line-of-flight carries the elements of both 387

reterritorialization and deterritorialization. The menace of being transformed into an agent of reterritorialization or a ground-fertilizing machine forever cannot be dismissed; a sorcerer might end up in an advertisement agency (Robin’s concern) and its line of flight may turn into a “Superman thing” (Matrix Reloaded). Excursus I: Hydraulic Revolution: On Climate and Nomadology (Following the so-called Hydraulic and Agricultural Revolution in Iran (similar to what Wittfogel associated with Chinese empire), during Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah) a hydraulic plan -- highly recommended by American consultants -- was analyzed for further economic developments in Iran; one of the goals of this multiobjective plan was to solve the problem of nomads in Iran. Apart from installing a hydraulic reformation program on the diverse geography of Iran, one of its stratagems was to originate a system for monitoring and domesticating Iranian nomads who played key roles in resistance towards the center. The plan was neither a method for drawing the Iranian nomads to the center nor a project for forcibly accommodating them in a sedentary sphere but accompanying them, interlocking with them and replacing their dynamism with their own fluxional lines of tactics which belong to the force dynamic boundary of the State and territory. The project’s destination was constructing a soft climate (klima: slope, zone) or a zone of hydraulic conductivity which autonomously accommodates nomads, making them migrate through itself, easing the whole process of monitoring, appropriation and tracking nomads. A climate that is finally mobilized as a tremendously dynamic network of anti-nomadic movements, employing its hydraulic head to configure a versatile militarized boundary to accommodate nomads; the State was going to breed its own territorializing (rather than territorialized) nomadologic lines. This climate was actually ‘artificial rivers’ which should be distributed over the country; these rivers were planed to be constructed over years in a country that always suffers the lack of water in its central and eastern regions. Such fluid, rich and dynamic zones or hydraulic lines (as rivers and their tributaries) spread over the country were supposed to attract (on the pattern of gravity) the nomads and gradually rendering a preferable but precisely mapped climate for their migration; a climate or slope-zone (klima) which is actually an autarkic monitoring machine rendering its inhabitants predictable and expanding a fluid domesticating sphere for the nomads, welcoming all nomads in the most hospitable manners, giving them an opportunity to forge an affluent economy of pseudo-flux by their nomadologic movements along river-banks and landscapes 388

formed by rivers and their sedimentary processes. The entire scenery was never accomplished. However, one can easily trace it as a menace over digital nomadism of the Net. The State is no longer interested in the straight operations against nomadism (if it has ever been!) instead it tries to exert all its efforts on climatologic determinants and inducing them to Nomadologic lines. Through climatologic economy of pseudoflux, rivers irrigate the grund and fertilize the economy of solidus-in-circulation and nomads foster the horizontal unfolding of force dynamic boundary of the State. When Klima or (slope process) couples with a flux (f = p/a) or tactical line of a movement, it reclaims the flux as a fluxional grounding process, a solid engineering program as in the sediment management and geologic slope process. It is quite simple: when the itinerary of a river shifts suddenly i.e. the slope angle of a river suddenly changes, the river begins to mass sediment along the slopes and ‘twisting zones’ (klima), forming landscapes and lavishing the river-banks, becomes an agent of land instead of the flowing current, a fluxional grounding machine capable of delivering solids at any time and any place; in short, the river becomes a vector and carrier of solidus. The fluvial process in sedimentology delineates the same process: it happens when flux is lured to the ungoverned and crazy ingredient of slope; the monolithic channel regime of fluvius (river or flux) starts to disintegrate and mass-waste along and over of the banks. Through sudden and sporadic shifts in slope itineraries (or by way of aberrant behavior of slope), the fluvial / alluvial contents of a river unload over riverbanks and beyond, irregularly and without any management. As the rate of slope increases the process of deposition accelerates, and river-banks are exposed to a higher level of sediment discharge, more dynamic solid for the grund and its solidus industry. ) Comments: Sorcerers and Necromancers: sorcery and the line of escape part I Craig: I can't comment yet...but if it continues as it is here, I can agree with it. I wonder however, whether the difference between a sorcerer and necromancer is in actuality that different - personally, it appears as if there are individuals that are both sorcerers and necromancers combined. Reza Negarestani: Thanks Craig ... well, wait, this essay is not finished yet ;) ... gravity problem will be dissected. Yes, it is not the only difference; but IMHO, the main difference between the escapist and Deleuze-Guattarian sorcerers and necromancers. Yes, there are many threads of sorcery which are combined (esp. in the left-hand path and Cainite branches of sorcery); i'll try to discuss them. But the main theme of this 389

essay is the difference between necromancers (is it really about death or the dead? one of the crucial questions about necromancy) and those sorcerers who use lines of escape, in particular DGon escapist sorcerers. Since Sorcery is too diverse (with multiplicative lines), i could only select one thread of sorcery, the escapist sorcery which is very significant in the works of Deleuze and Guattari. 0sa: ...magick represents diversing lines of intersections and explorations that resembles the diversing lines found in the continually explored musick of the dj (...read the linear notes to the early works of dj spooky and realise his splicing of deleuzian/ guattarian terrains into his musick and setting forth the seeds for the current dj nations and tribes that continue to intersect: diverse: and continued changed and changing...) as a black cherokee male with strong shamanic tendencies: i can tell you that within the shamanic community there exists diversing levels to enter as a shaman and there doesn't exist per se the hard cold 'facts' other than shamans are the navigators into spaces that intersect and diversifies into further ongoing expanding/compressing space and spaces..... the essay here though i will add to my personal litany of study and studies...... Reza Negarestani: Thanks Osa! This gives me more space to open the discussion. ... yes, i have read Paul D. Miller’s texts inspired by DG and De Landa. Yes, as you know, and as i mentioned in my previous comment on Craig's note, the multiplicity of sorcery does not allow you track or focus on particular issues (and esp. on discursive or transcendental levels) so the only way to pseudo-analyze some issues is to ‘reduce’ or select a distinct thread or branch of sorcery. The one that I am examining here is the escapist sorcery or those sorcerers who interlock with DGon Line of Escape. This branch of sorcery is one of the most general trends in Shamanism / Sorcery. If DG also frequently discuss the line of escape and rigorous escapism, it is because one of the most common and general traits of sorcery and shamanism is ‘initiation’ (triggering or engineering a shamanistic (S) / sorcerous (C) function); From Crowley to Elide to Coyajee the phase of initiation (and initializing the S/C function) is usually connected to a process of levitation, both symbolic levitation as a very common tendency among Asian shamans / sorcerers, and nonsymbolic lines of levitation. Levitation is, in fact, the function through which one 390

becomes free (or levis: light) from certain restricting factors like the State, processes of Subjectification, etc. which work through their own forces of gravity and try to prevent / obstruct the process of initialization (or domesticate the initialization of S/C function); to this extent it is somehow a general phase for S/C lines. Levitation or ‘levis’ (becoming light / free) on the pattern of ‘gravitate’ (or gravitas as it will be discussed in the next parts) is also corresponding to ‘Flight’. Levitation as a particular line of flight (which DG adore passionately and also warn about its negative functions) is the function of the line of escape (cutting through the states of gravitas or evading them). razorsmile: This notion of the 'Levis' I find fascinating in terms of the lightness it suggests, the sorcerer (in terms of the line of escape that you make your subject)...the sorcerer as escape artist, surface skimmer, pond skater on limited surface tension. My own analysis of DG and sorcery takes a line of descent in that I find the atavistic drop rather than the levitational leap to be closer to the practical experimentations with sorcerous metaphysics I carry out. This is more Spare influenced however but also relates perhaps to something like the love of the abject (in a sort of inversion of Kristeva perhaps). Necromancy may be closer to this atavistic practice perhaps. Interesting blog, will return to see more. Reza Negarestani: Thanks very much ... the next part (part III) elaborates ‘levis’ and the problem of ‘gravitas’ (How does the State, grund, etc. use the force of gravity to seize or even utilize the function of ‘levis’ and the line of escape?) ... but still a long way to the chapter about necromancy. BTW, visited your site ... v. interesting ... I’ll definitely add it to our coming blogroll. Sorcerers and Necromancers: sorcery and the line of escape part II Reza Negarestani (November 5, 2004) The previous post relatively focused on reterritorializating functions of the line-ofescape (the vertical levitator) which Deleuze-Guattarian sorcerers usually work with, 391

its mechanisms and certain dangers. This part traces the cutting edge of deterritorialization that is also included in the line-of-escape, and the dangers that it may bring for escapist sorcerers. As in the case of the cutting edge of deterritorialization (D) that the vertical (levitator) line-of-flight holds, sorcerers are always under the danger of drawing a sudden and too rapid (in the sequence from its initiation to its operating -- cutting -- status) line of D, a premature D which exhausts the putative integrity of the ground, and pushes it to an abrupt and total disintegration happening on a local level. Deleuze and Guattari’s reprimand of such a D: there is always the danger of suicide. Everywhere philosophy finds a virulent process; it relates the consequent danger to suicide, because philosophy can only perceive danger as something opposed to survival (it has presupposed the equation of survival with life itself) and hinting at suicide as the ultimate danger is always a ready scapegoat, it never fails to work as an intelligent and effective deterrent, a modus. Definitely, the urge to suicide may rush in when a premature line of D is engineered, but it should not be considered as a danger; the definite danger is that the disintegration triggered by the premature D installs a purgatory (exterminating) machinery on the ground and territories / states grounded on it, a destructive / purgatory process that functions on a local level; it engineers a raum and niche or an empty space (as a capacity proper for dwelling) which can be easily (i.e. minimum resistance, with no risk of contamination, overlapping or infective communication) occupied and inhabited by other regimes which from now on are immunologically resistant to that particular line of deterritorialization and are able to be fundamentally rooted in that region for, once again, there is virtually no significant remaining of the previous assemblage which prevents (via participation and transplantation: contaminating the new agency) the new regime to be deeply planted and developing its own purificatory processes which know nothing but themselves. This is not exactly the process of negative D wielding the opportunity or to be exact the power of a “lost territory” (Deleuze and Guattari) appropriate for reterritorialization -- playing as a remorseless mercenary in a coup d’état -- but a purgatory process which does not only seize the empty raum of the lost territory but also vaccinates the new territory, making it immune to similar lines of D which emerge on that region, and at the same time, it exterminates all effective phylumic traits of the last ‘kingdom’, allowing the new territory to take roots deeply and populate according to highly purified(ing) eugenic programs. Comments: Sorcerers and Necromancers: sorcery and the line of escape part II 392

thistle: The too-rapid decompression of the sign results in a condition of the bends, the proliferation of nitrogen in the blood arriving in the figure of the blue man. A depressing mark of the grave inscription run amock: the epitaph invokes bodies into its hole. Extended and naturalized within life, the blue men become a "life that is not life" (Empedocles), the half-life and half-light of the strivers, ushering in a kind of twilight of the soul which sparkles darkly ("Every man and every woman is a star"), radically individualized and radically conformist simultaneously, the spirit of recalcitrance. Extermination always contains within it a husk of suicide, since what the regime is attempting to eradicate are those traits in the regime represented by the subjects of extermination. "In murder the actor often tries to kill a part of himself that he hates *without* killing himself." (O'Keefe, Stolen Lightning, 308) Murder offloads the psychic pain of suicidalism onto other bodies. In extreme cases, cases of genocide, the omnipresence of murder and death, while providing a "valve" by which psychic pain is relieved, invokes more death; it becomes the imago upon which genocidal actors model themselves. Death erects and army of the dead in life and sustains the process by (actively) surrounding it with death. Sorcerers and Necromancers: sorcery and the line of escape part III Reza Negarestani (November 7, 2004) “Homogenous space is no way a smooth space; on the contrary, it is the form of striated space. The space of pillars. It is striated by the fall of bodies, the verticals of gravity, the distribution of matter into parallel layers, the lamellar and laminar movement of flows.” (Deleuze and Guattari, ATP, p. 370) Necromancers have their own lines of flight, exploring flight not as levitation – or ‘becoming light (levis) on the pattern of gravitate’ i.e. ‘levitate’ (migrating to zones where the gravitational forces of the grund cannot manifest as a dynamic boundary any longer) -- but interlocking with gravity itself and subverting it from within, a technique which will be dissected later. For now, the question that rises here in its most repressed ontological form is: ‘What is gravity?’ 393

Gravity is an attraction which transforms its subjects into measurable / processable agencies, rendering all bodies and motions metronic -- referring to Witold Kula’s Measures and Men (1986) which divides metronic processes to anthropomorphic, lineamentic and syndetic -- configuring them in way that they constitute a horizontal / vertical network which gives any entity a unique value and consequently a ‘traceable’ function in the (striated) space programmed according to the distribution array of gravity forces (pillars? obelisks? striated layers?). Gravity does not capture (the mechanism of capture is the ‘consequence of the network’ that gravity forms; it is not the primary effect of gravity); instead, it provides all flows and bodies with a grund that dynamically molds whatever reaches its threshold of impression (em-presser) and effect. Through and by means of this ground, gravity constructs a homogeneous space which is an accommodating raum rather than spatium. Grounded from both ends -its zone of emergence and zone of effectuation -- gravity can merely exploit its machinery of attraction as a conduit (channeling / conducted attraction). Gravity is an economical attraction, it has elements of repulsion and efficient distribution of entities in an arrangement which corresponds with the configuration of its verticals - “space of pillars” (Deleuze and Guattari); the gravitational attraction is not a radical attraction i.e. participative and contagious. Once the economical attraction internalized in gravity affects a body, it works as a switch for separation (apokrisis58) and unification, selection and sorting, repulsion and attraction, to form a distributive grid of entities (arranged by verticals-of-gravity stratifying bodies both horizontally and vertically) which initializes a certain weaving process, lining up everything according to parallel forces, verticals of gravity; rendering space as a texture fabricated by economic(al) distributions, interlaced by continuous separations, selections and sorting processes in the form of a textum, a woven space. Such a dynamic interwoven network is able to ‘capture’, widely spread and finally narrate space as a heavily plotted text (textum), a fully grounded scenery. Gravity narrates space via the textum it weaves together, a textum interlaced by the fall of bodies and the verticals of gravity (“strié par la chute des corps, les verticales de pesanteur” [Deleuze and Guattari, ATP]), 58 Apokrisis or ekkrisis, the Anaximanderian universal pro-creationist process which is prerequisite for unification and ultimate union, since unification and totalization presuppose an economizing separation (which distributes matter into layers, over textums, and through matrices of correctitude and appropriation) of elements, entities and matter for a further ‘purpose’; it is an efficient path to reach a universal homogenizing process leading to economical distributions rather than unification, or the oneness telos. On Apokrisis, see Theophrastus commentaries on Anaximander; also, Refutation by Hippolytus. 394

repulsions, attractions, separations, union, separations, union, ad infinitum. The metronic textum -- dynamically expanding by its spatial dynamism utilized by the economy of the grund (as in the case of Nomads introduced to klimatologic grounding processes; See Excursus I) -- interwoven and striated by gravity, to this extent, should have a central theme with an ever-thickening plot ( ), a corenarration at the base of the textum i.e. the economical configuration programmed by gravity forces. You cannot explore gravity without immersing in its enriching plot embedded in its textum; and you cannot explore the textum (whether for evading or probing it) without reading its plot. The textum that gravity engineers by its metronic distributions and processes is so stubborn -- so persistent in weaving its texture -- and at the same time so flexible that any attempt to dismantle it, to shut it down from the core, results in a re-formation, a shift in contours and parallel verticals of gravity, generating a transitional zone for the textum to pass from one lattice structure to another, making a new plot, a new configuration for its woven threads. Concisely, gravity flexibly customizes its verticals and metronic processes, the order it distributes is not despotic (solid as rigid), so the offensive counter-gravity operations usually cannot break its verticals or destroy its pillars. The order of gravity is the ‘Order of Textum’, of wires and dynamic lattices, of an autonomously and internally dynamic interwoven space that can adapt itself to any resistance; it is able to shift its uniformity according to oppositions, configuring its laminar flows to be soft towards paroxysmal forces (whose objective is to cut the verticals of gravity and deteriorate their textum) by means of running along their transgressive lines of movement (instead of blocking them); the textum of gravity customizes its grid and distribution array to be with transgressions not against them. The gravity also narrates its universal order according to “the fall of bodies” (D&G;). However gravity does not narrate the fall of bodies according to autonomous catadromic functions or kata-space [Kata: down; downwards] but an anabatic space (Ana-: upward or on the pattern of the verticals of gravity) which essentially should be grounded: every fall of bodies should have a climax, a basis according to which it can be translated as a metronic process (it can be measured) or tracked as a narrator of gravity and its grounded/ing pillars, and not spatium -- a ground which does not mean a rigid topographic surface but a process. Here, every fall of bodies should finally meet the grund; it should be measured according to ground’s surface dynamics, metronic processes (running through measures, scales, channels of power, criterions), anabatic movements and the verticals of gravity. 395

Trapped by the textum of gravity forces, every descent or fall is ‘ascribed’ to (or modified according to) the grund, its processes and the characteristics of solidus. The polytics of the Abyss (Abzu) is signified and represented by the economy of the ground. In the same way that the ground appropriates and legitimates (brings to its fold of characteristics) the fall of bodies as a negative anabatic movement based on the ground and not an autonomous catadromic function, it slyly utilizes the levitating line-of-flight (escapism) as an ascension, the Christ on a cross (here cross is itself a domesticated flight-machine, flying along the vertical axis mundi). The ‘utilized’ lineof-escape does not only transcendentalize the ground but also it provides the ground with an accommodating spatiality (through a qualitative expansion). Everything that dwells in this grounding spatiality is molded by capacity; the dwelling / accommodating systems distribute their inhabitants through capacity, over lines of affordance (survivalist / economical openness); they construct niches or grounded eco-spaces whose primal inclination is capacitation, surviving in space by means of affordance (economical openness), seizing a capacity to dwell in space instead of probing it or more precisely, traveling in space as a capacity and not spatium. The grund never quits working on its own domesticated lines of flight -- autonomous fertilizing / expanding machines. The most utilizable line of flight for the ground is a line of escape whose vertical levitation gives the ground a locomotive ability to ‘ascend’, reinventing itself and its processes beyond its surface dynamics or superficiality. Through the unique functionality of the line of escape, the grund moves towards accommodating the Outside, engulfing the outside through capacity instead of ‘being opened by the Outside’ (i.e. the sorcerous communication with the Outside). Solidity and the economy of the ground never use quantitative expansion. To fortify itself and unfold its horizon, the ground does not undergo mechanisms of distension, quantitative expansion, volumetric inflation, rigidification or continuous reproduction of itself which are always terminated and undone by overhealth, atrophy or sudden death; hazardous methods which easily expose the ground to the outsiders and ungrounding processes; these modi operandi are too unreliable. On the contrary, the ground manages to engineer a plenum under constant qualitative capacitation, a progressive process towards accommodating the outside; an ultimate economical and survivalist openness (based on ‘affordance’ and ‘dynamic boundary’ beginning from the outer edge to the outside) which indeed is a miraculous phenomenon for the ground and its engineers which are networks of pseudo-fluxes, domesticated lines of flight and slope-infested (Klimatologic) modes of escapism which have become one with the verticals of gravity through climatologic dynamics and the pliable textum that gravity weaves together. These domesticated lines of escape exalt (ex-altus) economy 396

of the ground, elevate and expand it in all direction, reclaiming the ground’s horizon (horismos: boundary) as the apeironic boundlessness, homogenous infinity universalized by the verticals of gravity, secured and con-solidated by economy of the ground. The utilized line of escape offers ground what it always wished to have for conquering the space and transcendentalizing itself without limit: the levis-function, lightness. However, both sorcerers and necromancers consider gravity as a grounded/ing attraction; and they never miss the fact that attraction is the functioning itself59 and it is the only path to becoming and unnatural participation; the line-of-flight must be initiated from gravitas and free itself from its grounding forces, defeating the verticals of gravity whether through tactical paths of the line-of-escape or necromantic techniques.60 Without gravity as an attraction, the line-of-flight is a utopianistic movement, a polytics without resistance, a (dis)simulation of something else, perhaps the Master of Pseudo-flux. Holocaust of Freedom (On H.P. Lovecraft and Schizotrategy) Reza Negarestani (November 14, 2004) All done! “for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.” (The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft) “He saw, saw a landscape, a tropical swamp under a vaporous sky, moist, luxuriant, and monstrous, a sort of primitive wilderness of islands, morass, and alluvia estuaries; ... saw the eyes of a lurking tiger between the gnarled stems of a bamboo thicket; and 59 But in the case of gravity it is a grounded attraction. 60 Necromantic techniques will be discussed in the coming chapters about Necromancy and Cataflight. 397

felt his hear pound with horror and mysterious desire.” (Tod in Venedig, Thomas Mann) “In Death in Venice, Mann stresses one of the most disturbing findings of bacteriology, the discovery that disease-causing agents are alive. He uses terms like “the terrible vibroid bacteria” and “causative organisms,” which can be found in the press and in medical journals, but he also anthropomorphizes the comma bacillus, inviting readers to interpret it as a self-willed, avenging force: “it almost seemed as though the pestilence had been reinvigorated, as if the tenacity and fecundity of its microscopic agitators [Erreger] had been re-doubled” (DV, 54). Mann’s choice of overripe strawberries as the vehicle through the disease penetrates Aschenbach again reveals his determination to make the story work both on realistic and mythological levels. While the “blackening corpse” of “a woman who sold vegetables” makes the infection plausible based on contemporary scientific findings, the “overripe and soft” fruit, suggesting an eroticism past its prime, implies that Aschenbach dies as much from his own fermenting libido as from a foreign disease.” (Membranes, Laura Otis) The third chapter of Michel Houllebecq’s work on Lovecraft has been ironically named Holocaust, a brilliant but not so deserving dissection of Lovecraft’s vitriolic racism, paranoia, and his consistent polytics towards absolute closure and overhealth. Houllebecq correctly links Lovecraft’s paranoia to an extraordinary immaculate (a hygiene-complex drifting out of a theo-political program set to mass-exterminate all beings, to deflects all traces of openness to inside, producing a total closure or to be, exact a fully economical openness) mode of monotheism, associates his stories to something old, forgotten and not so clean -- a ritualistic revival of the Zoroastrian germ-cell of monotheism, the already-sabotaged purity of the Aryans. [Airiia-: Ariya: Ērān: Iran or Aryānām dahyuš, the realm of Aryans] Hâshem-e Razi61, the Iranian ethnographer, discusses that before the Aryans settled in what later called Iran plateau, the land was not empty; it was occupied by mysterious people -- with outlandishly complex beliefs -- who knew nothing but demons, Daivas and Druj (also Druga: The Mother of Abominations). Everything was regarded as an avatar of horror, of a radical outside; even the fertilizing forces of nature such as winds, rain, thunder, soil and growth were Daivas; the Life was Druj itself. The entire 61 Hashem-e Razi, The Religion and Culture of Ancient Iran (pre-Zoroastrian era), Sokhan Publisher, 2003. Also: Hashem-e Razi, The Cult of Mages (A Study on Religions of Ancient Iran), Sokhan Publisher, 2002. 398

universe was soaked by horror; death and its necrocratic terrors were merely a joke, a perverse relief (more as repression than alleviation). They believed that everything is external to survival, not merely anthropomorphic survival but survival in general. The Aryans who settled in Iran plateau were exceptionally flexible to their environment; ‘flexibility’ was the central element of their circumspect politics for both survival and keeping their genetic purity intact, two most crucial objectives which lead them to migrate and spread along a long path from Asia to Europe. It was not, in fact, their desire for peace that always pushed the Aryans to be open to new people especially the original populations of the regions they occupied, but the fear of their doom, their monomania for a noble perfectionist purity, hygiene and exclusion which should be persevered by any means possible, even by inclusion of other populations. For the Aryans everything ran at the edge of ‘survival’ which should be maintained through ‘closure as an intelligently appropriated openness’, a flexible but severely restricted and economical openness whose limits are mapped by affordance: “I am open to you as long as I can afford You, and what you bring to me.” The most effective way to survive and save the purging purity of the race -- to live unharmed -- was blending in with the crowd. This is was the stratagem of the Aryans. (Bad luck for the Aryans who settled in Iran plateau, they made themselves open to the Z-crowd.) When you open the door for someone, anyone can come in; and once they enter, they unlock doors (holey space) of their own. Following this stratagem, Cyrus could expand the Persian Empire with no real trouble (except for northern nomads who were fiercely resisted the outbreak of this new soft domination); he conquered Babylonia (Babel) and Egypt, and many other territories one after another, attached them to this still-larval Empire whose growth was dangerously rapid, and was trying to assimilate the whole Asia, Africa and Europe by the single formula of initial conflict and then, final peace with the enemy after conquering their land by believing in their beliefs and affirming their request to be free in ‘the realm of Aryans’. The people living in Iran Plateau before the Aryans arrive were adept sorcerers and necromancers, for them 'life' was not survival, nor was survival identified as ‘surviving from death’. Survival was not a reactionary process to the (Un)life, out of which death’s inevitability rises and unfolds through the process of live-ing from the outset to the end; or when death does not only become a terminus-event but a propulsive and conducting power which starts to work even before one begins to live (death becomes the director of one’s life). For this sorcerous crowd, survival was not 399

supposed to hold death back as long as possible but feeding the (Un)life; survival was a sorcerous ritual to feed the Outside, to feed what is external to ‘the so-called life as live-ing’. Living was itself a feeding project. They believed that survival feeds an unthinkable Abomination, an ultimate outsider (on which, ironically, survival tries to germinate) called Druj; the longer you endure, the more you feed the Outside (interlocking with the outside on the plane of strategy.) As adept-sorcerers, they easily grasped their unique commonality with the Aryans, an obsession with survival. The newcomers were eagerly welcomed; the Aryans’ paranoia for purity was a perfect carrier for their sorcerous experiments whose sole inclination was communicating with the Outside; the Aryans were a well-guaranteed vector for dispatching their experiments to the future, developing them unnoticed, legally, publicly and popularly. Once the Aryans developed their Zoroastrian belief systems, these sorcerous people merged with the new religion as mages, the cultists of Zoroaster, camouflaged themselves as the overenthusiastic exhorters of Zoroastrianism; with all powers they had, they started to strengthen and intensify the passion of the Aryans and their monotheistic religion for survival, aiding them to construct a more restricted closure i.e. a more economical openness; since while for the Aryans, openness was knitted on the political side of ‘being open to’ (I am open to you ‘as long as’ ...), for them -- or now the Z. crowd -- the radical openness happened on the plane of ‘being opened’, the polytics of ‘being lacerated, cracked and laid open’ which exploits survival as a parasitic agency, and germinates external to human subjectivity and organic machinery, yet strategically participates with them. Closure or affordance-based openness could be the most attractive prey (A Good Meal) for the butchering lines of openness which reach anthropomorphic security network from the Outside as something abominable, for they reinvent openness as ‘being laid, cracked, butchered open’, an irreversible process of opening, so radical and tenacious in its intention to open You up which should be called the butchery of the outside on anthropomorphism. Simply, you cannot be radically open to the outside for the certain subjective / organic obstacles, but you can invite (seduce) the outside to open you up. If Lovecraft’s stories are shockingly identical to Vendidad’s62 influential demonparanoia (the Zoroastrian book of anti-DRUJ laws) -- the book which unleashed the 62 Hashem-e Razi calls Vendidad the most horrific book humans could write and practically follow. See Vandidad (Vi.daevo.dâta) translated from Pahlavi by Hashem-e Razi, Sokhan Publisher. Vi: anti400

polytics of the Z. crowd within the reality and practice of everyday life -- it is because they both pass an intensive line coming directly from the infested germ-cell of monotheism, diagramming the initial and ongoing sabotage running through monotheism programmed to introduce all monotheistic populations to the Outside via its butchering lines of openness which are not so pleasant for anthropomorphic ‘Survival Economy’, not so clean for human communication relied on affordance and capacity. The Z. Polytics: let’s make it attackable from the Outside. To this extent, the question is: Does the paranoia that Lovecraft vividly diagrams in his stories have only one side, the artless side that Deleuze and Guattari show us in the most elaborate way, or it has also another edge with a dominant function for cutting itself open, reinventing itself as an ultimate polytics for communicating with the Outside -- a schizotrategic two-edged blade? (The question will be followed in the updated version of A Good Meal which will be posted here soon.) Daevo: female Daiva (referring to Druj) Dâta: from Dâtik (Law esp. divine laws) 401

This nebulous thing Reza Negarestani (November 16, 2004) Stunned by the vividly sinister expression of this picture63 and its Lovecraftian ambience, one of my archeologist friends asked me if this is a real part of an ancient mural or a modern artwork. “Lurking on the left wall of a 4th century B.C. tomb, the exceptionally preserved monsters have been unearthed during the ongoing excavation of the Pianacce necropolis in Sarteano, a village 50 miles from Siena, Italy. So far we have found some scenes of banquets, snake-like monsters, demons, a hyppocampus and a sarcophagus broken in many fragments, probably by tomb robbers. We are confident to find more art as the digging goes on," archaeologist Alessandra Minetti told Discovery News” (Discovery News; Nov. 5, 2003) The rushing charioteer bringing the deceased ones to the underworld is obviously an angel of death. However, archeologists are not certain that if this is Kharu (not Charon, the ferryman of Styx) the winged-feet demon of the underworld, Vanth, the omniscient sorceress of death in Etruscan culture who has eyed wings64, or an unknown demon. The utterly appalling glob-entity at the background should not be the shadow of death (or the angel of death) -- as wrongly suggested by the commentator of Discovery News -- since in Etruscan demonology, angels of death (like ancient Semitic / Middle Eastern cultures) have no shadow. Shadow is the property and the curse of mortals. According to Farsi / Arabic folklores, ‘to walk without shadow is to become an undead or death itself’. Apart from the morphologic feature (eyes) which confirms that this tumor-like Thing is a separate entity, angels of death in Etruscan culture have no shadow. The mural belongs to the mysterious decline period of Etruscans during which they suddenly changed from a euphoric nation to hideous disciples of an Underworld overwhelmed by demons and bizarre avatars of death. However in Etruscans culture (as in the case of Sumerian / 63 An Etruscan Tomb – Sarteano, Italy 64 Usually snakes coil around the anomalous wings of Kharu and Vanth; this is possibly another connection of the Etruscans with Semitic mythologies, and esp. older Babylonian and Sumerian cultures in which draco-spiralism diagrams a line of flight unknown to birds and angels (the cataflight of demons or fallen angels); the role of snakes is to forge the line of flight vermicular and radically deviated. 402

Babylonian mythologies) even the most feared demons have traits of faciality which are absent in this entity. Faceless and without organs, it is unusually similar to Lovecraftian legions of unnamable Things from the other side, the Outsiders. Comments: This nebulous thing Winslow Shea: Searching via Google for a better pic of the Etruscan daemons on the Sarcophagus of Hasti Afunei at Palermo, the engine took me to your post here, which I find most interesting. If you go to AncientWorlds and the Etruria group, or directly to home page under the persona SinUtnapishtim, you will find several recent posts by me on Charun & Vanth. I'm still looking for some decent pics or articles online of the recent discoveries of the Quadriga tomb & its demons. Do you know of any besides the head detail from Discovery? cheers Win Sin Utnapishtim: I have a post especially on the Charun & Vanth beside the tomb entrance that you show, tough my illustration is from the wonderful NG article that shows the two children about to enter the tomb. I have a query about your statement here that Vanth is shown with eyes inside her wings. In my essay at the URL address I mention Charun's "all-seeing, Big Brother eye," but not Vanth's. And though I've seen many references to eyes on her wings, I have yet to see one. I'm beginning to suspect that online encyclopedia articles that claim this feature are recycling each other. Can you tell me where I can find one? Yours, Sin/Win Reza Negarestani: Sin Utnapishtim, Very informatic articles ... thank you ... i'll return to your questions soon (just busy with a couple of boring jobs). So visit here in the next few days. 403

Winslow Shea: Thanks, Reza: I see your eye was caught by Vanth's torch. My major post in the ETRURIA group at AncientWorlds is "Charun & Thanatos: Axe or Hammer, Sword or Torch" and gives my "final solution" to a controversy among, and with, Etruscan archeologists on whether Charun carries a double-edged axe or hammer, and whether the other demon's object is a sword or torch. I have several pics and paragraphs in this article on the Greek & Roman death god Thanatos that confirm it is a torch, but raise the new question, why Vanth is almost always shown with her torch upright and flaming, as your detail pic shows. By the way: I do believe that the discovery of the new tomb, the so-called Tomb of the Infernal Quadriga, is genuinely Etruscan and not, as you suggest, a modern forgery. But the discoverers seem to be taking special pains to hide its details from the prying eyes of tourists and rival scholars until they can "publish" first -- a ritual on which their reputations & livelihoods depend! Reza Negarestani: Thanks I actually read your articles ... just a misunderstanding: I didn’t suggest that the piece is a modern forgery (my archeologist friend imagined it is a modern piece) but of course, the mysterious atmosphere all belongs to Etruscans who were on the verge of collapse; I’m not an expert in Etruscans but at least I have studied the archeology and culture of ancient Persia and Mesopotamia: IMHO, the decline period of the Etruscans which is all infested by demons and avatars of the Outside is shocking similar to the decline period of Babylonia and Assyria. More on your informatic materials soon. Winslow Shea: Sorry I wrongly suggested Reza suggested the Etruscan fresco was a modern forgery. Not so. Rereading the article, I see it was implied that the archeologist friend wondered if it were one. As for all the fuss about the demonic shade or shadow behind his/her red-haired head, I have no ideas -- yet. The latter's face, however, is much too regular and clean to be Charun's, almost always (?) portrayed as grizzled, bearded, and hook-nosed. In the famous, puzzling mural in the Tomb of the Blue Demons, a winged red-haired demon with snakes is facing, and, seemingly, about to ward off, a truly evil-looking, black-skinned demon rushing toward the newly-deceased arrivals in the Underworld. And the interpretation of THAT pair remains a mystery. One I'm working on. 404

While I am writing these comments here in Miami, Florida, around 11 AM, I see the posts here are after 4pm. So this site must be somewhere in Europe, right? From there, things must look really weird over here, right now, with our newly recrowned Emperor of the World loved by his admirers, the Evangelicals who believe that the milennium must be soon and that they will soon witness the defeat of the Anti-Christ and their own Rapture, where "No Child (of true Faith, at least), will be left behind." Since you guys are somewhat interested in the occult, you might be interested to visit, perhaps by way of the red-haired demon in the Infernal Quadriga, in these ways in which ancient people's believed, and portrayed themselves as, getting into heaven or hell (neither of them too far off!: [Ways to Heaven: by ladder, winged horse, winged chariot, eagle. (Or levitation)] < Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans. New York: Dover Books, 1969. < Lecture VI: Eschatology p 101 2. This brings us to the second question which we have set before ourselves: How did souls rise to the stars? It may be said that originally they made use of every method of locomotion: they ascended to heaven on foot, on horseback, in carriages, and they even had recourse to aviation. Among the ancient Egyptians the firmament was conceived as being so close to the mountains of the earth that it was possible to climb up to it witb the aid of a ladder. Although the stars had been relegated ated to an infinite distance in space, the ladder still survIved m Roman paganism as an amulet and as a symbol. Many people continued to place in tombs a small bronze ladder which recalled the naive beliefs of distant ages; and in the mysteries of Mithra a ladder of seven steps, made of seven .different metals, still symbolised the passage of the soul across the planetary spheres. Though it had become difficult to reach heaven on foot, it was still possible to get there on horseback, on the back of a winged horse. Thus the large cameo of Paris called "The Apotheosis of Augustus," represents a prince of his house, Germanicus or Marcellus, borne by a "Pegasus," which doubtless has no connection with Bellerophon's mount. Sometimes a Griffin is preferred to Pegasus: the monster flies 405

heavenwards carrying on its sturdy back the deceased raised to the level of the gods. The dead, however, more frequently travelled in a car, --the car of the Sun. The idea that the divine charioteer drives a team across the heavenly fields existed in very early times in Syria as well as in Babylon, Persia, and Greece. The horses of fire and the chariot of fire, which carried up the prophet Elijah in a whirlwind, are very probably the horses and chariot of the Sun. In the same way, when Mithra's mission on earth was fulfilled, he had been conveyed in the chariot of Helios to the celestial spheres over the ocean, and the happy lot which the hero had won for himself he granted also to bis followers. The Emperors in particular were commonIy reputed to become companions of the Sun-god after death, as they had been his protégés in life, and to be conducted by him in his chariot up to the summit of the eternal vaults. Finally, there is a very wide-spread belief of Syrian origin [p102] that souls fly to heaven on the back of an eagle.1 According to the story, Etana in Babylon, like Ganymede in Greece, had been carried off in tbis way. The pious shared tbis bappy lot. This is wby the eagle is used as the ordinary decorative motif on sepulchral stelae at Hierapolis, the holy city of tbe great Syrian goddess, and it appears with the same meaning in the West. At the funeral rites of Emperors at Rome there was I always fastened to the top of the pyre on which the corpse was to be consumed, an eagle, wbich was supposed to bear aloft tbe monarch's soul, and art frequently represents the busts of the Cresars resting on an eagle in the act of taking flight, by way of suggesting their apotheosis. The reason is that in the East the eagle is tbe bird of the Baals, solar gods, and it carries to its master those who have been his servants in the world below. All these supposed methods of reaching heaven are very primi!ive: they start from the supposition that a load has to be carried; they hardly imply a separation of bod and sou1, and they are anterior to the distinctions which pbilosophers established between different parts of man's being. They are religious survivals of very ancient conceptions, which only vulgar minds still interpreted literally. [Levitation] The same idea is involved when magicians by secret proIcesses professed to assure the credulous of the possibility of raising themselves upwards. If we are to believe Arnobius, they asserted that they could cause wings to grow from the backs of their dupes, so as to enable them to fly up to the stars. One of the wonders which miraclemongers most frequently boasted of working was that of soaring up into the air. The 406

phenomena of levitation are produced at all periods. Tbe power which magic professed to bestow on its adepts, is merely one particular application of this art to eschatology or rather deification (apothanaomós). Of this tbe papyrus erroneously called a "Mithraic liturgy" is the most typical example.3 These mechanical means of raising oneself, body and soul, 103 to the starry vault...." _______ 1 For further details see my paper "L'aigle funéraire des Syriens et l'apothéose des empereurs" (Revue de l'histoire des religions), 1910. 2 Arnob., Ad v. Nat., ii, 33, 62 (p. 65, 5; 97,27, Reifferscheid). 3 Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, 1910, compare my Oriental Religions (1911), p. 260. Winslow Shea/aka Sin Utnapishtim @ AncientWorlds 407

Reality itself is becoming paranoiac mark k-p (November 18, 2004) As an additional footnote of sorts to Ccru's 'Who's Pulling YOur Strings?', this from Zizek...(well he might be a decadent western intellectual ;-), but he has one or two things to say pertinent to hyperstition): '... [w]hen we are confronted with conspiracy theories, we should proceed in a strict homology to the proper reading of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. We should neither accept the existence of ghosts as part of the narrative reality nor reduce them, in a pseudo-Freudian way, to the projection of the heroine's hysterical sexual frustrations. Conspiracy theories are of course not to be accepted as 'fact'. However one should not reduce them to the phenomenon of modern mass hysteria. Such a notion still relies on the "big Other," on the model of "normal" perception of shared social reality, and thus does not take into account how it is precisely this notion of reality that is undermined today. The problem is not that ufologists and conspiracy theorists regress to a paranoid attitude unable to accept (social) reality; the problem is that this reality itself is becoming paranoiac. Contemporary experience again and again confronts us with situations in which we are compelled to take note of how our sense of reality and normal attitude towards it is grounded in a symbolic fiction - how the "big Other" that determines what counts as normal and accepted truth, what is the horizon of meaning in a given society, is in no way directly grounded in the "facts" as rendered by scientific "knowledge in the real". ...One is tempted to claim, in the Kantian mode, that the mistake of the conspiracy theory is somehow homologous to the 'paralogism of pure reason,' to the confusion between ... two levels: the suspicion (of the received scientific, social, etc. common sense) as the formal methodological stance, and the positing of the suspicion in another all-explaining global para-theory.' 'The Matrix, or the two sides of Perversion' in The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real Comments: Reality itself is becoming paranoiac 408

TheScuSpeaks: right, this is the essence of 'stupid hermuntics." As Paul Mann explains: "Or to be more precise, a methodology: stupid hermeneutics. All these facts can be collected, indexed, cross-referenced, glossed and reglossed, woven into the dense fabric of the final truth, the big one, the gnostic Big Evil behind all the little viral evils that flicker across the archivist's screen. Everything is evidence for a truth that lies elsewhere; the slightest friction between a number and a name can indicate the deep encryption of a truth that holds the key to a truth that must be organized with other truths that indicate this missing totality. Without the slightest doubt the trajectory of evidence leads to the certain proof of clandestine connections between people in power and, what is more, between seemingly distinct orders of reality: common, household tools conceal super-advanced extraterrestrial technologies linked with the real systems of power behind the apparent political structures, and all these are linked with the dark magic, the secret laws of nature behind those that science pretends to offer us. Everything and everyone is controlled from the outside. Everything is a matter of coding and decoding: a semiocratic delirium. What Bataille calls, in deadly earnest, *parody* as copula as the illicit copulation of facts: this = this = this.... The chain of evidence is endless and at every point it adds up to the missing One." From "Stupid Undergrounds" only/issue.595/mann.595 http://www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text- lvx23: So by "conspiracy theory" you're really talking about a paranoic grand unification theory that relentlessly weaves every detail into an elaborate monlithic apparatus of domination. The term "conspiracy theory" is itself misleading and painfully swollen with connotations as it immediately invalidates any possibility of truth. As such it has become a conveniently fascist buzzword used to gloss over any attempts at uncovering the festering lies inherent in a given hierarchy of power. For example, the state press repeatedly refers to claims of voter fraud in the 2004 US election as "conspiracy theories", thus framing them as lunacy and marginalising any possibility of truth within their cries. Thus branded, the populace is free to dismiss any other such claims on similar grounds. In a sense, the use of the term "conspiracy theory" now only seems to reinforce the paranoic fear of such a conspiracy. Tachiiru: "Conspiracy theories are of course not to be accepted as 'fact'. However one should not reduce them to the phenomenon of modern mass hysteria." We agree that conspiracy is not fact, but neither hysteria. Conspiracy is not totally anything. To claim so would imply an impossible totalizing, universalizing judgement as to what 409

conspiracy is. And to dwell on this dichotomy, and say conspiracy has to be either / or is already misleading. Conspiracy cannot be reduced to anything. However, this doesn't mean that there are no such things as facts or hysterias. And as such, why would it be impossible for facts and hysterias to contribute to the constitution ofconspiracies? Facts can be presented hysterically, can be produced hysterically, can produce hysteria. But perhaps the point being made above is that it is not mass anxiety that produces conspiracy. I.e. that conspiracy is not rooted in reality nor group fantasy. The greater point this is leading to, based upon, circulating, is that there is no radical distinction between reality and fiction. Fictions serve as the basis of facts and vice versa. But this dichotomy, although in its radical form is false, still exists. Is there any way out of this double-bind? One answer may be found in 'Who's pulling your strings?': "Unbelief escapes all this by building a plane of potentiality, upon which the annihilation of judgment converges with real cosmic indeterminacy." I.e. through unbelief. But what is it to unbelieve something? It sounds like an undoing, an unwrapping, a retro movement. Surely not. If we say that Bush is the President of the U.S.A, then we think you will believe us; if we say, however, that Bush is leading a secret campaign, on behalf of Masons or Jews, to dominate the world, then we think you will disbelieve us. Where is the unbelieving taking place? From what we read here: if fact=believe and fiction=disbelieve, then hyperstition=unbelieve. Do you concord? Interested to pursue this further. 410

Sorcerers and Necromancers: lines of escape or wings of the ground? part IV Reza Negarestani (November 19, 2004) When the sorcery of infinity is recalibrated as the sorcery of the ground: What intrigues necromancers about gravity and separates them from sorcerers is their participating attitude toward gravity (complicity); what they see is the attracting functionality of gravity, the remaining of the pestilential philia (as the engineer of bonds, the smooth space of attractions) working at the basis of the verticals of gravity and exploited by the ground. For necromancers, escapism (engineering the line-ofescape) engages in a battle with its own objects of escape, the very consequences of its escapist line of tactics. As the line of escape instigates a line-of-flight along the verticals of gravity to configure a levis(lightness)-function, it immerses deeper into the arriving dangers that the levitating line of tactics integrates around itself, increasingly believing in them, making them real, relentlessly giving rise to them as it tries to escape, to assemble the politics of lightness. However, neither necromancers nor sorcerers regard rigorous escapism as a reactionary cowardliness, but as one method (among many other polytics) for entering the war-zone. For necromancers this method simply is reliable on a survivalist passion that each warmachine engulfs at its core to endure in War; the line of escape is always under the constant danger of falling into a movement for reaching higher modes of survival, developing more advanced compositions of survival economy. Moreover, Deleuze-Guattarian escapism inherits two elements from tactics by which it transforms into a levitating movement (lightness or levis-function promoted by tactical dynamism), a movement for cutting through the verticals of gravity (escapism as a movement always carries a tactical line to move forward in any direction); both of which are regarded as potentially capturable by necromancers because of the conformation they take to disarray or even overpowering the verticals of gravity: (1) Every tactics or tactical movement (f=p/a65) in the same way that Deleuze and Guattari suggest envelopes ‘a becoming death’, influenced by which the impetus and participating parts of the movement will eventually cease to process. The inevitability of death (or zero-degree of processing) inexorably programs the dynamism of every 65 'f=p/a' suggests the linkage between tactical lines and ground, where 'f' is flux, 'p' is power and 'a' is a representation of the ground (surface dynamics). 411

tactical line, covering the line of tactics with a horizon (boundary) which does not only hold and pass the ultimate phase of movement (or the terminus-event) but silently implant itself as a moderator (and an intermediary field between tendencies which affect the progression of the movement) from the emergence of the movement to its maturation. The becoming death or zero-degree of processing is definitely inevitable for the tactical line and its intrinsic dynamism, but this inevitability engineers a horizon for the line of tactics (becoming, line-of-escape, etc.) which functions as a channel, a remote managerial sphere which affects the route to the Outside. If the line of escape is launching towards the Outside, then ‘becoming death’ forces the line to travel through the horizon it creates, which is nothing but the inevitability of death happening for the movement, extended from the beginning to the terminus-event which is not necessarily ‘end’ as telos. This inevitability affects (or perhaps transforms to something else) the encounter with the Outside. For a line of escape, the Outside is only seen, traced, reached and become accessible through the horizon of its ‘becoming death’, its terminus which accompanies the movement (or becoming) from the first moment of its emergence to the end; any function of the line of escape as a movement or a levis-function (of lightness), at any moment, is configured by this inevitability, it is channeled, molded and inspired by the horizon of its terminus or ‘what eventually unfolds’ -- becoming death of every becoming. There is always the possibility that this outside (the outside which the sorcerous line of escape seeks to explore) has already been modified by the fog of death and by the horizon of its inevitability that each tactical line has already enveloped within itself and virtually moves through its principles. (2) To propel and move forward, to communicate with the Outside, the line of escape constructs its tacticity on tactical openness or more precisely, the plane of ‘being open to’. The somehow exaggerated temerity of this openness for ‘being open to the outside’ is constantly screened and modulated through the capacity (capax: affordability to accommodate) of the line of escape to handle the outside or to be exact, to afford it. ‘Being open to’ as a dynamic and tactical line of openness -- which is also encored in dynamic but laminar politics of liberalism -- should always measure and carefully monitor the opening process which opens the lines of escape to new milieus.66 As previously discussed in Holocaust of Freedom: Affordance presents itself as an economical openness, particularly on the inevitably secured(ing) plane of 66 The lidless gaze of a watch-fiend over all probing / propelling functions of the line of escape when it tries to communicate with the Outside, that is to say, when it tries to be open. 412

being open (i.e. ‘being open to’), where organic and subjective survivalism can always interfere without limit; appropriating the flow of xeno-signals (or the journey to the Outside), economizing participations, or even if necessary cutting them before the capacity is cracked and laid open, before a non-economical openness eats the capacity of the line of escape, a capacity through which escapism sustains its dynamism and survival. 'Being open', politically and cautiously, spreads over Survival Economy as an economical, heavily but slyly appropriated sphere of affordance; it simultaneously works as a dynamic matrix of correctitude and appropriation upon the line between the ‘subject’ of economical openness (I’m open to ...) and the ‘the already transformed and customized Outside’ (i.e. the subject that economical openness gives rise to, or in other words, the objective of economical openness as ‘being open to’); the affordance must preserve the survival of both subjects. Following 1 and 2, Castaneda’s sorcery of infinity (or as Castaneda enciphering it, “Reading Infinity”), whose protagonists are usually lines of escape or levis-functions, can be (mis-)directed as the wings of the ground, aggrandizing (grandis) the transcendental sphere of the ground, its surface dynamics, solidus economy and solidly (rigidly concentrated) stratified systems by moving the ground beyond its super-ficially consolidated bounds, giving it a spatial extension to the Outside: an all inclusive ground-space or ground-horizon whose processes invest the solidus economy, solidity and architectonic forces and bildung of the grund all through space, and not incorporated strata or on despotically petrified surfaces as it is usually and wrongly believed. Spatialized ground expels the curse of being static, of lying there and being rigidified, rotting in restricted territories; it unsummons “solidity as immutable despotism” but calls for spatial grounding processes -- a political reformation of solidus, towards grounding space. Now while the ground accommodates the Outside and employs intensities as its own forces of bildungen (groundization), the ‘utilized’ lines of escape blindly spatialize and unbind the ground by their tactical dynamism (affordance-based openness) towards outside, rendering the ground as the pro-creationist consolidating apeiron -- here the boundlessness of the ground, the infinity of Solidus: the sorcery of infinity is recalibrated as the sorcery Comments: Sorcerers and Necromancers: lines of escape or wings of the ground? part IV TheScuSpeaks: This is not exactly on-point, but still... The strategy/tactics distinction is one that has interested me for a while. But what about the plan(e) of logistics (which at least Virilio talks about. But even he tends not 413

to grasp this plane in full relation to the other operational planes) and the plane of grand tactics (which has had almost no critical discourse). As Henri de Jomini, a contemperory of Clausewitz, explains in his The Art of War: "Strategy is the art of making war upon the map, and comprehends the whole theater of operations. Grand Tactics is the art of posting troops upon the battle-field according to the accidents of the ground, of bringing them into action, and the art of fighting upon the ground, in contradistinction to planning upon a map. […] Logistics comprises the means and arrangements which works out the plans of strategy and tactics. Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point; grand tactics decides the manner of execution and the employment of the troops." (of course tactics is on a plan(e) 'below' grand tactics, detailing the individual engagement). So the operations of War occur on three simulatanous plan(e)s, that are interacticve (Foucault, HoS- "No ‘local center’, no ‘pattern of transformation’ could function if, through a series of sequences, it did not eventually enter into an over-all strategy. And inversely, no strategy could achieve comprehensive effects if it did not gain support from precise and tenuous relations serving, not as a point of application or final outcome, but as its prop and anchor point. There is no discontinuity between them, as if one were dealing with two different levels (one microscopic and the other macroscopic); but neither is there homogeneity (as if the one were only the enlarged projection or the miniaturization of the other); rather, one must conceive of the double conditioning of a strategy by the specificity of possible tactics, and of tactics that by the strategic envelope that makes them work" pp.99-100 Though clearly we are dealing with three levels, rather than two). But along with the three operational plan(e)s, the (un)life of War needs to be feed, hence the plan(e) of logistics. (I guess this is where petropolytx, anti-market forces, etc. come in). Also, I am thinking that maybe the four plan(e)s of War do not just follow lines and vectors, but also tensors (which is a vector of a vector of a vector, or even more). Tensors would allow us to understand the operations of War through time. Which i guess brings us back to logistics. War purposefully misorders the world (Misordering comes from Jayan Nayar’s article “Orders of Inhumanity” in 1999 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems “I use the term 'misorderings' here to contrast with 'disorder,' the more familiar terminology of critique. The point I wish to make is that the usual conflict regarding the violence of 'world-order' does not flow from the opposition between 'order' and a lack of order (chaos, anarchy, 'disorder') but, rather, that it results from the creation of orders of violence which disrupt, if not destroy, other existing orders. It follows that this, the impact of 'world-order' projects, when seen from a critical standpoint, does not give rise to 'disorder,' but that the inflicted 414

suffering is the consequence of very real, and consciously created, orders and orderings of violence.”) in order to perputate and extend itself (Similar to what Burroughs is saying, “You see Control can never be a means to any practical end… It can never be a means to anything but more Control… just like Junk…”). In order to create these misordering, we have to realize that War exists in a hybrid/cyborg temporalities (Haraway and Goodeve: "Time is highly condensed and fused and implosion is all around us.... It's an already-written future, with a bounded notion of temporality already built into it.") Where it is always plugged into in its own future. War is always only becoming-war (Deleuze, LoS: “This is the simultaneity of a becoming whose characteristic is to elude the present. Insofar as it eludes the present, becoming does not tolerate the separation or the distinction of before and after, or of past and future. It pertains to the essence of becoming to move and pull in both directions at once.”) Something like that. Love Reza Negarestani: Scu, logistics is absolutely crucial; and is v. complex as it feeds two different but not incongruent planes of strategy and tactics. have a few remarks on this topic but should finish some boring projects first ;) My appologies ... i'll get back to you on this in the next two days. also glad you like 'grasping war as a machine'; we are working on more materials about war-as-a-machine. Sorceress Reza Negarestani (November 20, 2004) Recently saw Catherine Breillat’s Romance-X, the controversial French movie. I didn’t enjoy it in its wholeness but it could be a great movie if it was stripped from that thick intellectual sentimentalism. However, strangely, the movie gives us many clues that it is not a movie about gender issues or sexuality but a horror story, an occult expedition towards anti-creationist creativity of motherhood, a topic (here and here) we pursued a while ago. It is hard for western feminists to grasp motherhood as a profound occultural sorcery -- not an anti-masculine practice but a caustically ironic answer to the whole creation and its solidus-agents, an insectoid participation in creation, an arch-sabotage -- in terms of subversion and undermining -- in its 415

monopoly. Germaine Greer in The Whole Woman follows the line but she does not succeed to plunge into deeper recesses (although Greer does not fail in her task), possibly because of coming through an ineradicable background unwillingly spoiled by decadent western intellectualism. I think Bouhdiba and Mernissi grasp the panorama more radically (more later in ‘Women in WoT: towards eradication of man”) “As the Mother begets the Son, the Son begets the Mother; His act is creative counterpoint of the process. By begetting the Mother, he purifies her. He purifies her and himself, uno acto. He turns the ‘Babylonian Whore’ into a Virgin.” (Robert, Romance-X) ... this does not mean that the process can not be reversible: from a Virgin to the Mother of Abominations, the ultimate anti-creationist Creativity towards Solidus. (Mother as ‘in-between’) Motherhood does not presupposes ‘He’; it is ‘He’ that rises through the sorcerous participation, the Motherhood and it is ‘He’ that never knows 'it' (hit) is pregnant of another woman. “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) “Solid mocks itself; pestis solidus.” (RN) Chrome Craig (November 24, 2004) "Chrome is an obsession, a dangerous drug that pushes you further and further into the horrible spaces of Techno-Lust. I suppose it’s like necrophilia for the NuAge...[T]he old joke about ‘cracking open a cold one’ that used to do the rounds has subtly shifted. In the beginning, psychologists said it was a violation issue. Something 416

to do with the nasty old dominance game of rape. The Machines were Virgin-Nuns that ticked that urge, the unprotesting sex-slaves of those capable of indulging their darker urges. Possessing the Machine, owning the very things that made it function, dirtying the shining creations over and over again, restoring them to pristine wholeness – this was the first step. Humans violating Machine. It couldn’t last. Now, things have changed, and those who love Chrome are both the Violators and the Violated…” – Excerpted from: ’The Diaries of Harry Cochrane’. Chrome is the solid shining metal, the reflective mirror that humans see their faces in, without the ripples of water, the distortions of reflection. The original material or sculptable metallic beauty Is it any wonder that chrome was the original cyberpunk staple? Yet we look at the cyber-aesthetic, created in those grim future realities that our own has sneaked by. Those worlds of metal and flesh which are now supplanted by biotechnologies and infesting plagues. Cyberpunk is forgotten, so they say. No longer a future – becoming just another fantasy-space. There is however, some disagreement amongst the scholars of cyberculture, stirred by the re-discovery of the scribbled coffee-stained notes of the man known as Harry Cochrane. Originally found in a roadside hotel in 2001 near Birmingham England - bound loosely together with a spine of creaking gaffer-tape the Diaries approximately three to four hundred pages in length. Regarded as a work of fiction by the enterprising young waitress who found them, the intimate details of a man’s life within a world subtly different from the then status quo were exposed with a brutal, almost uncaring intensity. Upon the submission of a typed up manuscript to a well-known publisher, the Diaries simply disappeared, despite their seeming marketability. The waitress in question also disappeared shortly after their submission. Rumours abound as to what exactly happened to her, everything from death to becoming an exotic dancer in Chicago. There are those however, who insist the truth is far stranger – that there was merely a visit from a well known figure in an influential occult order. It is said that parallels may be drawn between the meeting of Theodore Reuss and Aleister Crowley in 1910 – with the subsequent initiation of the latter into the OTO – and the disappearance of the nameless waitress after that meeting. 417

As ever in such conspiracy theories, no names are mentioned, though cyber-historians eventually hope to unearth names for the individuals in question, even if they are discovered to be mythical personages. What happened to the original text and its edited manuscript counterpart in the intervening period is a matter for conjecture. What remains is the indisputable fact that there is an underground movement in today’s society that social historians suggest is a movement towards Cochrane’s World-Aesthetic, albeit by slightly different means. It has been subtly intimated that the Diaries are not merely a divergent future echo – or even a fiction created by a fertile mind, but rather tunnelling mechanism to allow a line of escape/entry into the n-dimensional hypersolid of the perceptual-actuality universe. Similar to the Necronomicon, the Diaries are a cultural-gloss delivery system specifically designed to target particular portions of the matrix of the hypersolid. The world of the Diaries and the original classical cyberpunk aesthetic it uses as source-material is thusly not a fantasy-space rendered so by technological and social divergence, but in actuality a hyperstitional entity-complex. Such an entity is a Phantasy – taken from the word Phantasm to emphasise its illusory and ghostly nature. As a ghost-reality, it co-exists alongside the current, reified living reality. Necromancers have long made deals with such ‘hungry ghosts’ who, desperate for shape and life, perform the will of the summoner. Such things are hyperstitional in the most definitive form, solely desiring to make themselves real, to change places with the living. But where singular entities such as these are ghosts, the Phantasy is in fact an entire World-Aesthetic. Rather than being a discrete singular entity, the Phantasy pushes towards the real-dreamhood of maya as a complex. Thusly, multiple entrance-exit tunnels are must be formed, possibly bound together to form an umbilical cord. Once this cord - this network of fibre-optics or ideological linkages or other suitable metaphor – is made, the ghost-reality begins the long road to fruition, slowly moving from Phantasm to flesh, drawing nourishment and resources from the Matrix (Mother) reality. Slowly, the Phantasm incarnates, first as simple base-line functions, 418

then with increasing complexity, until it is finally able to self-sustain. At the moment of Birth there is fundamental danger to both Mother and Child – and in many cases, both die, signalling collapse of consensual beliefs and Apocalypse. Without intervention, the likelihood of Mother-death is significantly high, resulting in the Newborn being Alone and developing in the Wild. Such Wildling realities often contain the components of the Phantasm but their structure is often significantly different due to the need for self-preservation and its inherent mutations based on the needs of Maximal Functionality. Even if both Mother and Child survive, the Child will eventually achieve independence of the mother – albeit somewhat affected by upbringing. In this case, remnants of the previous reality still exist both in terms of memetics and social genetics, Eventually however, unless confronted with something that results in its early destruction, the Child outlives the Mother, and without interference, becomes the Primary. So it is that the classical cyberpunk is not made manifest at the pace it was suggested/created by those who first gave it concrete form, but instead the possibilities change in accordance with the actuality. The Diaries therefore are a Work, a drawing together and pushing forth by the Phantasy into Reality – a seed, a kick from the Foetus-Possibility to stir its Mother into acknowledging its existence and suitably caring for it in order to bring it to term. As mentioned before, the manuscript and original disappeared. Given recent advances in technology and subsequent legal backlash against so-called alternative lifestyles in certain territories, the author of this article wonders if perhaps the battle between the Mother’s immune system and the fertilized ovum is not already taking place. If this is so, then we must ask ourselves whether the disappearance was in fact a suppression due to the extreme nature of the life and world of Harry Cochrane, or rather something else. Perhaps the story of the occult leader has more to it than simple conspiracy theory – and in fact there are hidden fertility technicians out there, wise in the ways of overly active immune systems. Could they be engineering ova even now, or perhaps developing exo-wombs to allow incarnations without interference? Whatever the case, the Diaries deserve further study. 419

According to Cochrane, Chrome is a complex entity – rather than a simple inducer of aesthetic pleasure. The more esoteric portions of the Diaries centre upon the psycho-sexual nature of the material and its seemingly addictive properties to those who become heavy users. No longer simply a name for the solid material alone, Chrome is the shining thing that fuses with organisms to create true cybernetic entities. In a pre-nanotechnology society, its first appearance in the sensorial consciousness would necessarily be of fixed nature, with heavy emphasis upon the visual. Thus, its shine and reflectivity would be the first to attract attention on a larger scale. The first seeds of the pull it has on the human psyche beyond that may be seen by its first uses – the ‘aesthetic improvement’ of the everyday components such as taps and other fixtures. By improving the shine of these objects, their importance was emphasised and attention drawn towards them. The ability to raise objects from normal everyday attention to special focus marks out a general human response. That which shines – or reflects light most brightly becomes instantly noticeable and therefore grabs the attention of the observer, relegating other objects to second-stage relevance. Since humans are primarily visual creatures, that which is the most easily seen receives more processing time than that which is not. Brightness also carries association of intensity and importance or potency – something that is backed up when considering that most of the human sexual cues are visual in nature. It is therefore no surprise that the desire to be noticeable, to ‘be cool’ is something that is an effective component in human societal ritual. Thus, those with wealth - that measure of societal power and control – often use it to procure, create and surround themselves with objects and idea-structures which are aesthetically potent to emphasise their superiority and increase the level of pleasure personally experienced. Soon enough, the wealthy acquired more chrome, adding it to more obvious status symbols ad extensions of psycho-sexual-personality such as cars. The propensity to have chrome and other lustrous materials which excite visual attention can be connected to increasing affluence and greater technological control – soon enough, chromed cars gave way to other shiny-reflective properties. Tall spires of glass and steel signalled advance in architecture, the association with silver and metal as future reaching out into the fifties to symbolize the future calling back to its ancestors – the chroming of the fifties shifted to the stark angular lines of the seventies 420

as the possibilities expanded. Blinking LED’s winked in vast computers, multicoloured hues reflecting off brushed and shining steel. A strange new visual style, lines angles and geometries began to take shape, at first competing with and then supplanting the older organic patterns. Harder, stronger, more resilient – better than that which could rot and decay, and endlessly efficient purposefulness that eschewed waste and focused only on results. Moving from its lumpen-hissing days of the Industrial Revolution, the self-contained Thing that did what it did to perfection, a harmony of Form and Function that simply Was. Now fully ensconced in the Mass-Mind in the forebrain of the everyday, its angular spaces and borders having stabbed and sliced and pressed away the intruders, giving it the room to grow, the next stage began. In those empty spaces it spread, retracting its corners, smoothing itself, featureless. Flowing it moved into the places previously held by the organic alone. There were those who knew this, knew the true face of Chrome, the siren call of Metal. Always few, they had passed down the knowledge of Forging and Making. Alchemists, Blacksmiths, Jewellers, Sorcerers and Magicians, Scientists and Engineers - they knew, and had touched the Mysteries. They’d called it Mercury or Quicksilver. The Elixir of Life, the thing that Shone. Also known as mirror fantastique – or to use Grant Morrison’s phrase, magic mirrorthe liquid flow of Metal-Chrome occupied space with a new kind of ubiquity, the socalled lunar current occupying the same visual space as the solar one. In a very real sense, the reflective properties of Chrome echo the fact that the light of the Moon is in fact the light of the Sun reflected off a silent and dark body empty of movement due to lack of atmosphere. Classical symbolism equates the Sun as male, the moon as female. However, to the peoples of Northern Europe, the symbolism was reversed. Germanic tribes – and this includes the Scandinavians held the Moon to be male and the Sun to be female. In fact, the name of our star-system ‘Sol’ is the name of the Norse goddess of the sun. She was also known as Sunna, giving an easy demonstration of the feminine associations which are often today forgotten in the West – though some of this dichotomy is preserved by the fact that many still refer to the ‘Man in the Moon’, a 421

fact which proves that the complications and Mysteries are still present within plain sight. Being essentially the silent, reflective partner in the relationship of the Heavenly Twins, the Moon has no light of its own without the animating force of the Sun. So it was in the early days of cybernetics – the fusion of technology with flesh required that the inorganic components moved only at the behest of the organic. In a very real sense, the living animated the dead, just as the Moon shines with the life-light of the Sun. The Diaries, with their sketchy description of historical trends – only to be expected from one who was contextually immersed within their results rather than operating from outside – seem to suggest that the cybernetics soon became more than dead things in actuality, if not public perception. The differentiation between Flesh and Metal begins to blur mightily with the introduction of internal nanotechnology and implantation. Carbon-based nanobots and DNA resequencing further makes the people of Cochrane’s world closer to symbiotic entities than enhanced-implanted humans. In this at least, it becomes obvious the Metal-Chrome complex is far more insidious than first suspected by the unwitting Primary Infection vectors that thought they were giving birth to a new form of Engineering. Unfortunately for them, they had instead fallen victim to an ancient visitor from Outside – a form of Unlife which invaded the universe during the first Inflation. Lying quiescent after being expelled into the pre-planetary sphere by supernovae, the Metal formed the core and basis of the tellurian sphere which essentially gave birth to what we know as life. Cochrane’s heretical assertion that the Metal-Chrome is actually an essential portion of existence – i.e. that Unlife is a requirement for Life – is what has caused most to suggest that the Diaries are fictive, however my response to Reza’s post on Holey Space [see: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2004_11.html] may shed light on it. I quote: “The hunger of the solid for the void seems to increase the prevalence of ()hole complexes. The servants of the complex infect the solid - which is to say the baseline monolithic structure of government-society as a super-solid. These servants burrow within such a solid, opening up the tunnels which, as well as allowing easier 422

flow of Unlife and-or-Oil (indeed as engineered-infectious Oil designed by the hyperstitional engineers of IA, the difference eventually becomes negligible) also allow movement /within/ the body of the solid - opening doors/ways to places that were previously inaccessible to those inhabiting the solid. The usability of these newly form transport 'subways' engenders interest in those who become aware of their existence. These interested parties then begin to either seek to control these tunnels or push for more tunnels to be made. In either case, they come into contact with the engineers of the ()hole complex and are often infected and themselves become engineers.” The push towards cybernetics and implantation – of creating increasingly advanced technology which accomplishes greater things, requiring greater integration. That is to say, the Mother hungers for the Child, the Real for the Phantasy. The Solid for the Void. The cyberneticists have engineered the technology which leads to greater ease, causing a generalised explosion and desire of access to Metal-Chrome. This then is the first inkling of the phenomenon that Cochrane refers to as TechnoLust. The obvious intrusion of technology into the fleshly sphere remains, even the Diaries, a surgical intrusive option – humans are not born with implants. They are added afterwards, the original body-image undergoing significant changes, and the expansion of identity to include the new components. This secret is well known to various students of the esoteric scientists – strange mutants who developed spiritual technologies without the physical foci which modernity requires for mass restructuring: “ [T]he initiations of the machine-engineers that dig are arcane and involve significant reconstruction of the candidate’s command protocols and switching on of long dormant factory settings that were disabled after the initial birth-trials of the candidate machine when it was first created. Hence, the imagery of the Old Ones is of misshapen entities which are terrible in their alien nature - in the factory the newly conscious-aware machine-person now has the alien intrusion of never-before felt, direct experience thrust into their newborn and still flexible epistemological framework, an intrusion from the Outside which then recedes after initial programming has been created. Subsequent contact with the Old Ones etc recalls the factory testing and sense of intrusions due to the fact that their Unlife is a new form of direct experience previously not apprehended, or at least forgotten.” 423

As is indicated by Cochrane, the phenomenon of Techno-Lust appears to increase exponentially in relation to the number of Chrome-users. In this sense, he talks of those who are heavily cyberneticized. As the population rises, aesthetic values shift more strongly towards sexualising these components since more human-sexual objects are possessed of them. The epitome of sex thus becomes those with maximal Chrome, eventually moving towards full blown Techno-Lust desiring congress with the total Other. That means sex-procreation-possession-engenderment-envelopment extrusion by machine and becoming desirous of alien modes of consciousness, or: “Gradually the infection-cult spreads and the number of tunnels increase, increasing the amount that passes through, and allowing it passage out of the solid and into contact with other solids. Evenually the original solid becomes so riddled with ()holes that it collapses completely - the Stars become right: ‘That cult would never die until the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild, and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.’ When does Earth become Unground? You may note the use of the term Erath in my earlier comments. Erath is Unground in its thickest, most glutinous form, the precursor to MUD and Dust. It is the Earth shot through with Oil that is so rich and dark as to have soaked the solid through and through. The tunneling disturbs the natural veins of Oil hidden within the Earth, the places it has lain hidden since its production by the hidden subterranean pressures. This mixes with the liquid forms of Outside, seeping through the Earth until it reaches saturation point - becoming almost soggy. In this soggy mess, tunnels are dug more easily, even though they may collapse without warning.” In the next article I will be exploring the relationship between Oil and Chrome in regard to IA, but for now, we will confine ourselves to Chrome. The Ultimate Aim of Chrome-Metal, says Cochrane is essentially to become ubiquitous and omnipresent throughout the human system, creating a new entity 424

entirely. This new entity thus become Opener of the Ways, going beyond the Black Man archetype of Nylarathotep and instead evoking Yog-Sothoth with each new entity one of the infinitte spheres of the Key and the Gate, allowing the Crawling Chaos as Messenger of Azathoth to destroy/create/produce a liminal hyperdimensional solid best expressed by the screaming dimensions of non-Euclidean geometries and the thin piping of the idiot gods as they play their flutes in the interstices between. It is interesting to note that independent attempts to carbon date the Diaries produce erroneous results. It is obviously impossible, state cyberhistorians, that the Diaries – being as they are indisputably cyberpunk and written in modern English, are over 10,000 years old. Once again however, their mysterious disappearance holds many questions for the flexible of mind – questions only exacerbated by the fact that the manuscript is obviously part of a much larger work. PEST (part I): From Parasite Eve to the Old Ones Reza Negarestani (November 27, 2004) Roby: “Reza, when you use the term pestilential, a term similar to many I have seen in your writings, what elements / qualities / characteristics would you attribute to it?” ‘Pest’ combines at least three crypto-genetic strains; each one can introduce itself as an underlying hyperstition-agitator for the rest of them. 1. Bio-infernomatics (Old Growth) / Cosmic Abomenon (Drujaskan) 2. Forbidden / Anti-Genesis Mythos 3. Germinal / Epidemic polytics Whether as a carrier or as an infiltrating probe-head, pest travels as a germinal line of absolute philia; its functionality does not require the cleavage of bonds (the regular dynamic functioning based on frequent oscillation between attraction / repulsion) but engineering new nexuses (attracting whatever they touch) and multiplicative bonds which push it to the unmapped edges of terminal multiplicity and disorganizing propagations; this is why whenever pest communicates, it submits itself to the process 425

as a contagious collectivity, an epidemic crowd which is progressively reinforced by new bonds, unlimited collectivities (as if its hatchery needs no egg or the other way around) and unreported offspring coming through the space of an-omalie which necessarily germinates in the bond-engineering space of philia -- the tireless epidemic attraction. When an entity-as-subject is exposed to pest, it is instantly ‘nourished’ by the multiplicative space of pest enriched by emerging collectivities and attracting bonds (fervent to trigger unrestricted becomings); there is no wonder that the subject can merely perceive this event as an aggressive infestation, being overrun by a legion and at the same time, mis-generating into a pack, or a swarm of particles (one of Lovecraft’s preferred techniques). Rhizomorphically growing through the space of philia (in which nexuses propagate wastefully), pest runs as an undercurrent of openness or if one prefers, epidemic openness which undermines capacity not by dismantling (or negative incapacitation) it but overloading it, a subversive participation with capacity that lures it to be cracked open, and there is no possibility for the Subject to repulse; but of course resistance is not futile, in an ironic twist, it is indeed fertile, triggering an entire genre of xeno-excitations for the subject. The first chapter on Pest is a digression on the ‘Old Growth’ (written by Nick Land): 1. Bio-infernomatics (Old Growth) / Cosmic Abomenon Nick: The difference between parasitism and symbiosis is very slippery, as you suggest. Merely contributing to stability can be construed as a cooperative function, whilst at the other pole the recent movie Parasite Eve anticipates a mitochondrial insurgency – triggered at a threshold of biomolecular science – that unmasks the ‘symbiotic’ mitochondria as strategic parasites. The trend of the Parasite Eve story is to dismantle apparent agencies into ‘deep biopolitics’ or interphyletic collisions. The refrain ‘I waited so long for you’ slides from human lyricism into microbial megatrategy, spanning aeons yet dissociated entirely amongst a diffuse distribution of bioparticles (and patently subverting the story’s romantic resolution). Mitochondria are ‘descendents’ of the prokaryotic Old Ones, overcoded-relics of a decentralized microbial bio-plane that has been taken up into eukaryotic cells and multicellular organisms. They have attained a starring role within bioinformatics due to their autonomous ‘genetic lineage,’ popularized through the discovery of the human ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ – from whom they have propagated ameiotically along an asexual egg-current on the female side. (All the ambivalence of the asexual egg is ‘pregnant’ with Pest-parthenogenesis). Margulis has long suggested that mitochondria instantiate a non-nuclear ‘bacterial’ order within the nuclear regime of the hierarchical 426

organism (inside the cell, but outside the nucleus), whilst functioning symbiotically within the organism as sub-cellular energy modules. These precursors ensure that Mitochondrial Eve (the pulp-entity) inherits both a biophysics of exploitation and an alien sex-politics, slanting the direction of anticipated social conflict in sinister directions. Despite genre differences, GAS seems to exhibit features of Parasite Eve. Both interconnect with Pest, or meltdown-plague, since they conceive strategy as an emergent wave arising out of tactical multiplicities and their ‘coincidences,’ propagating as a hypermutative virus. [...] Virus leads into your suggested topic of possession, or Pest-capture, which can be differentiated according to the virulence of its abstraction. The virtual function of the reverse transcription enzyme as a catalyst for molecular intelligences, as sketched in Greg Bear’s Blood Music, is on obvious reference. Such K+ hyperviruses and occultural influences - innovating intelligence as a process of infection - come from such monumentally abstracted spaces that they are often felt as arriving from another galaxy. There is an entire field of potentials linked by a theme of diseases from outer space for such intelligence-plagues to latch on to, but Pest plutonism also necessitates that the issue is also thrown to the other ‘pole’ – that of technovirus (Downham’s take on Kadrey’s ‘metrophage,’ for instance). Follow the dark line, that is what Pest insinuates. It is patently demonic in this sense. It is the ‘erroneous’ path, a trajectory abominated as malignant both to God and to Man, and placed by Eliphas Levi under ‘a spirit of agitation and subversion.’ It tells females forbidden secrets (in the way of the nephilim): Octavia Butler understood it well. It is also, therefore, the subterranean target of misogyny and vicarious fascination: the XX-monstress, Hecate, or whatever she might be called, whose influence is felt in an epidemic of lesbo-vampiric Zombis (in the old African sense of pythonesses), witch-craze undercurrents, transexuation out of primate gendersystems and hypersavage erosions of phallic dominance. Pest leads into the transsatanic gulfs of Old Night. Pest coincides with something between arrival and emergence, invasion and spontaneous genesis. It takes what it needs to accomplish a cosmic projection so alien to human possibility that it triggers a terminal horror syndrome amongst its anthropian hosts. It takes you with utter subtlety, yet in a way that is ultimately 427

horrible to the organism. Everything comes rushing back, as hundreds of millions perhaps billions - of years of biomolecular fear-engineering are triggered by the Thing: the bubbling, amorphous, sub-protoplasmic infiltrator, crawling fog, or dust-vortex. If H.P.Lovecraft is peculiarly honored within the horror genre it is in part because he first centrally emphasized the necessity of such an ancient yet non-traditional and radically disanthropomorphized ‘Outsider’ as the ultimate principle of horror itself. Stephen King’s ‘Tak’ is an example, consisting of nothing beyond its contagious multiplication through what it takes, accruing itself swarm-like out of its hosts. 428

December 2004 Sorcerers and Necromancers: anabatic lines (part V) Reza Negarestani (December 1, 2004) The last part of this essay about the line of escape, before exploring strategies of necromancers (a chapter which is still unfinished): Deleuze-Guattarian escapism may deprive of its sorcerous polytics right at the moment of bursting (exploding) with its full maneuverability in the presence of climatologic factors, slope-process and flexible lattices of gravity verticals which use dynamism to reform and revitalize themselves. This, however, is regarded as an opportunity by necromancers (another instance of subversion, occult-sabotage and radical sorcerous polytics as it will be discussed) but it glooms as a failure in functionality or a disappointing setback by escapist sorcerers. Explosion (ex- + plaudere) turns a line of flight into an enthusiastic (plaudere) carrier of solidus towards the outside (ex-), a line of spectacle (a line of flight enriched by solid contents). Who can deny the religious zeal of Hollywood for explosions, the squawking lines of volatilis? (it’s show time!) When utilized escapism (or an appropriated line-of-escape) reaches an intensive displaceability (which usually occur as a transient / instantaneous state) it becomes resistant to the synthetic textum of the verticals of gravity, a ‘woven’ latticework which platonically manages (governs) all entities that it sets in motion (in Timaeus, Plato describes these “vital chains” as what effectuate motion not restrain it) to produce an infinity which essentially necessitates sempiternal movements, and at the same time making them grounded. Excursus II: the grounded infinity and the master of pseudo-flux “... a striated space of this kind is necessarily delimited, closed on at least one side” (Deleuze and Guattari, ATP, p.475) Rudimentary flight through such a spatial-ground (or woven infinity), to this extent, is not an act of escape but ensnarling the net whose task is employing all modes of movement to expand a non-volumetric grounded space. ‘Desiring for infinity’ lucratively contributes to the spatializing process of the grund. Unbounded from one side while being grounded (closed at the other side), the line of flight do nothing but becoming a master of pseudo-flux, the miraculous irrigator of the ground and the economy of solidus, an uber-agent of striated space, a Saviour. A true sorcery, initially, 429

requires a cunning clandestine machine, a line of cataflight to remove, neutralize or subvert the grounding processes of the binding side (or according to Deleuze and Guattari, “the closed side” capable of weaving an infinity as a homogenous striated space) which turns every line of flight into a champion of the spatial-ground, a binding side (or end) which exploits infinity as an unbound raum, a full accommodating system, a boundless boundary; the closed side is the ground. The first task of sorcery should be unleashing a strategy towards the ground or the binding side, otherwise, sorcery has a limitless potential to prostitute all lines of escape, being a determined pimp of the ground and solidus. Ironically, the initial task of sorcery happens on the ‘frontline’ of the battle: undermining the ground, engineering the corpse of solidus, awakening the Unground -- towards the alkhemy of the Earth -- igniting the potenz of the Unground. If the first step of alchemy is fermentation or unleashing the seething and pestilentially corruptive potenz of ‘black matter’ (corpus) through matter (not seeking to control or conduct it); then the first task of sorcery unfolds in alchemy, the chemistry of Unground. Despite its resistance to the textum of gravity, the line of explosion (volatilis) plots a new panorama of ‘ground fertilization’. Volatilis is a sedimentary flight, its intensive / instantaneous displaceability instates a climax-oriented space of solid engineering, subserviently erupting and ceasing for the ground. Volatilis economizes intensities through a mechanism similar to ejaculatory emission, turning intensities to pressures, forces, manned vehicles and instigators of shape. The explosive emission of volatilis can deliver and spread solid at any place and any moment, without the risk of being caught, weakened or subverted by insurgent entities. It is efficient and clean, not only in its mobilizing activities but in the way it dis-seminates a regime of vestigiums, leaving behind an empire of signs (what is more theatrically provoking than explosion, than trajectories it leaves in space?) and hotheaded lines which are pure in their commotion yet unsophisticated and naïve in their tendency to carry solid contents of the grund with an uncontrollable enthusiasm (plaudere), concealing (in the sense of giving a new Face) the macro-politics of the State in a volatile semiotic space. The line of explosion (ex-plaudere) is a combined war-machine of fierce anabatic waves and sedimentology, not only does it transport all solid products of the volumetric ground to a non-volumetric level (partaking in formation of the spatialground) but also saves the macro-politics of the State by inoculating it with intensities, reforming and restoring it in a volatile state i.e. a higher level of solidus management. 430

Existenzialism and Inhumanism mark k-p (December 2, 2004) Pikul: I don't want to be here. We're stumbling around in the unformed world, not knowing what the rules are, or if there are any rules. We're under attack from forces that want to destroy us but that we don't understand.' Watching Cronenberg's Existenz while teaching existentialism recently, I found myself finally persuaded of the director's claim that the film is 'existentialist propaganda'. Existenz has worn well, and repays re-viewing now. In retrospect, it is possible to position the movie as part of a rash of late 90s and early 00's films that can be seen as symptomatic expressions of the traumatic transition from the 'irrational exuberance' of the bubble economy to WoTerror. Along with Vanilla Sky, Mulholland Drive and The Matrix, Existenz' 'reality bleeds' anticipated the crashing into the US's simulated interiority of 'the desert of the real' on 9/11. In a wonderful Zizekian shift, Existenz's Real is precisely not the empirical reality defended by the film's Realists (those committed to the destruction of the gamepods and the ontological contamination they threaten), but the Real of the cosmos as ongoing ateleological event: 'purposiveness without purpose' (Kant). The realists, by contrast, are those who treat whatever consensual hallucination they find themselves thrown into - and the random rules and protocols which make it liveable - as the only authorized reality. Cronenberg: 'I'm talking about the existentialists, i.e. the game players, versus the realists. The deforming of reality is a criticism that has been levelled against all art, even religious icons, which has to do with man being made in God's image, so you can't make images of either. Art is a scary thing to a lot of people because it shakes your understanding of reality, or shapes it in ways that are socially unacceptable. As a card-carrying existentialist I think all reality is virtual. It's all invented. It's collaborative, so you need friends to help you create a reality. But it's not about what is real and what isn't.' (Sight and Sound interview). Cronenberg's is a kind of ontological existentialism, then, in which the very nature of reality itself, not only the individual choices of subjects, is radically open. The Existenzialists precisely refuse what Nick Land in 'Meltdown' called 'the dominator 431

ur-myth that the nature of reality has already been decided.' Jude Law's Ted Pikul confronts the existential horror of abandonment, anguish and despair when he complains to Jennifer Jason Leigh's Allegra Geller (who at this time seems to be the designer of the very game, Existenz , that they are playing) that the game is without final purpose, that they are forever being accosted by malevolent forces intent upon their destruction. It's a game that would be hard to market, Pikul moans. And yet, as Geller tartly rejoins, it's the game that everyone is already playing. The realists believe - or rather want to protect the self-delusion - that the particular world (=consensual hallucination) in which they find themselves is fixed and determined. What guarantees such fixity is of course the functioning of a transcendent designer - the game programmer, whose role is inevitably paralleled with what God does - or did - in/ for 'our' particular consensual hallucination. What Existenz demonstrates with admirable lucidity is that reality can only be authorized if it is authored - if, that is to say, its nature is controlled by an additional, allegedly 'more real' plane of reality, one level up from in which we find ourselves. Thus Existenz turns on the Sartrean opposition between the in-itself and the foritself. The players (Pikul and Geller) are for-itself, capable, or seemingly capable, of making choices, albeit within set parameters. (Unlike in the ludicrous Matrix, the players are constrained by the rules of the world into which they are thrown). The game characters are the in-itself, pre-programmed drones who can only respond to particular cues. These in-itself pre-programmed game characters are one of the greatest sources of uncanny humour in Existenz. That's partly because their strange fugues and inability to act unless triggered by exactly the right stim are immediately reminiscent of so many interactions with 'real' human beings in late Kapitalism. In late Kapitalism, the experience of listening to a cheerful more-human-than-human robovoice announce, inevitably incorrectly, the arrivals and departures at a railway station and the experience of talking to a 'real live' call centre employee or ultra-trained estate agent, are all but indistinguishable. Professionalization = becoming as much like a bureaucratically controlled robozombie as is humanly possible. In none of these cases are there any signs of autonomy or ability to sensitively engage with either the situation or people around them. In the 'age of artificial stupidity' (Iain Hamilton Grant) , the tendency is for everyone and everything to be encouraged to act as if preprogrammed. 432

The Hyperstition of Porphyrin: No blood for oil! Reza Negarestani (December 5, 2004) I recently received an email from a friend who asked me about motivations behind writing the hyperstition-pieces on WoT, Oil, Desert, Islamic Apocalypticism / Sorcery. More precisely: “Do they answer some questions; because they refer to discussions which have not been posted yet?” Answer: Yes, they are actually pursuing a line of participation with Nick, a project which is still in progress. For anyone interested, this is not the beginning of the thread but is helpful for disentangling some issues around the previous posts; also working as a hyper-stimulant for many potential discussions. A few excerpts: Nick: Thinking it might be productive to do some zig-zagging on elementary positions on the WoT, just to get some assumptions manifest a few starters: 1) 'War on Terror(ism)' - no attachment to this term of course, but because it has become so standardized it must bear some examination - clearly: - PC evasion of cultural reality ('clash of civilizations', etc. see below) - Terror vs. horror - definition of 'terrorism' highly conflicted (which isn't to necessarily buy into 'one man's terrorist = another's freedom fighter' bromides) - Terror has hyperstitional intensity through acting upon mass psychology, belief systems, media apparatus etc. intrinsically 'communicative' 2) Prominent agents in WoT all internal to Abrahamic tradition - WoT eschatalogically programmed by escalation of monotheism - which in turn basic structural principle of world history - role of 'outsiders' (animist savages, pagans, polytheists, atheists (?) or concretely, Hindus, Chinese, 'primitives')??? 433

Complex historico-temporal structures 'internal' to Abrahamic tradition/WoT,(insert scare quotes as desired) conservatism, progress, backwardness, history and apocalypse, prophecy, latency, abrogation, calendars ... 3) the 'war machine' (grasp the war as a machine) does not correspond easily to the D&Gon; model because: - it includes Abrahamic escalation and monotheism as 'stimulating' components - it has war as an 'object', or - more exactly - a product - it consumates the technocapitalist oecumenon through sythesis with islamic monotheistic enthusiasm (subtracting the supposed potential for 'secularization' as an Abrahamic teleology) 4) 'You ain't seen nothing yet' - WoT is historically illimitable or co-programmed with historicity (it cannot be 'outlived' in a way that is compatible with dominantoecumenic conceptual categories) 5) ISLAM = 99 (unsurpassable terminus of intelligible history, also interpretable as 'double death' - emphatic finality) - the Apocalyptic Imperative 'entrusted' to Islam by Abrahamic escalation / history cannot be shrugged off, reformed, or rationalized because it is inherited from the germ of monotheistic eschatology itself 6) WoT affectively linked to 'Khattak fugues' of overpowering delirious hatred (the more coldness we can bring to the issue the more we can surgically incise into its core) 7) All key agencies participating in WoT subject to violent internal fission (WoT almost amounting to twin civil wars - each multiplicitous - hurled against each other in annihilating rage) not at all clear yet how to engineer this onto the GAS pipe, but confident we can Saudi obviously axial (but not disputing the Mesopotamian centre of gravity) Reza: Desert, dust, the corpse-of-solidus, Islamic Apocalypticism, Conspiracy, Exhumation and Krypts; we have a lot of ingredients in our Hell’s kitchen ... but there is still one last piece necessary for cooking our Xerodrome enterprise to the heart of Tellurian-Omega: Oil. WoTerror cannot be radically (and technically) grasped as a Machine without Oil greasing its parts and recomposing its flows. Have you read Dean Koontz’s novel 434

Phantoms? Timothy Flyte, a renegade paleontologist who considers himself as the professor of Ancient Epidemics is a tabloid writer researching on a Tellurian unnamable which he calls the Ancient Enemy responsible for devouring numerous civilizations (Aztecs, and the Lost Colony at Roanoke, for example). A bio-chemical combat unit invites him (The Exorcist again) to trace the mysterious disappearance of people in a village at Colorado. The Ancient Enemy is a Thing-like bio-hazardous plague hunting organic entities, using bio-sorcery and mutating various organic phyla to each other (possessing a soldier and turning his blood into a small lizard). The epidemic is trying to spread its gospel via three chosen characters. David Flyte finds a lot of parallel traits between The Ancient Enemy and The Antichrist. Examining preys and corpses, he detects traces of porphyrin which is a common chemical substance in blood, plants and petroleum. The Ancient Enemy or the Tellurian Antichrist which persistently looms in the Mesopotamian dead seas (where originally Antichrist comes from) or near the oceans is the Tellurian black dust jellified by a molecular-possessing chemistry; it is Petroleum or Naft (Arabic/Farsi word for oil). According to classic terminologies (common hyperstition), petroleum has been forged as a Tellurian weapon under unimaginable pressure and heat in the absence of oxygen and between the strata, its hadean nervous system has developed a satanic sentience through the polytics of between which is inevitably welling up through the God-complex deposited in the strata to the surface. Oil as a lubricant; something that eases narration and the whole dynamism of the desert expedition (it makes things moving forward) ... Ghoul-e Naft (Oil-fiend) in old Arabic / Farsi fictions haunts dead seas (ex. Qumran), it turns things to soup, immolates nature and the full body of earth. It is a Nyarlathotepic neuroplague contaminating economies cross-linked by the technowave propagation of critically advanced civilizations; it it fuses with all types of production to install its plane of Telluro-occult infernormatics within them, assembling the plutotectonic cult of Tellurian blasphemy everywhere. Dean Koontz’s Phantoms is a key for stepping into Tellurian Omega through the surfacial (GAS pipeline), subterranean (Oil reservoirs) and deeply Chthonic (Thomas Gold’s Deep Hot Biosphere) Thingness of petroleum. Oil as a narrative lube. Nick: a lot here, but all highly persuasive to me - crude summary: - Narrative organizer - definitely (heart of gloopy darkness) - Cybergothic convergence - demonic / technomic lube 435

- Oil cult - pomo-leftist conspiracy mongering greases into archaic slithering rites (Petro-Masonism and its trans-historical tentacles) Reza: Another hyperstition: Petroleum and fossil fuels as another Telluro-conspiracy towards the Sun: trapping the energy of the sun accumulated in organisms by means of lithologic sedimentation, stratification (double-pincering), Anaerobic decay and bacteria in highly stratified sedimentary basins: petroleum as a schizotrategic line of paranoia towards the Sun. if we cannot afford the incinerating openness towards the sun, then why don’t we strategically invite it to open us? Nick: Koontz imagery is really helpful for the 'Thingness' of oil, its subterranean cohesion as a singular anorganic body with its own agendas -- assuming here that 'the blob' (of course, we'll do better than this namewise, but as an occasional slang moniker it works quite well) takes on an increasing 'agentic' function on the journey 'up-river' (from GAS-station to chthonic reservoir? A-Now squirmles feeding on the rotting black corpse of the sun?) [...] Bush / Bin Laden obviously petropolitical puppets convulsing to the chthonic stirrings of the blob - collapse all manifest policies and ideologies onto hyperstitional oil seepages - to repeat: Oil is the hyperstitional subject rather than the secular object of manifest geopolitics. [...] Even if Omega-Pest runs on hydrogen nanofusion, the concrete war-machines chopping up contemporaneity are indubitably very oily. Comments: The Hyperstition of Porphyrin: No blood for oil! signal pilpil: radical opinion investing in either 'anti-imperialism' or more obscurely 'the war against fascism', both seem strangely primitive in their analysis/positioning (and of course self-contradictory), like they fear themselves – the governance function of the left over that which would be felt intolerable if exercised by the 'establishment' and particularly here, the policing of anti-war hysteria, normalising/issue-ising it paul: i am fairly new to this site but am finding this entire discussion beyond fascinating. it seems moot to point out the omnipresence of petrochemicals in our daily lives: i've been on a mission to root out all plastic products from my lifestyle, 436

and have all but given up: cooking utensils, carpets, clothes, my computer, packaging of all kinds--the "blob"/hyperstitional subject is horrifyingly everywhere i turn. thistle: Disturbing the grave of the ancestral diatom... There are other unicellular organisms involved in the formation of crude, but diatomaceous life seems to comprise a major part of oil deposits. I mention them here because they seem, in their structure, to touch on a few hyperstitional threads. Diatoms connect sand to oil via silicate; these organisms incorporate sand into their structure, the living parts of which are sandwhiched between two plates of silicate, their shells literally lenses for the accumulation of light in photosynthesis (open to the sun). After death, uncountable masses of these creatures fall to the bottom of the world's oceans and freshwater lakes; glacial flows and tectonic upheavals send them further underground, and, after thousands of years, their shells are separated out from their gelatified, decayed interiors. Industrial refinement separates out these cracked shells (now hungry ghosts, a fine white desicating powder used for insecticide, pesticide, abrasives, dynamite; called diatomaceous earth, this fine powder comprised of billions of lacerating shards slices the cell walls of what it comes in contact with, leaching liquids) from the decayed material (oil). Silicate is also used, it should be added, as the substrate for microprocessors. Etymologically, the diatom is either a cracked tomb or a cracked book; also, what passes through the cracked tomb or the cracked book. These dead monuments paper over the earth, a bookwormwoodpulp continuum. Like parasites which alter the nervous system of their hosts, guiding behavior, the industrial-digital machine is possessed by the spirit of the ancestral diatom. Reza Negarestani:signal pilpil, Thanks for your comment ... ‘Necromancers and Sorcerers’ (esp. the recent part: ‘anabatic lines’) has enveloped some camouflaged carriers for uncovering the politics of the left: the left as an appropriated line-of-escape saves the State’s macropolitics in a volatile / micro-economical status i.e. in an economically agitated state, or Terror’s economic network. Plus, we shouldn’t forget the role of Crisis-based analyses of leftist intellectualism: crisis-based analysis intensively strengthens the terror-dissipating binds between Subjectivity and Terror (the role of crisis-driven economy and logics); the left twists into a self-referential economizing agency of Terror. 437

Paul S., Thanks very much. There are many posts on this topic in the hyperstition archive. (will post an article on 'the omnipresence of the blob / the outbreak of the Naphtanese religion on planetary body' soon) Thistle, Excellent! Definitely diatoms are anomalous hyperstition nexuses in this panorama; rather than mapping the phylumic connectedness of different entities, they are cutting through (tomia) different phyla (horizontal diatomy instead of top-down anatomy) and giving us an extremely wide-opened (openness as butchery) range of pest-positive components: (from insectoid motions enabled by exoskeletonism in the age of fastforward bodies to sporulated / enveloped / camouflaged entities suitable for intercontinental bio-terrorism to silicon encored technologies), converging them all on the Thingness of petropolitics and its undercurrents. Take silica (SiO2) in the frustule of diatoms for instance. Apart from its vast usage in optical / digital technologies, silica (and other silicon derivatives) is originating a very hot genre in the field of advanced nanoparticles and microfluidics esp. soft weaponry or as in the case of War on Terror, GAS/DUST weaponry (Xero-weaponry) [http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003348.html]. Militarized constituents of WoT mainly concentrate on additives (compositional ingredients and compositional anomalies) rather than the degree of development, evolution or perfection; additives engineer compositions with unique properties that conventional materials do not possess. As an additive, silica is usually used in production of aerosols, facilitating aerosolization by means of reducing the risk of agglomeration. In the field of soft weaponry (dust, aerosolized spores, nano-agents, etc.), silica induces many interparticle forces and surface-enhancing enzymatic reactions (resulting in morphologic / functional changes of surfactant) to particles; one of the favorite results is a smooth dynamism; particles can travel fast and spread over a wide area epidemically, be camouflaged and inhaled as dust (silica-impregnated Anthrax for example). Recent researches in silica nanoparticles also focus on silica as an additive that is capable of controlling the time of residence of particles and aerosol formation in different environments. 438

However, the hyperstition of diatoms requires the theory of fossil fuels, but if we take Thomas Gold's view in Deep Hot Biosphere the story is complicated. thistle: Reza, I'd seen you mention Gold before. I haven't read the book myself, but I've taken a look at some of the paper's on Gold's site at Cornell. [ http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/index.html ] The theory seems simple to grasp outright: a secondary (or primary to our secondary) anaerobic biological ecosystem inside the earth is responsible for a number of unexplained things, including the position and abundance of certain petroleum deposits. The question is, does this necessarily preclude other theories? It would challenge the centrality of the diatom in the history of petroleum, but could there be a collusion between aerobic and anaerobic unicellular agents, a recognition that multicellular organisms ultimately represent a greater threat to their own well-being? O..O ||||| "...camouflage...": The starkness in diatoms of camouflage as life, diatoms camouflage into life, incorporating an obviously inorganic component (silica) into an organism. Elsewhere, I've called this "mortality tunneling." Not exactly a raising of the dead but a translation of death, of the grave, of the place of death, into life. Hence my reference to them as hungry ghosts. They incarnate by eating themselves into existence; their "bodies" are only the backsides of a mouth which is always consuming; or else they are mouths without bodies. (Eventually, I'll work to clarify some of this in a post about goblin etymology.) Reza Negarestani: Thistle, great stuff ... some crude answers for now: mortality tunneling Can you explain more? This sounds v. interesting. incorporating an obviously inorganic component (silica) into an organism. This panorama is close to the darker side of Moravec and Stelarc’s works: “The Hollow Body is drained of desire.” (Stelarc) it’s drained of the anthropomorphic desire which is a restriction for xeno-excitations. According to Stelarc, Hollow Body (mainly the attractor of inorganic compositions) is an involuntary host for alien 439

agencies. See: http://www.cold-me.net/text/hollow.html ... also, don’t forget the Iron Man. Not exactly a raising of the dead but a translation of death, of the grave, of the place of death, into life. I call it ‘Germinal Death’ (Empedocles' philia is a key for understanding the process by and through which death is cracked open by life: necro-philia???) ... and Viktor Mazin calls it the mutual contamination of life and death, the result is the emergence of a rabid line of becoming whose becoming-death (its potential end) is no longer functional. See: http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=396 [Chernukha cinema: Evgenii Iufit’s works] mouths without bodies Acephalous Mouths? See: http://www.channel83.co.uk/pr_reza.php Northanger: DIENES: a compound containing two double bonds between carbon atoms AQ 330 = DANISHEFSKY'S DIENE = SEVEN-SEVEN-SEVEN = TOXYGENIZATION AQ 82 = DIENE = BEING = BODY = DOVE = DUNG = EVEN = FLAME = KANK = LINK = PLACE = SKY = TEACH = THEM http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~che395/general/dictionary.htm The topic of your literature search is Danishefsky's Diene; Your entry into the "Dictionary of Interesting Chemistry" must…….. …….describe the structure of this diene and its reactions with alkenes, carbonyls and imines (all acting as what?). Reference one An American journal, 1974. Look for the man himself! Reference two It's him again - same journal, 1982 with two others. Reference three Same journal, new authors KI & Yamamoto in the 1990's. Samuel J. Danishefsky, Ph.D. Head, Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory; Eugene W. Kettering Chair http://www.mskcc.org/prg/mrg/bios/424.cfm 440

Dr. Danishefsky is one of the world's leading chemists in the synthesis of organic compounds. He and the bioorganic group have developed the first total syntheses of two natural products called epothilones A and B, which have the potential to become potent anti-tumor agents. He is also renowned for his strategies to design anticancer agents and complex carbohydrate molecules. He and his colleagues have prepared a synthetic version of a carbohydrate molecule found on the surface of some breast cancer cells. The molecule acts as an antigen, which means that it can be recognized and potentially attacked by the body's immune system. The synthetic antigen led to the development of an anticancer vaccine, currently in early clinical trials. Surfascism67 mark k-p (December 10, 2004) 'Sacred Sociology: A French Approach to the Religious Dimension of Fascism’, Carlo Ginzburg, Leo Baeck Institute, London December 7 2004 Carlo Ginzburg’s ‘microhistories’ of belief-contagion (and of withcraft in particular) make him an enormous resource for students of hyperstition. The subject of Ginzburg’s lecture on Tuesday, held in the vaguely sinister atmosphere of the Leo Baeck Institute near Regents Park on, was the College de Sociologie, founded by Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris in Paris in 1937. The College de Sociologie from the start envisaged its mission to involve not the provision of a sociology of the sacred but the invention of a sacred sociology. The College explicitly abandoned the aim of studying religion with academic detachment; its three founding members didn’t want to be scholars so much as participants in a revivified cult of the sacred. In this ambition, naturally, they broke from the positivist pretensions of sociology. The founder of the discipline, Emile Durkheim, together with his nephew, Marcel Mauss, had precisely thought that sociology would ultimately supercede religion. The dispassionate appreciation of Society as Sovereign would replace supernaturalist superstitions, providing a rational(ist) and non-sectarian base 67 Ed.: This post marks the arrival of the trolls to Hyperstition. Specifically, trolls began imitating Fisher to attack Land. 441

for social cohesion in a way that religions never could. Rejecting this rationalist religion, Bataille, Cailois and Leiris wanted the religion, but without the rationalism. Here, then, the rejection of Enlightenment is all-but complete. Rationality is repudiated, demonized. It is made equivalent with a process of modernization that is seen to be ‘taking us away’ from something essential that was supposedly present in all other human groupings – especially primitive societies – but which has now been ‘lost’, and which can only be recovered by either opiating reason or jabbing it into submission with Dionysian phalluses. Accordingly, Ginzburg positioned Bataille and the College as part of a ‘CatholicSatanic’ lineage (I’m not making this up, honest) Counter-Enlightenment tradition. Significantly, in the case of the College de Sociologie this flight from reason specifically entailed a rejection of the Jewish rationalist tradition of which Durkheim was a firm adherent. If – as is established in Jonathan Israel’s work – Spinoza is the Jewish-rationalist inventor-discoverer of radical enlightenment, the most obvious source of the counterenlightenment trajectory that culminated in the College and its irrationalist successors in postmodernity has usually been taken to be Sade. But Ginzburg took one step back along that well-travelled route, returning to Voltaire. In Ginzburg’s narrative, Voltaire emerged as the pitvotal counter-enlightenment figure: a disappointed rationalist whose inability to square his knowledge of the natural world with rational ethical principles made him cry out in moral disgust for a theodicy. What is prima facie odd in Voltaire’s turn from rationalism is its strange doubling of the logic of the disappointed theist. Like those idiotically chauvinistic religious believers who only begin to question their faith in the Demiurge-Jahweh only when a member of their family is struck ill, Voltaire was famously morally shocked by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Since Voltaire had dispensed with faith in the personal God, his moral outrage at the 1755 disaster could not make him atheistic – he already was. What it did was make him question his ‘faith’ in rationalism. Voltaire, then, is perhaps the first case study of what will become, in Nietzschean postmodernity, a familiar psychopathology. Rational analysis rounds upon itself. The scalpel of analytic reason – the capacity to understand Nature and the principles which animate it – becomes a weapon of auto-laceration turned both against reason itself and its agent. Never fully extirpated (because never fully extirpatable), reason is lured into a hideous line of abolition. 442

(Later, Nietzsche will be the consummate artist of what he himself will call, in Beyond Good and Evil, the long, slow suicide of reason. The object of Nietzsche’s remark is, as always a religious thinker, Pascal. But, as ever, Nietzsche finds himself guilty of the very vices of which he accuses the theists. Hence the negative atheologies of those Nietszchean all-too Nietzschean cults of un-reason, deconstruction and postmodernity. But that is to jump ahead. Nietzsche cast a vast shadow over Ginzburg’s narrative, but featured only very fleetingly as a player within it.) Traumatized by the Lisbon catastrophe, Voltaire becomes morbidly obsessed with nature’s amoral rapacity. When he surveys Nature, he confronts a Boschian Garden of Earthly Delights, a proto-Burroughsian universe of devourer-eat-devourer. The planet as charnel house. ‘Earth is a single battlefield.’ (The) Meat causes him revulsion. ‘Can anything be more horrible than to feed oneself on corpses?’ It is only a short step to Sade’s naturalization of cruelty. Since nothing is more natural than murder, ethics is a sentimental indulgence, an inevitably failed effort to provide solace for ourselves in a world of pitiless consumption and degradation. Sade’s arguments are so familiar – and Sadeanism, along with its successor Nietzscheanism, is so widely disseminated, so blanket accepted, both culturally and academically – that there is little point jumping on the grim hedonic treadmill of his thought again here now. But the next figure in Ginzburg’s story is much less celebrated: Joseph de Maistre. Maistre was a theist who abominated the French Revolution but who nevertheless followed the logic of his faith by recognizing that its occurrence must be part of a divinely-ordained Necessity. Maistre is therefore in every sense the exemplary reactionary conservative. What Maistre’s cold survey of ‘the universal law of violent destruction of human beings’ adds to Voltaire and Sade’s vision of earth as a charnel house is the notion of sacrifice. It is ritualized sacrifice which allows civil society to some degree contain the cosmic reality of Evil. While cruelty, for Sade, is distributed throughout the whole body politic, for Maistre, modern society manages to sublimate its destructive impulses by limiting its licensed practice to the work of two abject figures who occupy a liminal relation to the ‘ordinary’ human world their despised existence both protects and makes possible: the soldier and the hangman. Ginzburg lingered with an obvious relish over Maistre’s astonishing, appalledfascinated evocation of the hangman, the anti-social but socially-necessary 443

psychopath and for Ginzburg, it is the combination of Sade and Maistre that makes possible, not only the flaneur-decadence and debauched tristesse of Baudelaire, but also Foucault’s studies of discipline and the carceral. Between Baudelaire and Foucault lie Bataille and the College de Sociologie, but implicit in Ginzburg’s narrative was a total debunking of any claims that Bataille’s advocacy of cruelty, sacrifice and the transgressive was in any way ‘radical’. On the contrary, and as should be clear by now, the College’s withdrawal from reason, its conception of the cosmos as a gigantic cruelty machine, is part of a well-established reactionary tradition. Bataille emerged in Ginzburg’s story as a figure frighteningly close to Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man – a minor civil servant with fantasies that would be dangerous if they had any possibility of being enacted. Thankfully, they didn’t (‘Bataille was not a man of action,’ Ginzburg remarked, in a masterpiece of understatement). The story of Bataille’s ludicrous attempt to become a human sacrifice (he offered himself to three people, none of whom would kill him) is as comic as it is pathetic. The connection between Bataille and fascism should by now be obvious: the same withdrawal from secularized modernity into a blood cult, the same ‘alphabet of unreason’ (Ballard). Naturally, it’s too quick, too crass, to say that Bataille was a fascist. But Ginzburg did more than enough to establish that it wasn’t for nothing that the Acephale group were accused of being ‘Surfascists’ (a name they themselves happily appropriated). The group had praised Hitler’s virile forthrightness and Bataille, Ginzburg said, had been bewitched by the phallic power of the Nazis. He sought, impossibly, tragically, to attain the ‘innocence of animals’, to sink into the porcine ignorance-bliss of a creature consciousness unburdened by intellect and reason. Comments: Surfascism Nick Land: As everyone from Euclid through Goedel to Stillwell demonstrates: true 'radicalism' is neither rational nor irrational, but rather arithmetical. henrymiller: Leiris is an interesting figure: the French Humphrey Jennings, anyone? One of the missing links between Surrealism, film, and sociology-anthropology. He tried to get Bunuel to accompany him on an anthropological project in Africa. Does rejecting Durkheim's model of sociology (which after all 'may contain traces' of positivism, even functionalism) really mean rejecting 'the enlightenment' tout court? 444

Obviously this is so in the case of Bataille ('the Sunday immoralist' -- JG Merquior) but what of the project as a whole? Axiomatik (né Transgressive): yeah yeah ... wikked stuff mark ... like mark and nikk, i too used to think nietzsche and bataille was the real radikal shit ... but that's passé now and you gotta role with the times man ... it ain't rationality and reason and abstraktion and enlightenment and science that's the enemy ... it's perspektivism and embodiment and kontext and horizons and meaning and finitude and all that tired anti-enlightenment, krypto-romanticist, reactionary konservatism that gotta be wiped away man (and k-punk got the sponge!) ... if you wanna really be down these days you gotta start spittin' about spinoza and radikal enlightenment and kold rationality and the geometrik method and the infinity and abstraction and exkarnation and the gnostics man ... 'let no-one who is ignorant of non-euklidean geometry enter here' ... yeah, yeah ... big up pythagoras, big up plato, big up euklid, big up riemann, big up gauss, big up kantor, big up hilbert, big up goedel ... i don't understand any of them but i rekkon they is the truly radikal biskitts these days man ... let's make war on romanticism and historicism and phenomenology and life philosophy and dekonstruktion and every other mode of thought komplicit with the kapitalist konspiracy to make the parameters of diskursive possibility chime with the telos of ultimate intelligibility (the habermasian phantasy of the konsensual kommunity) ... fukk finitude man, fukk 'meaning' and 'intelligibility' and 'normativity' and 'kommunikation' (like k-punk put it, they ain't nothin' but the way the Shit-stem tries to vindikate itself) ... big up a pure rationality no longer held kaptive the konfines of 'experience' or 'meaning' or 'perspektive' or 'horizons' man ... big up the radical infinite ... mathematics in the grand style ... yeah yeah ... (i hope this fashion lasts longer than the others though, man, kos i just bought a bunch of expensive math books ...) Nick Land: Lots here needs chewing over carefully. The word 'fascism' has become such debased currency its easy to slide into insectoid cognitive reflexes. What exactly is the accusation of fascism describing here? As I noted in response to Reza above, Berman's definition of totalitarianism strikes me as the most plausible and also most rigorously conceived attempts to retain some structured understanding of it - his reading is very rich although (as a US 'liberal') he downplays the role of State-worship. He also runs Nazism and fascism together, which - even if he does it more persuasively than usual - remains problematic (note that antisemitism played a very minor role in Italian fascism or the Spanish phalange). 445

Not that I am disputing Mark's basic (relayed?) argument - Bataille-style romantic death-cultism definitely shares fascist traits. But these seem uncomfortably close to any romantic (passionate and elitist) revolt against the drab conformism of bourgeois existence, becoming almost indistinguishable from the aestheticist PoV in general Aren't all artist 'fascists' - at least if they're interesting - which is why they should never be allowed anywhere near political power. The same is true, in a more Stalinist/depressing way, of all intellectuals - best just to shoot the mofos. Basing his analysis on the latent 'political' formula of the Book of Revelation, Berman sees the post-cataclysmic ('purified') Millennium / Thousand Year Reich / Communist Utopia / Caliphate as a defining totalitarian aspiration. Does fascism necessarily incorporate a vision of post-apocalyptic purified social existence? (Bataille doesn't fit here very easily - but for sure he's a Catholic-satanist loser) Anyway, I'm not sure how the invocation of fascism (as opposed to totalitarianism) connects with contemporary political quandaries - genuine question. Secondly, on Spinoza - some rather dodgy moves in your discussion mark. For one thing, the guy was anathematized by the Dutch Jews (you've read the curse, right?) he's hardly a model Jewish thinker. In fact, his relationship to 17th century Judaism was about as harmonious as Theo van Gogh's relationship to Islam. The whole 'rationality' thing is more complex too. When Weber describes Judaism as 'rationalizing' religion he means it installs a transcendent divinity - this doesn't seem to bear much connection to the kind of (Spinozistic-immanentist) 'cold-rationalism' you are endorsing. Judaic monotheism - oecumenized by Xtianity - obliterates shamanic involvement in the sacred, 'de-sacralizing' quotidian existence and thus (IMHO) laying the pathological ground work for the Bataille-style howling that has irrupted ever since, in (futile) protest against the erasure of practical religion in the West. [As you know, I find the return of the sacred in Xtian guise - crawling back to your rapist - perverse to the point of absolute revulsion, but it's certainly 'sociologically' predictable that people would want to drink blood and play with snakes in church it's just sad the real thing was buried by the monotheists. Anyway, Bataille's morbid confusion is to be found somewhere in this f%*@-up and probably inevitably so - if a civilization suppresses religion (unmediated participation in the sacred) it is going to get a load of shit backing up in its social tubing and morality tales about 'fascism' aren't going to stop that happening] 446

Lot's more on this, but enough for now ... Resentocratic troll using the name 'mark k-punk'68: Hey, Nick, that's not fair! I was only barking like a rabid dog like you taught us all to do back in Warwick, remember? It's not fair for you to turn all scholarly on me now - besides, you're not my supervisor anymore, and it's a little late to start playing Professor, don't you think? Plus, it's a bit hard to take the accusation of making "some dodgy moves" from the man who wrote 'The Thirst for Annihilation'! (or would you like me to remind you of some of the "dodgy moves" in there?) As it goes, I didn't say that Spinoza was a "model Jewish thinker" at all, nor did I suggest that his relation to 17th century Judaism was "harmonious" (and did Luther stop being a Christian because of his heresy?). In fact I merely mentioned Spinoza incidentally as the discoverer-inventor of the radical enlightenment, and given Israel's compendious documentation of the origins of this movement, I hardly think that's contentious! I'm reluctant to say this, since I've recently berated others for employing ad hominem tactics in place of arguments (not that we at the ccru have ever really concerned with checking our inferences for truth-table consistency!), but I suspect that you're just trying to undermine me in front of my blog-fans because you're worried that I may be trying to stage some kind of patricidal take-over by declaring Nietzsche and Bataille (= Nick Land) to be adherents of a merely reactionary counter-enlightenment conservatism and Spinoza (= Mark K-Punk) to be the truly subversive radical. But really, you shouldn't worry, for apart from the fact that we're both ineffectual nobodies, barking into the void, if you press me for an argument on all this hyperbole about "cold rationalism", you'll quickly find that it's just another coat of rhetorical varnish which I use to disguise my rather mediocre intellect and to appear more intimidating to the cretins who predictably lambaste me for nothing more than defying common sense (although, secretly, I live for them, and them alone). Like dying one's hair pink, rationalism is out of fashion, so I adorn myself with it - after all, if you want to set the trends and not just follow the fashions, you have to be able to choose just the right time to appear untimely! 68 This commenter used the name “mark k-p” and fooled Land and Negarestani before the “prank” was discovered. 447

Nick Land: Mark - Holy shit that's weird and embarassing. Sure you don't want to delete it? - it sounds really pathetic. Let's junk all this ad hominem crap [agree with you that's it's horrible] and return to proper roles as avatars of Lemurian Hyperstition. Resentocratic troll using the name 'mark k-punk': Shit, I wish you hadn't seen that. You're right, I'll delete it and we'll leave the ad hominem shit out from now on. But I hope you believe me when I say that it really wasn't 'me' (whatever that means) that wrote it. I strongly suspect that some agent of Kapital is trying to sabotage the Hyperstition k-space and using my moniker to clone me. I’ll look into it and get back to you. Hold on ... G E Light: Re: Blissblog's comment on the role of "play" in music as it pertains admittedly tangentially to your fine essay, but I wonder how Huizinga's Homo Ludens would fit into/interevene in/complicate this narrative of fascism? Reza Negarestani: but I suspect that you're just trying to undermine me in *front of my blog-fans* Mark, despite all my respect for you (and i really mean it) ... i really couldn't expect such a K- (or whatever people may call) statement from you who enthusiastically try to kill oedipus in cyberspace or whatever? Tachiiru: Holy Shit indeed. Anyhow, not sure how this relates to Hyperstition; seems somewhat academic, albeit interesting. The reply to Nick was worth this post alone. Reza Negarestani: Nick: Sure you don't want to delete it? Nick you once told me "repression hardly works" ... i try to live with what you said; so why Mark or any of us should delete or remove our mistakes instead of reviweing them over and over and improve our K+ tactics, and getting a lesson from them? We only delete spams here ;) or irrelevant offensive posts which really try to repel writers or other commentators. Not an academic conspiracy ... we all have many little oedipuses with ourselves ... we should understand it and try to eradicate them even by means of participation. Blaming all this at academics is surely one of the worst oedipal tactics. Let's don't escape blindly ... a blind line of escape can hardly resist the temptations of the ground. 448

luke: cor this is brilliant! that's a really well written forgery if forgery it is! congratulations. i actually think reza wrote it. it seems like the sort of cruel trick he'd play. he's probably got some sort of hyperstitional justification for it but i reckon he did it just fr a laugh. yeah, this is getting good. this is fantastic! great comments adam, the thing about this lot is they're all amateurs when it comes to strategy. thy'll learn, but it'/ll take a long time. they need to go ninja school innit. learn some higher level techniques. maybe mark should cut the apron strings and dissassociate himself with nick land entirely? i mean, cor, think of all the sickly undercurrents there must be plus the consensus seems to be that land is washed up and marks star is rising. surely now would be the time for a clean break, leave land to the numerology, the dungeons and the dragons,the fantasies of being whipped in top floor docklands offices by cold eyed capitalist domanatrixes in power-suits and stilletoes, plough your own furrow mark. maybe thats the answer. so many questions... a lot of interesting issues raised in this thread. henrymiller: 'If Spinoza is the Jewish-rationalist inventor-discoverer of radical enlightenment, the most obvious source of the counter-enlightenment trajectory that culminated in the College and its irrationalist successors in postmodernity has usually been taken to be Sade.' What I'm struck by most of all in the essay -- which is really illuminating, I wish I'd known about the lecture -- is the idealism of much of the argument. Unless you want to rub Bataille's (and indeed the Surrealists in general) nose in the dirt, I don't really follow. Because Nazism is not the 'realization' of the Idea of the anti-rational. (And most of the Surrealists were Communists.) The lineages -- the rationalists and the anti-rationalists -- brings to mind Popper, in which you're *either* for the 'open society' or against it; the key operation is abstracting numerous different philosophies from their material bases. 'The rational' needs some explaining; wasn't Freud, as a positivist in some respects, working in a rational tradition? Or does the opposition have its limitations? 449

Nick Land: Mark Sincerest apologies for thinking any post beginning "Hey, Nick, that's not fair! ..." could be from you - it's quite terrifying how unthinkingly a purported ID triggers an idiotically supine acceptance Partly my ludicrous gullibility here was a side-effect of my assumptions about the Nazarene and all his works ("hey, once you discover Jesus, then anything's possible!") Anyway, more apologies (grovel, grovel ...) PS. Honestly, I wouldn't object to the death penalty for this sort of thing - maybe even a bit of torture thrown in ... Reza (who i trust as technomaster here) - lets delete a whole lot of this shit, if the tedious trolls think they can get a hearing here they'll just keep coming back Lets erase all these comments - no other way of demonstrating that trolling is futile Then lets install principle that oedipal pranking gets ruthlessly purged - unless we hack this crap out now we're going to end up shutting down comments even for real contributions To Western Decadent Intellectualism Reza Negarestani (December 10, 2004) This is not hyperstitional but since I promised Mohsen and Infinite Thought to write something about the perplexing culture of Iran, I post it here. This is the first part, entitled ‘To Western Decadent Intellectualism’, the second part is about Iranian intellectuals and why they usually failed both in Iran and on the global scale. Recently, I received an email from my friend Esmail Yazdanpour who asked me to comment on the issues around the ‘Persian Gulf’ whose name has been changed to Arabic Gulf or The Gulf. The question was profound especially from the angle that Esmail opened it: the multiplicity of identity for Iranians (not from the angle of alienation). This is my utterly crude and over-repeated answer: For Esmail Yazdanpour 450

I have no significant comment on ‘the Gulf problem’ but I think you are absolutely relevant when speaking of multiple identities; Iranians have multiple identities... there is nothing wrong about it as long as you shift it to something positively multiplying, something that evades sedentarization. Identity problem as it is discussed in the west carries the camouflaged politics of pseudo-fluxional western politics, economical affordance and the State’s monitoring policies. Identity presupposes a mutual affordance, an economical openness which is survivalist to the core: “I can open to you ‘as long as’ I afford you, otherwise I will be cracked open.” This is the ultimate politics of liberalism, ‘openness towards everything’ but an openness which has already been configured and refined through the dynamic boundary of the system, based on capacity of the system to handle it, and at the other pole, this economical openness is heavily interconnected to the most pathetic modes of organic and quotidian political survival. Once it was liberalism, now it is suicidal liberalism (let’s save us by committing suicide) and its offspring: neo-evangelism promoted by neomessianic propaganda and supported by a reformed frenzy towards a loathsome rationality (they cunningly dissimulate themselves as Anti-capital but we have seen in Necromancers and Sorcerers series that they are appropriated lines-of-escape, grounded, and blind towards exploitive stratagems of the State; they save the State’s macropolitics in a volatile / micro-economical status that is to say a higher level of solidus management ... fertilizing the ground by unconventional modi operandi). Openness is never discussed as polytics of ‘being opened’ but the economical, selfpreserving politics of ‘being open to’, a higher level of system management; here, identity is a thermodynamic pattern modulated / invented based on political affordance. Everything that threatens the economical affordance i.e. the capacity (emerging from openness as ‘being opened’ instead of ‘being open to’), is an imminent danger for identity. What introduces itself as the dominant western culture is not open to us, it can only try to afford us, afford our teeming multiplicity. To afford us efficiently and effectively (let’s say with minimum waste), it has erected many guardians, identity is the strongest of them as it links the individual to the crowd, operating spatially rather than locally ... every (western) Identity must afford our multiplicity or appropriate it to a consumable resource; otherwise, in the case of failure, there is always the danger of eradication, of being alienated (cracked open) which is directly associated to suicide or madness (All the dominant western culture cares about is its deeply meshed Survival Economy; this is why, suicide is the best necrocratic terror to play the role of a scapegoat, a scarecrow for those who are fearless enough to tread at the 451

borderline of this economical openness, of this Survival Economy). Have you noticed that the dominant western culture is unable to digest our ferocious multiplicity which is flowing smoothly in our life; western culture is merely capable of ‘trans-forming’ our multiplicity to reproduced ‘Life-Styles’; the western creativity to domesticate the most rabid and frantic lines of our multiplicity is almost potentially limitless; it is great and fantastic in domesticating whatever it finds (pet industry); we cannot deny its spectacular achievements in organic repression and boredom-complex. To this extent, I find ‘speaking of identity’ -- as what western intellectualism maps -- absolutely both dangerous and ridiculous. Our identity is a multiplying multiplicity. Yes, we Middle Eastern people and Iranians in particular are irrelevant to the contemporary world. We are an offbeat / offtime current in the chronology of the whole globe; an autonomous sorcerous machine working out of aeon. I regard this as an ample opportunity to forge our warmachines, polytics and multiplicative identities, instead of ceaselessly importing whatever is attached to western identity-complex and seek to localize it, eventually being infected by their boredom-complex that is now turned into an active messiano-punkism (yes, punk-positive), the Aristotelian circle is rewired (solidity to fluidity to solidity to fluidity: solidus-in-circulation). Messiano-punkism has reserved a room for you in heaven (the messianic / evangelist Outside), save your souls. The urge to vomit is intolerable. A lesson from crusades: Horsemen were afraid of camels, because of their awkwardness ... we have been always awkward. If we accept our multiplicity and resolve our problems around it, we can come to this conclusion that for us peace is not opposed to War (war&peace; political regime of the new world order is also another symptom of affordance and identity), since we invent peace as its true form, peace as ‘pax’ (pax iranica, pax islamica, etc.): we are a pack and for a pack war has already been cracked and laid open by peace; this is our peace, we should accept that we are the new world disorder; actually, we have always been but the only solution to trigger it and bring it to the course of positive function is ‘participating’ with it, not an economical participation based on mutual affordance and thermodynamic conservatism (economical openness) but a radical one, free from the identity-complex of the West. Thinking of perfection (ne plus ultra) is ridiculous; we are a diverging process not a telos. Our only option: we should think strategically. Let’s be cunning. Comments: To Western Decadent Intellectualism 452

Nick Land: Reza - have you come across Paul Berman's work? especially Terror and Liberalism? It seems very germane to this topic. While definitely not a 'liberal' in the American sense, I was still massively impressed. His argument about localization (of apocalyptic totalitarianism which he traces back to Revelation) is at the heart of his discussion, and clearly linked to your polemic here. Berman's remarkable (one could say 'peculiar') refusal of 'Western intellectual decadence' will probably damn his influence to practical irrelevance, however. Utopian gesticulation has entirely swamped the left-field of the Western debate over contemporary geo-politics (on this, fantastic piece by one of my heroes, Robert Kaplan, on the cult of victimology in the world media： http://www.policyreview.org/dec04/kaplan_print.html） Mohsen: Reza if this is your text on the decline of western intellectualism then I can’t wait for your text about Iranian intellectuals ;-) Man, you are a blade! Thivai: Reza, I find your writing to be provocative and challenging, but it seems disturbing (and somewhat simplistic) that a theorist that celebrates multiplicity and difference so easily stereotypes/slots bodies of people as a uniform Western culture... as if there is just one Western impulse (is this not one of the negative impulses of Western culture that you are condemning?) Also can you attempt to explain your we, they and us ...? It seems that if you want to develop a Western understanding of your multiplicity it would be best if you didn't reinforce a sense of singularity through your language? I only ask this because I find your thought and writings to be interesting and want to learn more... Reza Negarestani: Thivai Abhor, 453

that a theorist that celebrates multiplicity and difference so easily stereotypes/slots bodies of people as a uniform Western culture... as if there is just one Western impulse (is this not one of the negative impulses of Western culture that you are condemning?) Thanks ... possibly a misunderstanding, the title of the text is to Western ‘Decadent’ Intellectualism. It could be simply ‘to western intellectualism’ but it selects a particular strain of western intellectualism (the decadent one). Plus, I have continuously emphasized on the ‘dominant’ (see how many times I have repeated this word) western intellectualism which is not very different from the word intellectualism in its negative potential. Plus, I’m speaking of intellectualism not intellectuals; does the dominant western intellectualism mean western intellectuals, does it imply that I’m unifying all people under one flag? I don’t think so. Don’t you think that the politics that pushes us to conclude such a formula is actually a symptom of what we criticize here? Moreover, this is a critique on a political trend not its agencies. Hyperstitionally, we are all puppets. Also can you attempt to explain your we, they and us ...? It seems that if you want to develop a Western understanding of your multiplicity it would be best if you didn't reinforce a sense of singularity through your language? Adam Sandler in ‘Anger Management’ after being harassed by flight attendants moans: "what is wrong with you people?" The black cop answers back: "what do you mean by ‘YOU people’, I don’t tolerate any racist propaganda sir." Sandler angrily, replies: "I don’t mean ‘You people’, I mean you people; what’s wrong with you people?" --- oh and the rest of story: the cop gives him a nice electrotherapeutic shock, and a fake court finds Sandler guilty, the anti-citizen one. Nick has addressed to an excellent article by Robert Kaplan (http://www.policyreview.org/dec04/kaplan_print.html); interestingly, he discusses the same issue. ‘You’ and ‘We’ are now exploited to engineer a propaganda based on victimhood by terror-media. Let’s tear apart this victimhood complex. The propagandas around the negativity of ‘You’ and ‘We’ actually presuppose nothing but racism itself, smeared and camouflaged by victimhood complex. If you wait I’m writing an answer to Nick about this victimhood complex and how it works as a Terror-propagating virus, a terroristic weapon actually rooted in the Thermodynamic law of Lex talionis. Anyway, thanks very much for the kind words and comments. 454

esmail: Dear Reza Yes, I agree with you that speaking of identity is not a healthy and safe strategy for the Middle East. But the idea of “identity”, even with its overloaded liberal and western connotations, is used ‘in our fashion’: it is a plural, flexible, and camouflaged event. Therefore, it is not yet another guardian, but a mask, made in Iran. Nowhere in history has this region showed the current degree of openness to the others, including to the west (and nowhere in history has the west shown such a gaze). While insisting on the utility of the distinction between “being opened” and “being open to” at another level of discussion, I think as soon as a system is ‘open’, it is open to anything, beyond the original intention of the act of opening; that is why they, in the liberal camp (including the suicidal-liberal branch), insist upon de-finition and closure. I do not know about the Middle East, but we Iranians have always acted tactically, tactics against the strategies of the others, and against our own tactics, produced by our own plural altar-egoes. To make masks and camouflages and to act tactically is our strategy; complementary to this we hesitate and postpone. This issue is hard to pursue from this perspective, don’t you think that resorting to hyperstitionalism may prove more fruitful, albeit tactical. PS. Thivai and Nina say that we are no more awkward. Reza Negarestani: Esmail, But the idea of “identity”, even with its overloaded liberal and western connotations, is used ‘in our fashion’ Exactly, it is reinvented, recomposed and mutated to not only something else but to other things uncharted and unreported (offspring from the space of an-omalie); this is why Iranian (and I think the whole middle eastern) culture(s) are so perplexing, so contagious to be grasped and ana-lyzed. One should be unfathomably blind to grasp what is going on. While insisting on the utility of the distinction between “being opened” and “being open to” at another level of discussion, I think as soon as a system is ‘open’, it is open to anything, beyond the original intention of the act of opening. 455

Well, it is a sensitive topic; intention as you suggest is not enough; yes system can be open to everything; this was the discovery of the Greek philosophy that boundary does not enclose the system but starts it from the edge of what is believed to be the system to the outside (true open 'system'), not for opening the system to the outside but to accommodate the Outside within the boundlessness of system. This is not a radical openness; this is what Gibson calls ‘affordance’ or the economy of surfaces. System can only communicate through affordance otherwise its intrinsic survival (which maps it as an entity running through life) will be terminated; it will cease to process, it will cease to be a system. Have you read Necromancer and Sorcerer series? it is a brief discussion that openness of open systems only contributes to the Outside as an economical openness. Yet on the other hand, as you suggest when you open a door, anyone can come in. this is where radical openness (as the plane of being opened: or the communication of the Outside) camouflages itself and creeps to the system via its economical openness, eventually unlocking doors of its own (read Holocaust of Freedom). tactics When tactical lines reach a terminal multiplicity, the emergence of strategy as an autonomous entity and hyperstition carrier is inevitable. PS. Thivai and Nina say that we are no more awkward. well, Nina has already been contaminated here so she is descending to Tartarus, therefore, when she says 'no more awkward', you should think of the opposite or at least other options. ;) awkward: 'upside down'; it diagrams catadromic functions: collpase, katabasis, and descent (into Tartarus?) awkwardness doesn't mean 'wrong' but it suggests an anomaly. esmail: if this is the meaning of awkward, that is the case with Thivai, I am sure; and with anybody who looks through this looking-glass. Reza Negarestani: if this is the meaning of awkward, that is the case with Thivai, I am sure; and with anybody who looks through this looking-glass. Why? ;) infinite thought: Very interesting post, Reza. I will respond to this piece over on my page shortly....I will descend further into Tartarus/the mirror in reality 456

(hyperstitional!) shortly too, where I hope to consolidate (or disintegrate) my entirely mixed feelings about all your masks...or am I too toxic already..? Your contaminated friend... northanger: like what nick said elsewhere about making a "gripping movie" & new york's what makes "a horror tale more powerful". it's a failure of the imagination when "Noble Cause" sentimentalized & not transformed into an integral carrier of The Bush Doctrine. it's not made subordinate to the imagination. are confused soldiers & "predetermined scripts" indicative of narrative failures? failures to subordinate The Fantastic Imagination to a gripping story? who's supposed to be telling this story anyway? Linda Trent's first post here about two key hyperstitional components: 1) collectivization of the fictional system & 2) practical deployment of the fictional system. similar to Robert Price defining Cthulhu Mythos: 1) Lovecraft Mythos proper with individual myth-cycles (Smith, Howard, Bloch &tc;) & 2) August Derleth Mythos cross-pollinating & meshing all myth-cycles together. is there a War on Terror Mythos? are there times when we DO NOT want fictions becoming hyperstitions? when do we want them to? n+1 critiques China Miéville's "New Crobuzon" novels, contrasting Jennifer Howard's review of "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" & its failure to get jiggy with the fantastical. Fantasy Remade (n+1) - www.nplusonemag.com/mieville.html Fantasy is conservative to the extent that it does what Howard wants it to do, by becoming a kind of storytelling that is disconnected from politics. The fantastic imagination – i.e., the capacity to imagine places where the rules work differently than they do here and now – can help to puncture the spurious sense of permanence on which everyday politics rely, the sense that the way things are now is the way they inevitably must be. The fantastic imagination shows that our guiding principles and power arrangements can be different, and perhaps that they *should* be different. But if genre fantasy does what Howard says she wants it to do, by creating a hiding place far from the complexities of politics, then it becomes what its critics have always claimed it is – an exercise in escapism. The Uses of Fantasy (Howard) - www.bostonreview.net/BR29.6/howard.html When the news strays so far from the familiar moral contours of the struggle between Good and Evil, it’s tempting to lose ourselves in stories in which this battle is fought 457

in clear terms and on an epic scale. Good over here, Evil over there—call it the Lord of the Rings model, in which heroes may be flawed but are always recognizably heroes, and their enemies want nothing less than to stamp out (as one of the good guys puts it in Peter Jackson’s recent film adaptation) “all that’s green and good in this world.” There was a time when one could turn to fantasy, if not for escape, then for a workingout, a cathartic reimagining, of the world’s crises. "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" takes epic fantasy down a road that leads away from large moral conflict and instead doubles back on itself and the reader. fundamental Hollywood 101 says if it bombs over here at least let it sell overseas. doesn't that define The Bush Doctrine in a nutshell? kinda harsh, but there's nothing "gripping" about it. the number one movie at the global box office remains 9/11; a foreign production usually nominated for Oscar's Best Foreign Language Film. topgrossing films come from Hollywood; "Titanic" currently number one at $1,845,034,188. "The Sound of Music" (1965) box office #1 (knocking off "Gone With the Wind" released in 1939; returned to #1 after 1970 re-release) until Jaws released in 1975. amazingly, "Gone With the Wind", adjusted for inflation, still remains #1. 1939 peaks Hollywood's golden years with its most memorable films. 9/11 knocked all of that out of the ballpark. on one day. How Do Fictions Become hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003345.html Hyperstitions? - If Lovecraft remains the archetype of a hyperstitional practitioner, it is because his fictions have long since escaped their putative author. A work has crossed over into hyperstition when it has become impossible to treat it as the product of a single author’s imagination. The author can no longer be considered the final authority upon the work attributed to him. Thus the question, posed in all seriousness by a devotee: Why does Lovecfraft persist in the pretence that he invented the Necronomicon? my favorite movie quote from "Grand Canyon"; Davis, the Hollywood producer of violent action thrillers: "That's part of your problem: you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies." Jimmy Breslin's "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" googled in 1997 pops Newt Gingrich & Republican House leadership; google today & you get: www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2092151,00.html 458

Although it hurts me to differ with the Pet Shop Boys, Bush is not stupid. But his administration is reeling from one mishap to another. So let me proffer another explanation for the sometimes comically inept gang that cannot shoot straight, unless it’s at an elderly lawyer mistaken for a duck. They’re tired. Not just tired, actually, but exhausted. They can barely keep their eyes open. They’re sleepwalking through their second term. And you cannot really blame them. predetermined script? at its core, the War on Terror Mythos is a horror story (9/11). do we want this fiction becoming real? New York nails it: "my point is really just that a horror tale is far more powerful if there is the possibility that good might prevail against evil, but that it should ultimately fail to do so, because the horror lingers in a much more powerful way with the viewer if the essential evil is still potent at the end. You walk out of the theater and don't get relief, at least for awhile, because didn't care about reassuring you against Vile Bodies and Babies (as in Rosemary's), instead of providing Baubles, Bangles and Beads. That's why the escape of the Shelley Duvall character and son in the film of 'The Shining' but leaving the sinister house still functioning without a single witness to back them up; and preserving the Vampire Status Quo and/or Ancien Regime in the novel of 'The Hunger' are so much more powerful than their sell-out counterparts. I'm not talking about real life, just that horror fictions are useless unless the horror prevails at least in some works." there's no relief from the 9/11 horror story. we may need a well-told heroic epic. making sure not to skip the Fellowship of the Ring part & going directly to Return of the King. Miéville, the Marxist, a Lenin's Tomb poster; i'll throw Long Sunday's 3part interview in tangents .... think this one of n+1's key points about his work: "Iron Council" gives us the necessary clues to figure out what Miéville is up to. He’s Remaking genre fantasy, not as an art-form that is entirely subordinate to given power relationships, nor as a means of escape from them, but as a specifically *political* act of imagination. He’s arguing that stories, if they’re understood rightly, can allow us to reinterpret our circumstances and think through how to change them. Fantasy is important because it’s potentially political in the most profound sense — it can choose neither to reaffirm politics as they exist today nor to hide from them, but to challenge them. In "Iron Council", fantasy can even create a radical break in history, revealing new possibilities of political action. 459

"When tactical lines reach a terminal multiplicity, the emergence of strategy as an autonomous entity and hyperstition carrier is inevitable." Zero-belief: victimology and lex talionis Reza Negarestani (December 11, 2004) This was supposed to be an introduction on a future post but now, it is an incomplete essay about victomology, pax islamica and War on Terror. Nick: Reza, have you come across Paul Berman's work? especially Terror and Liberalism? It seems very germane to this topic. While definitely not a 'liberal' in the American sense, I was still massively impressed. His argument about localization (of apocalyptic totalitarianism which he traces back to Revelation) is at the heart of his discussion, and clearly linked to your polemic here. Berman's remarkable (one could say 'peculiar') refusal of 'Western intellectual decadence' will probably damn his influence to practical irrelevance, however. Utopian gesticulation has entirely swamped the left-field of the Western debate over contemporary geo-politics (on this, fantastic piece by one of my heroes, Robert Kaplan, on the cult of victimology in the world media. Reza: Yes, I have read Berman’s book; some arguable passages here and there but as a whole, it is brilliant! However, Robert Kaplan is new to me; thanks for addressing his essay. *** Victimology: absolutely nauseating, but an excellent strategic weapon to draw western warmachines to the fold of Gog and Magog, luring them to the Xerodrome of Islamic Apocalypticism ... the interesting point is that for the first time, Iran, picked victimhood-complex as a media super-weapon and then other Islamic countries replicated the technology, Al-Jazeera used it as a type of ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Media); the secret of this technology is that it only hits primary western targets / subjects quite effectively but doesn’t work here at all; most of people (other than those who lived in western countries for a long time) are immune to its effects. 460

Do you know Montgomery Watt and Fatima Mernissi? They have written extensively on the lack of this victimhood-complex (or victimologic horizon) in Islamic militarism; it may sound controversial when one thinks of the Thirst for Martyrdom on the Islamic front but it is true. Watts suggests that the entire Islamic Militarism has been infuriated or intensively triggered by Nomadism but he does not realize that it is a unique genre of nomadism with an exclusive line of dynamism i.e. desertnomadism (See the post on desert-nomadism and Saudi government) fueled by a sorcerous frenzy towards ‘dry’ blood. He also adds, that for the “military prestige of the Umma, it was essential in Arabian conditions that a Muslim should never go unavenged.” Mernissi corrects this statement that ‘pax islamica’ (Umma?) steered the desert-nomadism’s bellicosity -- invested in tribal feuding -- in a new direction that is the holy war. lex talionis which connects everyone to the father’s blood and facializes everyone as a potential ‘victim’ (Face of the Victim) is actually the underlying subroutine of Hammurabi’s Code of Laws which is also the primal source of Law in general; the protocol of ‘retribution awaits’ runs as the assembly-module of law to form connections in society, gathering anthropomorphic agencies around itself, everyone is a potential victim and the victim should be avenged by and in the name of Father (Ramón y Cajal extends this avenge / revenge formula to a wider horizon as a universal principle: A secreto agravio, secreto venganza69). But for ‘pack islamica’, lex talionis that is the base-material of victimhood is entirely flushed out to the desertcomplex of the holy war (your Mecca-nomics) which is directly uplinked to the momentary Islamic apocalypticism (everyday is the last day) i.e. the accelerating dracro-spiralism of warmachines towards the unlife of war where all warmachines should be stripped of their military survival, becoming a part of GAS, the mistmare, the fog-of-war, sorcerous particles of War. Here, lex talionis and its consequent victimologic horizon become abysmal carriers for latching on to the unlife of war which knows nothing of revenge, avenge and victimhood. By feverishly feeding on lex talionis as an accelerated path towards sorcerous Islamic apocalypticism, victimhood is emptied of its potential for domestication, that is to say, it is paralyzed and disabled to work as an enforcer of law whose subroutine is lex talionis. On this level, everything is an ‘unsubjective’ rage (a xeno-excitation whose source is external to warmachines and their military survival -- the unlife of war) hurled at both ‘entities of pax islamica’ and ‘their common enemies’. Therefore, the entire militarism of ‘pack islamica’ while feeding on the genetically enhanced (mutated) lex talionis is a movement towards the eradication of both avenge / revenge and victimhood by 69 For a secret Offense, secret Revenge 461

linking them to something external to survival (which is the ground of both victimhood and lex talionis) i.e. the holy war whose ultimate purpose is functioning through momentary islamic apocalypse (Norman Brown’s take on the Islamic sense of time) and eventually diverges on the unthinkable vastness and horizontal fatality of the black earth, the absolute desert (mecca-nomics), the Xerodrome, dried of everything even shadows (the outer night). Therefore, at a subterranean level of its spiraling function (everyday is the last day and an artificial Now after Apocalypse) towards the omega-desert, ‘pack islamica’ is a radical movement against all laws (the incapacitation of all ‘erected’ codes of law i.e. desert) since it burns lex talionis -- the primal core of law -- along its journey to the incinerating omega-desert, where victimhood also encounters the utter (un)hospitality of war to eat everyone and everything (where everyone receives the highest degree of generosity, victimhood makes no sense ... it is entirely neutralized), and retribution is impossible before an unthinged Thing which is a radical outsider. “Consequently, their [the Razzi-inclined nomadic tribes, which were a great obstacle to Arabia’s thriving trade routes and centers] quest for booty was deflected from internal attacks and channeled into the holy war against the common enemy. The wealthy Byzantine and Persian Empires fell to the Arabs before they were fully aware of Islam. (Persia was conquered in 642, twenty years after the Hijra. The first siege of Constantinople took place in 670.)” (Fatima Mernissi) *** However, the story does not end here: the immolation of victimhood and lex talionis in ‘pack islamica’ does not only happen through this ‘up-river’ journey or more precisely, the unmanned draco-spiralism towards the omega-desert of Islamic apocalypticism. In the wake of Wahhabistic mega-machinery against all manifests of Idolatry (shirk and kufr) -- as I previously mentioned (following the works of bin Baza, Wahhab, et al) -- for purging idols it is ridiculous and absurd to hunt them down one by one, the final solution is to raze their house to the ground, wiping out the culture itself; but this is not enough (isn’t the old slogan of Zoroastrian working as a polytics for interlocking with the Z-crowd: let’s be healthier, more pure than ever but this is not enough; Druj wants more!) for eradication of all idols since the original deep-rooted idol is nothing but belief itself. In the presence of belief, every thing may interfere; everything can be erected as an idol on belief. For Wahhabism, belief is the ‘Farm of Shaytan (Satan)’ and should be leveled entirely, scorched, ungrounded, nuked and undermined ceaselessly. The only path to the omega-desert of God is 462

nuking belief, giving it a cold nuclear chemotherapy (time to walk in the nuclear winter of belief). To this extent, speaking of faith is impossible since the growth of faith necessitates a ground which is belief; this is not disbelief either since disbelief, too, requires a primal belief to negate, reaching its plane of disbelief through the logic of negativity. So what is this frantic tide towards the provoking horror of 'belief under constant nuclear chemotherapy'? How is possible to survive (survival in its most basic function) with annihilation of belief? Ask Wahhabi suicide bombers. Isn’t that internal xeno-pulsation that becomes the inevitable option for Wahhabi Suicide Bombers (not Palestinian ones who originate from somewhere else) to ‘overkill’ themselves and whatever present in their radius of effect. When belief is associated to the omegadesert and becomes ungrounded, it is impossible for victimhood-complex to grow and effectuate itself. Revenge / Avenge code of lex talionis cannot survive on the corpse of belief. No victim detected: “I love a crowd” (Command & Conquer: Generals, from suicide bombers’ click-quotes). The story is not finished yet, Mernissi shows the entire religion of Islam (which is not separated from its militaristic insurgency to awaken the Islamic Apocalypticism) is Un-manned (opposed to the common belief that Islam is the religion of man and father), it is a camouflaged space of participations between ‘She’ and ‘It’, where victimhood (of both men and ‘women in particular’) is a strategy for eradication of man (or Man?); but I will continue this thread in another post (Women in War on Terror: Towards eradication of man). I save my ammo for the last boss. There is no wonder that Islamic sorcery and Wahhabistic occulterrorism are very creative in working with nauseating materials such as Victimology and make the most elegant super-weapons out of them to lure western techno-capitalist warmachines to join the Gog-Magog Axis. *** Command and Conquer: Generals Suicide bombers’ click-quotes: I am prepared They will fear us We must have justice Our following is strong 463

I love a crowd I will die for our cause I'll make the sacrifice Starcraft: Brood War Infest Terran’s (human) click-quotes -- a futuristic suicide bomber infested by the Zerg-Sawrm: Live for the swarm. I am wretched. But I am strong. I am Zerg. I am the future. Ready to kill. Prepared to die. Sacrifice me. Yes. Immediately. Gladly. For the Overmind. Democratic numeracy Nick Land (December 11, 2004) 464

Being something of an economic fundamentalist, I've been quite blind to the fact democratic politics - along with commerce and technoscience - involves a massive numerization of social processes. Quite apart from the usual arguments for democracy, there is a 'case for democratization' proceeding entirely from the promotion of qabbalistic cultural decoding. In striking contrast to every other political arrangement evidenced in history, democracy numerizes power, subordinating authority to number, with would-be dominant ideas compelled to legitimate themselves in terms of quantitative 'ratings' of approval. The incomprehensible complexity of the social whole is subjectively appropriated through simple numerical indices - with percentages overwhelmingly predominant. The individual as democratic 'unit' thus functions as an element of cultural decoding, resilient against all ideological value - this is the 'idiocy' of democracy as perennially lamented by authoritarian intellectuals (is there any other kind?). The prevalence of percentages in the technocapitalist-democratic cultural code is surely worthy of attention. The second decimal power has attained a remarkable cohesion as the basic semiotic vehicle for expressing social facts, especially in the social arena of political and economic communication. [Ccruoids might recall the seemingly 'bizarre' centonomic obsession of Hyper-C and associated Y2K cults]. To 'democratize' a society is to submit it to the meaningless sovereignty of numbers, extirpating the logocratic-totalitarian satisfactions of intellectual coherence. [This is why 'rationalism' of every stripe requires rigorous political interrogation] Whatever the moral case for democracy, it has an alternative motivation, allying it to the other tidal forces of cultural decoding and inspiring the righteous fury of every IDEA. [IDEA = MAN = ADAM = 55] Comments: Democractic Numerancy Tachi: Nick, you say "there is a 'case for democratization' proceeding entirely from the promotion of qabbalistic cultural decoding." Whilst I appreciate you pointing to the "massive numerization of social processes" involved in democracy, it doesn't seem to me enough to amount to a 'case for democratization'. 465

A case for democracy simply doesn't follow from an analysis of democracy as the subjection of society to "the meaningless sovereignty of numbers". Why should it follow? Do you think there is something special about numbers, per se, undermining authority? I think this is dodgy - as if numerical social processes are to be celebrated since they are automatically anti-ideolocical and anti-establishment. The implication here is that authoritarianism does not itself have a numerical quality or dimension. Isn't the difference between other kinds of social processing and democracy one of the kind of numerization involved, ratrher than a lack of numerization in non-democratic systems? I just think we should explore the numerical quality - not just quantity - of specific socio-economic formations and processes, and see what distinguishes them more specifically. Furthermore, democratization is not simply one kind of thing or process. I am concerned that by remaining in the abstract, when discussing social processing, we lose sight of the singular nature of particular democratic systems. Cultural decoding is only one aspect of democratization; what about recoding? Nick Land: Tachi - great questions - I'll try to respond later with a full post on the underlying issue: Can sheer number make a 'politics' (I like Reza's 'polytics' for this of course) For now - Lemurian Hyperstition seems to be based on exactly this contention (i.e. absolute eradication of all values transcending raw decimal distribution) On your subpoint (recoding), doesn't the reversion of all democratic political practicality to numerical advantage ensure that recodings are always superficial relative to the primary tide of decoding? D&G;'s 'war machine' is close to this topic - without a programme beyond its arithmopraxis (if you'll forgive me for bizarrely hellenizing a basically Asiatic impulse). Both Reza and I have overlapping issues with the D&G; analysis however, which will hopefully emerge over the course of these discussions. 466

Tachi: Nick, thanks for your response. I look forward to your post re. the issue of scale relating to politics, but should re-emphasize that I am particularly keen to prise open this issue of the numeric quality of social processes. Firstly, since I am new to Hyperstition, I am intrigued by the very notion of numerization. Can you elaborate on this basic insight to shift me into the right place where I can see more clearly what you are talking about? Or point me to some material ... What is 'raw decimal distribution'? And what would a not-raw kind of distribution look like? .. I am keen to get inside this, since this is integral to hyperstition. In any case, I would guess that arithmopraxis is an entire relatively unexplored space, in which numerization, appied to dynamic processes of a social, political or economic nature, requires careful elaboration. We mustn't lose sight of the singular as we become immersed in the abstract. Nick Land: Tachi - thanks for your involvement - will definitely respond more fully in the way you suggest ASAP. 'Raw' just refers to numbers before their massaging under any 'meaningful' concept, as in 'the raw [unprocessed] figures' (more on this in promised post). As to singularity - probably something to spend some time zig-zagging around, but it's worth immediately noting that insofar as singularities are to be designated the question is whether they are numbered [by digits] or coded [by language], so any 'fidelity to the singular' that is merely an excuse for words is actually a privileging of the linguistic [intellgible code] rather than a repudiation of abstraction. Qabbalism emphasizes numerical precision over discursive specificity. That's not to say scientific exactitude (to whatever number of decimal places) is essential. But occultures have to rigorously stick to the digital/cryptographic traits which carefully preserve such features as the product of digital reduction and the Euclidean (arithmetical) properties of natural numbers - features relevant to arithmetical behaviour (divisibility, factorization ...). 467

Returning to democracy topic, there are obvious limits to the cultural apprehension of singularity resulting from human make-up (e.g. the inability to mentally store and retrieve large quantities of elaborate multi-digit numbers). Percentages seem to hint at the equilibrium complexity of numbers that are functional as quotidian signs within human societies, that's to say: numbers accessible for democratic purposes such as 'water-cooler conversations' by ordinary citizens. Given the statistical barrage of the election period, any level of finesse beyond 2 digits will probably get eroded-away in the tumult of the mediascape. Reza Negarestani: Nick, We shouldn't forget to answer the radical question raised by Tachi (why war as a machine?) ... btw, the questions i forwarded to you a while ago are from Tachi. thistle: Nick, what system do you use to enumerate letters? I'm not familiar with the schema you're using to kabbalistically equate idea, man, Adam, and 55. Is this CCRU stuff? Nick Land: thistle - see Qabbala 101 Part 1 from June 24 2004 (if that leads onto perplexities about the Tic Xenotation, post on that is a little further down) "Is it Ccru stuff?" - Dunno - it's Atlantean Black Magic Tachi: Reza: Nick, We shouldn't forget to answer the radical question raised by Tachi (why war as a machine?) ... btw, the questions i forwarded to you a while ago are from Tachi. Can I send them to you directly Nick? Not sure where is appropriate place to post if posting would be better. Thanks. Nick Land: Tachi - sure. Got them from Reza a while ago - they're the trigger for a forthcoming post (I hope real soon) but just to make sure you're very welcome to post them to my hotmail account - just click on my nic/k Tachi: Thanks Nick; will send later, with some other stuff. Not sure where to post this stuff, so grateful for your receptivity. Nick Land: Tachi 468

"with some other stuff" - looking forward to seeing it Probably redundant to mention it, but your consistently productive contributions have been greatly appreciated Tachi: Nick - thanks a lot. Hope you receive the 'stuff' ok, and looking forward to engaging soon. Nick Land: Tachi - just picked up your Q.s - there's a lot there, so response will require several stages (dividing the topics you raise into clusters). You can be quite confident everything will be addressed - if often by the emergence of relevant discussions - because your interests are incredibly central to hyperstition. I'm hoping they'll refocus us on the basic issues (making sense of Numogram cartography being especially prominent here). Think a Numogram post guided by your inquiries and hopefully initiating discussion by interested parties will be the best way to begin. Tachi: Hi Nick; glad you got the Qs etc, and that its of interest. For me, these issues are all pretty basic, and are located in an ante-space after which momentum can be built and productive energy harnessed. Happy to chunk up the issues, and re-post as appropriate, splice into discussions as they emerge, but also hope these questions can trigger or guide some posts in which they feature. Hi Nick; glad you got the Qs etc, and that its of interest. For me, these issues are all pretty basic, and are located in an ante-space after which momentum can be built and productive energy harnessed. Happy to chunk up the issues, and re-post as appropriate, splice into discussions as they emerge, but also hope these questions can trigger or guide some posts in which they feature. Troll Alert mark k-p (December 12, 2004) I was just thinking last night that, after the kontamination of the k-punk comments box and the hyper-quick descent into ad hominem stupidity of Dissensus, Hyperstition was a site where you could guarantee quality discussion without being hassled by foaming resentocrats. 469

Sadly, I have been proved wrong by what has happened in the comments thread to the 'Surfascism' post. The oedipod using the nic 'mark k-p' was of course not this neurobot. I have re-edited the comments to indicate this. I would say that this raises interesting questions about the nature of intellectual property and online identity, but it doesn't really. The name 'mark k-p' no more designates a biographical individual than 'coca cola' does. It has all the features of a brand name, even if it would be crass to give Kapital all the credit for innovating this impersonalising semiotic technique. But it's no more interesting or subversive to have some fuming, badly written hatred attributed to mark k-p than it is to open up a can of coca cola and find it crawling with maggots. The resentotroll has laid a trap that it would be easy for what the body typing this will, for ease of reference, call 'me'. The 'real' mark k-p is supposed to be up in arms about the 'stealing of his (online) identity', which in the mind of the resentocrat, would be evidence for his neurotic-subjectivizing conviction that ultimately, really, come on, admit it, everything is personal, it's all about baboonery and personal feuds, oedipal struggles between men = pathetic antler-rubbing homosocial bonding. But it really isn't. Like Sutter Cane, 'I' don't write anything. Mark k-punk is not a biographical individual. It is precisely a name for a writing practice. In other words, Mark k-p does not write, but is written. I hope that it is evident that the forces writing Mark k-p would not have been instrumental in the production of the resentment-soaked stalker bile produced in the comments box there. That neurotic oedipalist seems to use 4 IPs: 81.135.134.22 213.122.197.13 81.135.3.171 213.122.142.213 Banning IPs is a bit of a futile art in my experience. I'll do it in this case, but what usually happens with underground man onanist haytaz is that their resentment gives 470

them infinite patience to find another way of interposing their jabbing phallus where it is not wanted (i.e. everywhere). But what do we know about this individual? (Sphaleotas, I'm expecting a file on my desk tomorrow with photos, the contents of his rubbish bin etc. Get to it!) He's obviously read k-punk long enough to build up enough knowledge to produce a heavy-handed if - to be fair - largely accurate satire of the Cold Rationalist position and enough slavering Rupert Pupkin-type obsessive hatred to be motivated to post on it. He's obviously aware of Warwick history, which, while hardly secret, would require either first hand knowledge or some level of research. I mean, he knows enough about Nick to be aware that at some time - but surely well over a decade ago now - his name would have been associated with Nietzsche and Bataille. He knows that Nick was my supervisor (I guess he could have picked this up from Simon's interview)... Hmmmm.... Really, this is no more interesting than having a broadcast interrupted by a Pooteresque Nobody --- an interruption of impersonalizing semiotic trade by a committed peronalist ---And of course, the 'real' mark k-p can spell 'lambast'. Comments: Troll Alert Nick Land: Mark - interesting and depressing As you know, this kind of impersonation activity really disgusts me - it's a kind of perverse inversion of the positive potentialities of the medium (Oedipus goes virtual - "and if you haven't got enough Oedipus already, heh! we can easily provide some more"). Sickening. Hope there's some way of SERIOUSLY discomforting the a@#hole who did this Note my post above on related topic Tachi: Hi Mark K-P, that seems to have really got your back up; understandably so, but let's move on, and make productive connections where we can. I think it is to be expected from time to time to have to confront assaults of various kinds. The question is how. First, I wouldn't allow the blog to be a vent. Perhaps, try mirror tactics, or 'dark and dirty'. I would avoid fuelling it though. 471

Nick Land: Tachi - "dark and dirty" sounds promising - know anyone with the technical capabilities to wreak appropriate revenge? Mark - think Luke got off lightly not being treated as a troll. 472

Reza Negarestani: Tachi - "dark and dirty" sounds promising - know anyone with the technical capabilities to wreak appropriate revenge? I know someone who is an extremely capable hacker ... but let's wait ;) ... we just talked about victimology and lex talionis ;) ... plus, check your email for the new mail Sphaleotas: The addresses correspond to BT dial-up accounts; some of the more recent abuse in the k-punk comment boxes also had BT IPs. Troll: Ok, I think it's time for a full and unreserved apology. I really never intended to get people's backs up quite THAT much. Although the aggressive, utterly odious personi I adopted (Axiomatik, Adam55 et al.) obviously suggest the contrary, I in fact have a great deal of respect for all of you at the CCRU, and this ill-thought out attempt at intervention (which really spiralled out of control -- I really never thought for a minute that anyone would really think that Mark has written that awful email)was really only intended to raise a few issues that I thought get treated all too-lightly. My tactics, admittedly, were inexcusable -- but really, I must reiterate, I never for a moment thought that anyone would BELIEVE that Mark wrote that comment, and let's be honest, that was the real concern (rather than my pathetic ad hominem attacks, which should be beneath notice). But look, regardless, I admit to having gone too far, can quite understand while you'd have me burnt at the stake for this, and I expect no 'forgiveness'. But I also have little doubt that some of you have the technological know-how to send a nasty virus to my computer (or something similar), and I am really worried about this as I am really desperately poor and my life's work is saved there (I'm very bad at backing things up). So, I beg you, please do not set your dogs upon me! You win, I'll disappear. I truly wish you luck with all that you do, and perhaps one day I'll find a better way of articulating my objections (which are perhaps not all quite as fuck-witted as you suggest)- and, who knows, maybe even some productive dialogue may come of it - at least for me, since I have no doubt that I have a great deal to learn from you. Again, I'm truly, sincerely sorry, and will not waste your time again. (P.S. I can't resist noting that the OED has 'lambaste'; 'Nietzche' was one of many typos ...) 473

Reza Negarestani: lol ... Sorry is this another joke? My head is still foaming with paranoia so I’m still doubtful if YOU have written this or not (and you can understand it). But just a brief answer, if you are the one, thanks for letting us know. Don’t worry no one sends a head hunter after you (ok attention the hyperstition crew, PLEASE stop any ‘dark and dirty operation). People, may call me a pathetic pacifist (or consider this as a horrible humanistic gesture) but I think forgiveness is the only option in such situations (revenge goes nowhere). I personally accept the apology. You can just change your avatar and participate in discussions (if you have trouble with the ip I can fix it later). No one will banish anyone from this place unless in the case of a danger threatening the blog, its writers and commentators. Contrite Troll: Yes, I really am the turd/troll/asshole etc. (keep them coming, they're well deserved). Your mercifulness is greatly appreciated, Reza, but I wonder if the others (Nick in particular) are prepared to let it go - I really had no idea that you had all been discussing these things until I found all these new threads on the Main page at 1.15am, and then frankly felt pretty terrible (still do) that I'd clearly irritated people (people whom I actually respect, even if I - obviously - have very serious intellectual differences with them) to such an extent that they were baying for my blood and calling for some kind of techno-revenge. If I'd known that I'd even taken up people's time to such an extent (i.e. all these discussion threads) I'd feel pretty awful about it believe it or not, I wasn't out (merely) to try and ridicule anyone (though, obviously, that was part of it, but surely that's water off a duck's back to Mark ), nor did I think any of it through - it was literally a way of simply staving off boredom on a Sunday and entertaining/distracting myself. There are some serious issues I tried to raise (however inappropriately), there, for sure, but I was basically just pissing about (anonymity can be a perverse thrill, I find - in society at large one is always - and I think justly - held responsible for all that one says; moroever, I often find it hard to believe that there's really a 'real person' there behind those avatars who may take offense - it's much easier [and more cowardly] to attck someone if you can't see their face - or they yours), but I never dramed that anyone would take such umbrage at insults from an anonymous prick such that they would be baying for revenge ("Hope there's some way of SERIOUSLY discomforting the a@#hole who did this")! Of course I realise that what I am being really criticized for in the most part is that I (supposedly) pretended to be Mark - but really, once again, it never crossed my mind that anyone would *believe* it was really him - the parody was supposed to be obvious for what it was, nor did I spend more than five minutes composing it; so I was more than a little surprised when Nick responded the way he did, and then ran with it. 474

Anyway, I hope these apologies and pathetic, grovelling (but sincere) comments help to diffuse all the bad feeling (let's face it: hatred) a little. I'll troll off to my cave now ... and stay there! Reza Negarestani: Hope you understand why Nick is so angry (and he has the right to be very angry) ... he has already been harassed by the same kind of ‘harmless satire’ (or the so-called funny hoax) many times; but I’m sure Nick will accept the apology even if it takes time. Trolling off to your cave is not a good solution; you can participate here too. Tachi: Troll, I can't believe you didn't intend to deliberately deceive us into thinking it was Mark. Why, otherwise, would you have signed off with his moniker? Anyhow, I think I have even less respect for you for your wimpering, self-flatulating response, than for your impersonating tactics. The post in quasi-London-cum-blackUS-ghetto slang was kind of funny, but this pathetic self-whipping is sad beyond belief. You can air differences in a serious way if you care to. If you really have intellectual interest in the ideas produced on the site, and even concerns or differences, then hone your communication skills accordingly. Nick Land: Hey Troll, OK, I'm in for the group hug ;) - in contrast to Tachi, I fully appreciate your abject whimpering self-flagellation Guess we have to call off the ninja-hacker digital extermination brigade Tachi: "Abject whimpering self-flagellation": oops, yes, this - rather than 'selfflatulence' (whatever that is, farting on oneself, perhaps) - is what I was refering to. Anyhow, good to see we have quickly moved on from the brink of dark and dirty to light and huggy. Back to productive synthesis now? mark k-p: Disagreement is fine and to be welcomed. It's not as if there is consensus on issues amongst the three of us. But what was the substantive content of yr objection? Nothing... 475

Interesting, too, that the position being attributed to 'me' really was largely a summary of what Ginzburg said. I added v little. (The refs to Israel/ radical enlightenment were just about all I added). Contrite Troll: "But what was the substantive content of yr objection? Nothing..." (mark k-p) Well, I guess that's the end of that then, eh? There are a trillion things which swarm to mind that I could say about this whole incident (and another trillion in response to Mark's, Nick's and Reza's most recent comments/discussions), but I really can't see Mark and I getting on at all, so I think it's only right for me to do the honourable thing and return the floor and the microphone to him and let him have free reign, as is his wont. [I've just deleted several long paragraphs of 'substantive objections', thinking better of getting engaged in what would doubtless turn out to be an interminable scrap in which no grounds would be gained on either side, no mutual understanding would be reached (and apologies for being so old-fashioned and out-of-tune with current intellectual fashions to think that is sometimes *desirable*] and which, frankly, no-one has time for.] Although Mark flatters himself that I must be some kind of obsessive stalker who avidly reads everything he bothers posting on the internet (which seems to be more or less every thought which ever pops into his head - or fingertips) and must be fueled by some kind of bitter resentment(about *what* I'm supposed to be resentful, I am literally clueless), in actual fact I have not spent more than half an hour reading his 'kpunk' blog and my 'real motivation' has rather a lot more to do with the fact that ... ... alright, I'm cutting this short - it is pointless and I genuinely do really despise the whole ad hominem / puerile name-calling (though I think Mark has surpassed himself in this regard in his most comments on 'the troll' above and elsewhere on the site), and since we all have better things to do, I'll bid you all fair thee well. Very best wishes for all that you do, collectively or otherwise ... Sorry: 'fair thee well' should've been 'fare thee well' (I know how particular Mark gets about spelling) Love and kisses Mark, Your Very Own Resentocratic Stalker-Troll xxx 476

Tachi: your'e weirding me out. Terry Pratchett's Darkside: I never for a moment thought that anyone would BELIEVE that Mark wrote that comment the parody was supposed to be obvious for what it was, I guess when someone has already become an absurdly shrill, harrying, delusionally selfconfident quasi-messianic parody of themselves, it can be hard to tell - even for fellow hyperstitionalists. He also can't spell 'personalist'. johneffay: Are you lot just playing along with this guy, or can you really not spot when somebody is mercilessly taking the piss out of you? The Undiluted/Deleted Truth: Terry -- yes, you're absolutely spot-on. Clearly, that's why the whole thing was so deeply embarrassing for Nick and humiliating for Mark -- thus all the vituperation against the wicked 'troll'. The real problem, of course, was not at all that someone had (heaven forfend!) impersonated Mark, nor that the 'trolls' had infiltrated the exalted spaces of Hyperstition, but that both Nick and Reza were evidently prepared to believe that Mark was capable of such an outburst, automatically censuring him for his impertinent, adolescent, megalomaniacal tantrum, thereby publically betraying the fact that they are quite as aware of Mark's seriously delusional sense of self-importance as the rest of us. Deeply embarrassing all round, really -- which is why we then witnessed the represion (deletion) of the most telling of 'the troll's' comments, followed by the rather savage baying-for-blood scene which ensued: the wicked troll who so effortlessly exposed us in this way must be identified and hunted down and made an example of ("Hope there's some way of SERIOUSLY discomforting the a@#hole who did this...know anyone with the technical capabilities to wreak appropriate revenge?") ... I have little doubt that this comment will be deleted also. Repression: Yes, yes, I can't spell 'repression' either ... Reza Negarestani: The Undiluted/Deleted Truth, I have little doubt that this comment will be deleted also. 477

Unfortunately, you clicked the wrong button ... no comment has been deleted here; Mark merely renamed those comments from Mark K-punk to Troll; if you are waiting to be repressed (deleted) by the Hyperstition crew; you should wait for too long ;) ... btw, a nice trick for pushing us to delete your comment but sadly, it is an old trick. henrymiller: coming into this with no idea of the personal animosities and fatuities involved -- reza, your policy is incomprehensible. in what sense does leaving his comments there hurt or rebound upon him? why would he want them deleted? Nick Land: Yawn [= 99] Reza Negarestani: in what sense does leaving his comments there hurt or rebound upon him? why would he want them deleted? I don't want to keep them as an offensive tactic against the troll (i'm not interested in offense) ... my reasons: [1] comment purge is futile [2] there are some people who crave for comments purge (not the troll himself) on this blog and then exploiting the scenario for further trolling (honestly, i've already exprienced it). Anyway, i think this thread is getting boring so i'm not eager for talking about 'trollism' anymore. Sorry. michael murray: mmmm, strange. I know that i want to try and join in discussions - but in truth my only motivation is to converse with undercurrent - who i used to be friends with. Not wanting to go into the personal, i'd just like to say (as it seems that even non-illuminati have been encouraged to contribute to the blogsite)that i have only recently been exploring these and other blogs linked to r's urbanomic site (yes at times i do feel like a quasi-stalking - what was the word he used to use? - 'obsequious'? friend - not-wanted-anymore)and this has been one of the first blogs that i feel unintimidated enough to make an entrance. i know that a long time ago i was left behind intellectually when undercurrent started at Warwick but always wanted at some point to keep in contact through some shared sense of aesthetic or sense of humour maybe. That said, i fully understand that people move on. But, and here is the point, i am one of those who has not made what i could of myself (laziness or maybe an inherited sense of self-pessemism ?). The occasional contact with those friends that have and do dare to stretch their potential - i find exhilarating and extremely inspiring. A few of the members of the medieaval baebes i count among these. 478

I am totally lost in most of what is said and therefore really shouldn't even be here. But here is a blog where an outsider (be kind in your interpretation of that term) has joined in - k-p. And i understand why and how resentment can manifest seeing these blogs.Though I in no way condone these trolls! i guess though that vocab is interesting in that when one truly understands a subject - either through study or social upbringing - something the 'plain english' movement would have a fit reading, is, after all, just a conversation to those particpating. Well i hope i haven't embarrassed myself. Hi to R.M. if your reading. And good luck. sincerely m.m. p.s. if you ever bring up Bataille or Gainsbourg - give me a heads-up. u/c: hi michael - didn't realise I was being stalked. interesting to hear from someone 'outside' that hypersition is less intimidating than other blogs, I had sort of feared that the opposite might be true, but outsiders joining in without feeling embarassed is a positive-feedback process. Not sure what your point on the K-P wars is though, do you mean k-p is an outsider, or that outsiders are welcome at k-p's blog (neither of which are true ..) As for Bataille well, for a start in a former life nick had a hand in writing the best book "on" Bataille in the known universe, but I'm not sure of his position on serge. michael murray: hi u/c. sorry for the confusion. when i typed 'k-p' i was referring to the great pretender - not the original. Meaning the troll as one of the 'outsider' 'resentniks'. so, in summary - allowed to participate - outsiders YES. trolls and resentniks NO. Oedipal irruptions 479

Nick Land (December 12, 2004) Anonymity is demonstrably possible, but unfortunately it takes hard work. The default outcome – even when contributing to a blog dedicated to the radical impersonality of Lemurian Hyperstition – seems to be a continual re-emergence of sordid personalism of a kind that would make a tabloid gossip columnist proud. While fanatically editing-out all biographical indices is probably unrealistic here, it might still be worth thinking about how the intrinsic anonymity of hyperstition could be promoted. More sustained attention to the function of avatars? More rigorous adherence to collectively endorsed methods and principles? Perhaps the intellectual integrity of the blog itself – which is hopefully more than a crash-site for a random set of perturbed egos – could be incrementally consolidated (my worry is that the opposite is occurring). Ccru’s functioning as an anonymous motor of cultural production seems to have stalled, but it is worth noting that for several years socially identifiable proper names were almost entirely effaced from it’s activities – despite the Oedipal machinations of various social agencies (media prominent among them) to re-install normal ego functions. However imperfect, the anonymity of the Ccru was correlated with the virtual emergence of a Ccru-entity (or strategic hyperspace singularity of some kind) which provided the true source of ‘agentic consistency.’ The point of this reminiscence (apologies for those with a blurry or worse sense of what the hell this is about) is to emphasize that there is nothing fundamentally impractical about sidelining the personal dimension of cultural production. Given the sad stock of neurotic resentments that make up the psychic aspect of the human animal, there will always be plenty of people taking snide satisfaction in the regeneration of Oedipal squalor. That’s no excuse for those of us with an interest in the success of this space as a source of cold hyperstitional fertility from collaborating with such impulses. Does Lemurian Hyperstition exist, as a virtual-abstract Thing, in complete independence from human ego-structures and neurotic will-to-power? If it doesn’t we’re probably all wasting our time. 480

If it does, let’s try to consolidate it, comply with it, replace ourselves with it, and spread anonymity on the web. Comments: Oedipal irruptions Tachi: Hi Nick, anonymity is possible, but what is at stake here is not simply anonymity; its connective synthesis, surely. Sure, fanatically editing-out all biographical indices is unrealistic, but also unnecessary. What is required is a way of maintaining relationships between the components so that they interact productively. Imagine each of us uses a different name for every post we make. That would be one way of, at least on the surface, maintaining anonymity. Or just take out the name field and avoid signing. There would be the IP issue of course to differenciate posts, but that could be worked around. But how would this help? I imagine that it would affect the process of establishing relationships, strengthening productive resonances between the components, as befits any natural/material system of composite parts which display some level of consistency and durability. What matters, I think, is not the effacement of individuality for the sake of being antiunitary or anti-egoistic, but rather the sustainability of productive links between individuals, or better still, between posts on the blog to form currents, which on another level generate a force or greater flow. I am not quite sure why you think anonymity is what needs to be promoted, when you said yourself that what needs consolidating is the intellectual integrity of the blog. Surely this can be done without anonymity? "More rigorous adherence to collectively endorsed methods and principles?" - Maybe. But its a question of 'how?' You are forced to question the limitations of the medium and the perhaps idealistic notion that the blog is an open system and doesn't require selective participation. I think that the irrelevant needs to be weeded out, plus the downright obstructive. I agree that "there is nothing fundamentally impractical about side-lining the personal dimension of cultural production" but I do question the value placed upon the impersonal dimension of CP you think anonymity would ensure. 481

First, why is the impersonal aspect of CP so important? Is this because you think the viral propagation of hyperstition relies upon it? What is the driving force within this? Is this a personal drive you, Nick, have for hyperstition to become something ..? Surely you should value the impersonal drive taking up hyperstition, and this is something that you, and none of us, can manage. Second, even if we all agree that the impersonal aspect of CP is so important, why can't the personal dimension be appreciated as a key feature of it? What is to prevent the emergence of a social singularity from the work of people with names? I worry that you are seeking a unmanned ship to take nobody very far. Surely its not the faceless front of hyperstition that is so important, but the faceless driving force within it, which may already have infected those of us with names who are co-producing on this blog? Don't get me wrong = its not that I value ego, but I am just not so sure it can be so easily side-lined. I would hope, rather, to see how it can be used, employed, for collective synthesis. mark k-p: Totally agree with all this obv. No need for apologies -- after all, in no sense were you talking to me. ;-) A New Face for A New People (ver 0.1) Reza Negarestani (December 12, 2004) Mark, I just saw these posts ... thought it is the hyperstitional joke of the year. Sorry pal for being fooled. I guess this person (IT) planned to show us what we talk about avatars, hyperstition puppets, etc is all fashionable nonsense ... but as nick and anna once stated here (I discussed it both here and at cold me a year ago) ‘internet avatars’ are receptacles of Molar Personalities, they -- as I put it – are just ‘A New Face for A New People’. When we encounter with internet avatars we can’t entirely leave the problem of personality behind. I already warned about this trend over at cold me. It started with Nick and unfortunately, people appreciated it. Then it happened with cold-me 482

posters; and now, you. This is not a ‘harmless’ satire, nor is it something unimportant. It gives us a clue about something that happens on the net, the faciality machine of white wall / black hole can be installed everywhere, in cyberspace it is stronger than ever. It vomits nothing but paranoia. Real consequences: I talked about real consequences of this trend over at cold-me and k-punk, but apparently no one listened. This kind of ‘facial trollism’ (unleashed by everyone or every kollective) is dangerous; just an example: imagine someone posts an irrelevant article with my language at an Iranian forum about some offensive topics; then who can save me from that deep-shit? I guess Nick deserves an apology (for what unleashed as a ‘harmless satire’ against him); now, I should apologize for being easily fooled. Mark, my sincere apologies. Comments: A New Face for A New People (ver 0.1) Nick Land: Reza - lets erase the whole comment thread - it's boring, it's wasting our time, and it just gives the trolls a sense of self-importance Reza Negarestani: Nick, on the contrary I think let them rot here so the troll sees no one gives a f**k about all this. But it is up to Mark, if you and mark really want to purge these comments; just let me know, I’m always enthusiastic for purging uncleanness of all kind (Zoroastrian polytics rocks!) ... Mark, what is your decision? mark k-p: There's no need to apologise obv.... This kind of thing is just boring ultimately... It's a sad fact about the internet that when things reach a certain level of success, they attract steaming resentonauts... All that these reactive forces can do is get us to waste our energy on them. Banning his IP clearly isn't working; we'll just have to ruthlessly delete anything that even looks like trollism for a while. As Nick says, that is the only way to stop the site becoming a platform for inane whingers. I've seen this happen at virtually every interesting net forum I've been involved in, from alt.movies.kubrick through to Dissensus. It's a sad fact about the internet and human populations. 483

In the first instance, I think it would be wise to close comments on that post, which is what I am about to do. Reza Negarestani: yes, i think merely closing the comment box for that post is a good idea. mark k-p: I've closed it, and I could be persuaded to delete the lot. Not sure? Reza Negarestani: Mark, Good ... I think let them leave to rot there; they will eventually sink in the hadean space of the archive. ;) Nick Land: Mark, Reza - Still think we should delete them - if i felt they were "rotting" in pain, i might agree with you, but they've basically just come in to shit on the carpet so why leave their droppings polluting the site? Seriously, I think if it was absolutely clear than any personalistic trolling would be ruthlessly eliminated it could: a) have a deterrent effect b) leave the site in better condition we can all tell the difference between productive contributions and moronic smuggerism, so lets act on it. If the mails remain up they'll pathetically think they've left some kind of tag. (Also think [my] irate responses lower the tone of the blog). Perhaps the most maddening thing about these losers is the utter self-satisfaction they radiate as they use the most elementary capabilities of the technology to make their adolescent 'points' about identity. It's an unbelievably noxious mix of smugged-out half-witted self-indulgence and petty con-man criminality. Kill! JohnFen: Deleting troll comments will not discourage trolls, it will only escalate things so there's more troll comments the need deleting. 484

There's really only one effective way to deal with trolls. As hackneyed as it sounds, the best course is to ignore them completely (unless it seems amusing to play with them). When my daughter was little, our Big Discipline Gun was just that. We'd relegate her to social nonexistence for a few minutes, and would not respond in any way. This is devastating for all young children, and most trolls are essentially young childen. The other issue is identity theft, but there's technological fixes for that issue. Personally, I like the ability to "spoof" as other people because it so often lends to fine satire (as opposed to trolling), and the spoofed can clear things up later. But that's just an aesthetic. henrymiller: i think my comments in the box were made seriously, and inevitably touched upon some of what the troll was saying. it's easy enough to call anyone you disagree with a pathetic whinger (although this wasn't really trolling was it? obviously you lot lead sheltered lives), but why bother with comments boxes if you refuse to engage in argument at all? it's clear you have it all worked out, so bonne chance. 'we'll just have to ruthlessly delete anything that even looks like trollism for a while' is a brazen way of avoiding the issue: the unthought-out idealism of 'cold rationalism'. in place of argument and engagement you leave terms of abuse. the only way of justifying this is recourse to the closed system of thought that's been queried in the first place. anyone who disagrees *must* be a monkey. Reza Negarestani: Personlly, I think comments purge hardly works ... or worse, it works as a useful instrument in the hands of trolls. Gadfly: It's too easy, anyway, to simply dismiss everyone who gets your back up or irritates you by calling them a 'troll' - in which case, Mark is surely a 'troll' to an awful lot of people. As far as I can work out (I'm really not familiar with all this internetspeak since I usually spend very little time in these internet dungeons) a 'troll' means something like 'gadfly' ... in which case I consider the epithet a compliment, and could scarcely be in better company (Socrates being only the most obvious example). Reza Negarestani: Gadfly, a 'troll' means something like 'gadfly' Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no; however, i think the problem is simple: being reactionary toward the troll or gadfly is not so much a problem; the same for playing 485

the role of 'gadfly' or whatever. i'm just trying to understand (being comfortable with) both of them. but anyway, let's skip this topic. ;) 486

Hyperstitional Carriers II Nick Land (December 13, 2004) [Paraphrased from P. Vysparov] My guess is that Bismark’s most widely quoted remark – “People who love the law or good sausage should never watch either being made” -- applies to hyperstitional carriers (avatars) too. There’s an understandable reluctance to fabricate them in public, perhaps because this would undermine their Limbo status, casting them too crudely into the realm of blatant fiction. Still, it might be worth re-thinking this reservation, since carriers are so integral to the functioning of hyperstition that anything inhibiting their production massively impedes hyperstitional propagation (throwing practitioners back into the sad slum of the “creative ego”). Hyperstitional carriers simulate personalities in order to consolidate a node of anegoic cognitive consistency (and, etymologically, persons are masks). Carriers are the vehicles through which tendrils of hyperstitional exploration are singularized and promoted. It might be worth de-emphasizing the entire problematic of simulation so as to focus on methodical productivity. Carriers do not exist by virtue of their credibility, but due to the fact that if any one of them had not arisen it would be necessary that it be invented (for a thread of investigation to take place). Thesis: Thought is only hyperstitional if a carrier conducts it. “Lemuria” is itself a mega-carrier – its only authority being its inexistence. It is in the name of Lemuria that the Numogram became accessible, without conceivable human derivation. Numogrammatic research decomposes itself in strict correlation with carrier-production: at first neolemurian subcultures, ultimately artificial individuals. Insofar as this process is held in abeyance, hyperstitional proliferation is itself suspended. Hyperstition requires that we relentlessly refuse the reduction of carriers to false identities. Carriers are not disguises (as if their true content were really “oh, so it’s 487

Oedipus”) – they are defined by what they convey, not by where they ‘come from.’ The virtual-real source of any carrier is the conceptual impulse it alone makes possible, not the creative ego who ‘invents’ it. Conception happens in the carrier, simultaneously with its virtual genesis, not in the creative subject. Hyperstition will be assaulted by trolls, and trolls have a coherent ideology: “Stop pretending, you know it’s really Oedipus.” Because this assertion plugs directly into the basic imprisoning flinch biosocially implanted into all human animals it tends to be horribly effective. Perhaps fabricating carriers ‘in public’ would positively contribute to resisting it – “there’s no pretence, no disguise, look at the sausage-machine if you’re so morbidly fascinated, there’s nothing hidden. There are things that can only happen through this process, thoughts no ego can appropriate, paths only radical artificiality can open.” We really are not interested in anything we can think. Comments: Hyperstitional Carriers II Tachi: Nick, major development taking place here. I am quite confident a lot of positive changes will ensue from the recent troll incident for the facilitation of productive activity. In particular, I see that you have potentially levered open the hatch and transformed Hyperstition from being locked into a state of semi-fiction, or at least being accusable as such, to being spun out from this real/fictional axis altogether. This is key, I think, to letting it do its own thing. However, I don’t think that refusing the reduction of carriers to false identities suffices to ensure hyperstitional propagation, since I don’t think refusal operates at the base level. What does an effective refusal look like? For me, it seems to grant too much to the real/fiction binary, and play into the true/false identity game, and is far too human an impulse to generate impact. What works at the base level for hyperstition to propagate? This is the question if a suitable strategy is to be formulated. Please check your inbox, Tachi mark k-p Yes, Nick... I think this is really crucial. Also for the discussion with Simon too. Romantic-Sadeans always insist that exposing (the) mechanism will spoil the magic. Perhaps it will: white magic is after all an art of (self) delusion. But sorcery is compatible with Cold Rationalism precisely because for both there is no 488

dissimulation. Libido can be and always is INTENSIFIED by analysis of the mechanics of its own production. (While the Catholics turn away in disgust... too much detail....) It's not theatre, it's not spectacle, nothing has to be concealed. We're not fooling anyone, there's no-one to be fooled. Intensities and affects are indifferent to epistemology. Tachi: Actually surprised this hasn't attracted more attention. Think this is extremely relvant to Hyperstion, yet there seems to be another series of debates raging on in other departments. Shame really, since the trolling and bitching is actually connected to the issue of carriers. And given that Nick has pretty much thrown hyperstitionproduction into a new light, where a reflection on method - strategy and tactics if you like - has been required, it seems painfully sad that others don't find it relevant enough to connect on this issue which affects the core of Hyperstition. Reza Negarestani: Tachi I received this from a friend (very pertinent to the polemics about personality): “not to reach the point where we don't use our names, but the point where it no longer matters...” (Deleuze and Guattari, ATP) plus, have you ckecked the etymology of the word Troll unearthed by Thistle? http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=troll Tachi: Good quote, Reza. Could we also say “not to reach the point where we don't use other names, but the point where it no longer matters”? Surely the point being that it doesn't matter at all which names we use - our 'real' names or alternative names? ... or that using names, per se, relying on names, marks, is of little consequence? This surely touches on the issue of consistency. Even a fluid has a certain consistency, however much it changes shape or form. As for 'troll', it reminds me too much of fantasy games .. Reza Negarestani: Could we also say “not to reach the point where we don't use other names, but the point where it no longer matters”? 489

yes, but in the second phase; how is possible to jump on the 'other names' issues when we still have 'Our Own Names' issues? when it starts from 'our' names, the process continues to other names, as a consequence in the continuity of the process. This surely touches on the issue of consistency. Even a fluid has a certain consistency, however much it changes shape or form. yes, but it is the orgnizational consistency not the consistency of composition (the consistency between participative elements) ... organizational consistency as its name shows, is con-firming the economical bonds that hold the expression and contents of an organization together (methexis); as J.J. Gibson discusses; it is only the consistency through mutual affordance or as he elaborates, the dynamism between surfaces. organizational consistency only happens through the surface dynamics, i.e. superficiality. on the organizational consistency see: http://www.coldme.net/text/asianpeace.html. endnote 12 (also follow the discussion in the body of text) or pestis solidus: the same address (just replace the file with pestis.pdf) Troll oh, yes, warcraft, etc. ;) Nick Land: Tachi - think you've already answered this, but is it cool to use your Q.s, attributed to you, in a Numogram Q&A; post? If so, i'll put it up this afternoon. Tachi: Sorry Nick, been away, just seen this, but see you have posted them, that's fine. Anything I have sent Reza or yourself feel free to use. Just been going over the massive number of comments in the 'problems and mysteries' post, seems some interesting stuff finally coming through, should maintain momentum. Nick Land: Tachi - didn't wait for permission because when I re-read your comments on a previous thread you seemed to be happy for your Q.s to be used. Glad to have that confirmed, anyway. Does seem we've finally crawled out of troll-hell (fingers crossed). Welcome back. Tachi: No problem re. permission Nick, these questions and thoughts are better shared; would hope they could be better feed for hyperstitional shoals. Seems plenty 490

of activity on the site of late, albeit cramming up the 'problems and mysteries' post. Any way of extracting the most pertinent lines and throwing them into fresh water? As for the issue of rendering carrier production transparent, it seems like the issue has gone fairly unnoticed. What do you do when something with a potential bang doesnt go off? Relight it and stand back, or let it go? By making carrier production transparent, that way you open up the carrier to polyproductive inputs. The production of hyperstition relies on the production of carriers, so the latter does seem to be a zone of priority. By bringing the 'fictional' into a realm of 'non-fiction', as it were, it becomes open to all sorts of channels, since it does not communicate over a threshold of ambiguity (where the distinction between fiction/reality still remains but is just unknown); the effect is to remove the unknown status and allow interactivity not just between truths and fictions, but also between carriers. 491

Blissblog, Surfascism And Cold Rationalism mark k-p (December 13, 2004) Simon’s response to the Surfascism piece is so interesting and if I may say so, so uh symptomatic that I think needs to be addressed point for point. Isn’t fascism precisely the alliance of atavism/abjection and cold rationality? Atavism on its own might produce a pogrom, or an isolated Travis Bickle type paranoid schizo, or a Bataille-style perv. But it takes a dose of cold technocratic reason to create Treblinka (or for that matter the gulag). I think right here we are at the heart of the problem. My issue with what Simon says is that it seems to be generated entirely out of a Romantic abstract machine, which equates rationality with a brutal instrumentalism. This is something like the view of Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man, who famously opposes what he calls reason - but which is in reality utilitarian logos - to some irrational Factor X. It is not that EITHER utilitarian logos OR factor X are fascist; it is that the dichotomy itself is constitutive of fascist thought. The well-known idea that Nazis administrated death camps in the day but listened to classical music and read Goethe in the evening is indicative of this, and only if we understand rationality to mean instrumental utilitarianism could Treblinka be described as ‘rational’. But rationality in the Spinozist sense – and no one could have been more systematically anti-Romantic than Spinoza – is precisely about consistency, ethos: i.e. it involves total immanence, meaning that, far from being ‘emotionless’, Spinoza’s cold rationalism is also at one and the same time about emotional engineering, and must be. What has to be resisted at every level – and all the great thinkers of CR, from Schopenhauer to Freud to Lacan – is the idea that emotions are some ineffable and inexplicable slurry. The great breakthrough of Freud was to return to the Spinozist insight that all emotions have rationales. The devastating radical enlightenment thought is also astonishingly simple. Everything that happens – and crucially that has to include emotional reactions - has a cause. But a prior - or mechanical – cause, not a final cause or teleology. Via Descartes and Spinoza, Newton’s insight invades philosophy and theology, enabling the total destruction and discrediting of the Aristotlean-Catholic conviction that everything in the universe has been designed to fulfil a final purpose. The human animal is freed from authoritarian mystagoguery 492

(the Judgements of God), it is able to think of itself as a machine, but a machine capable of reflecting on its own performance and constitution. Evolution, genetic engineering, AI-symbiosis: everything is possible once you no longer think of yourself as made in the image of Yahweh. We neurobots…. Romanticism is a kind of secular resistance to the radical implications of this Cartesian-Spinozist mechanism, the return of Jahweh in the form of the ‘inner self’. What is important, Romantics convince themselves, is what we feel (with feeling explicitly opposed to thought and action). The true reality of ourselves lies ‘inside’, in the interior, the phenomenological. Somehow, this alleged interior is to be thought of as absolutely independent of its material substrate. Feelings and consciousness aren’t epiphenomenal side-effects of socio-neurochemical interactions, they are irreducible traces of some ‘deep’ and ‘eternal’ human soul. This faith is alive today in what passes for Philosophy in university depts in the deeply anti-rational ‘qualia cult’ that deifies human consciousness as some ineffable mystery which, it is said, neurology will never be able to explain. This is mysticism, not philosophy. So I think I would want to position Fascism not as a successor to Romanticism, but as one of its variants. It is important to hold onto the Virilio/ D/G critique of fascism as essentially suicidal – a line of abolition. There are many more lines of abolition than fascism, but fascism, because it is allied with a modernization-industrialization program that is precisely not rational – in what sense are bigger buildings, more alienated factory labour and population explosion ‘rational’? – is the most dangerous. (Gray is right, in Al Qaeda and what it means to be Modern to insist on the essential relation between modernization – NOT modernism, this is important – and fascism, so that Islamism can be properly conceived of as fascist precisely because it is not about atavism per se but atavism in the context of modernization). there’s an awful of potent, provocative culture that exists in that dodgy zone between Romantic/primordialist and fascist/totalitarian. In rock alone, there’s elements of glam, Killing Joke, metal, rave, gabba, industrial, crunk, maybe even Roots reggae, that work off those ambiguous energies. Then there’s the whole modernist/fascist mini-tradition of writers like Wyndham Lewis, Celine, etc -- a personal obsession of mine. 493

Surely we have to distinguish between fascism and totalitarianism here. Totalitarian states (e.g. Stalinist Soviet Bloc states) seek out sustainable control. The libidinal attraction of destruction and death has no doubt been contingently implicated in the totalitarian machine, but it is not necessary to it. (Stalin could have killed far less people than he did, and indeed might have been even more successful if he had not indulged in mass bloodletting). It is possible to imagine a totalitarian state founded on a virtual threat of violence that is never actualized. But death, destruction and ultimately self-destruction are intrinsic to fascism. They are what it is about – that well-worn Dionysian – which is to say Romantic - theme of the glorious annihilation of the self, now given a techno-industrial modernizing machine to mass produce itself. Just because fascism uses the appeal to the atavistic/pagan/primordialist, doesn’t mean it owns those categories (c.f. the anti-natalist argument -- fascist regimes encourage childbirth means breeding is proto-fascist = not very good logic) But that wasn’t the argument. The argument was that the political exhortation to breed by the state is fascist. Hitler did it, Mussolini did it, and now Blair does it. Why the need for children? So that we can fill our fatherland with ‘our people’, who will both remove the need for immigrants to take ‘our jobs’ and contaminate ‘our culture’ and also act as more cannon fodder for our armies of defence against the foreign invaders. And as I said, it isn’t the invocation of the primitive per se that is constitutive of fascism – it is the seemingly paradoxical mass industrialization of the drive backwards towards a time of organic unity with the soil. Isn’t it as facile to say that Romanticism leads to Fascism as the converse argument (advanced by disillusioned French post-marxists in the 70s) that the Englightenment led to Auschwitz/the gulag? Straightforwardly, it was the Counter-Enlightenment and modernization that led to Auschwitz and the gulags. The counter-Enlightenment doesn’t operate by denial of the Enlightenment (i.e. it is canny enough to realise that Aristotlean-Thomist teleosuperstitions cannot be re-animated --- at least not without cyborg implants) it tries to contain and redirect it. Yes, the ovens and the trains could not have been built without the science that the break out of irrationalist Papist authoritarianism made possible, but the use of those ovens and trains for atavistic-primitivist blood sacrifice rites is precisely a turn away from Enlightenment rationality. 494

There are presumably many mixtures and inbetween states and coexistences that intermingle reason and non-reason. and those are places where most of us live, practically. Yes, but as anyone whose analysis has any political bite has demonstrated (Spinoza for sure but also Schopenhauer, Marx, Sartre, Burroughs, Foucault, Irigaray, Debord, even Nietzsche) most people are ‘control addicts’, enslaved puppets of their own passions. ‘Where most of us live’ is not a good place. Human Security or Human OS is constituted as the defence of the emiserating Oed-I-Pod, animal narcissist subjectifying machine = hell of the self. The planet is an irrationalist gulag overseen by tortured monkeys in hell. this is the question I’m most interested in actually, which is appropriate given what this blog is 97 percent about: Music. Where does it fit in the cold rationalist scheme? (Nick Land: "Every theorist who hasn’t a real place for music ends up with one-dimensional melancholia.”) Seems to me that the way Mark’s thought is developing he ought to end up in a Platolike stance of being suspicious of music itself as irrational, counter-revolutionary, and so forth. After all, what is Music if not emotion, intoxication, sensuality, violence, the orgiastic? Or more precisely (and intriguingly) perhaps one could say that Music operates at the cusp of the the abstract/conceptual and the sensory/sensual (you have to have a body to be able to hear it; even classical music appeals to the body, works through rhythm and the psychomotor apparatus). Whoa! Way too many equivocations here. I obviously won’t invest anything in the overcoded and reterritorializing concept of ‘music’ – but sonic manipulation, far from being antithetical to CR, is one motor of it. It is not accidental that the major advocates of CR – Ray, Nina, Alberto, myself – are totally immersed in sonic culture. There is no essential opposition between sensuality and rationality if you are a Cold Rationalist. Of course, CR will never fall for the naïve realist view that the senses give us direct, unmediated access to the world – but that doesn’t matter. The senses are not ‘windows upon the world’ but ‘feelers’ (Freud/ McLuhan) which, in the default state of affairs, sample the world according to preprogrammed protocols. Since CR thinks in terms of affects and bodies (rather than in terms of organisms) it is capable of conceiving of a sensuality reprogrammed either by input (this is where sonic 495

manipulation comes in) or by changing the receiving body itself (by thought/ drugs/ neurological enhancement) OR both at once, in an intense destraficatory feeback circuit. Neuropunk. That is why Music is always simultaneously a contemplative and physical experience. But of course thought itself is always a physical experience too. Moreover all attempts to reformulate music according to allegedly rationalist procedures ended up with things like Schoenberg and the twelve-tone scale ie. music which only Ben Watson (a sort of hot rationalist? he's into shagging!) enjoys? There is an absolute mystery and an arbitrary senselessness to music which invites words like “magic”. This couldn’t be more wrong, and as Mclary argues in Feminine Endings this antimusicological cult of the mystery and magic of music is indistinguishable from a culture in which the male body (and its priapic-climax circuits of excitation and tristesse) are privileged and transcendentalized. Power, mystery and authority always require one another. How particular sonic stimuli incites the CNS of populations is a technical question for a socioneurobiotics to answer. Despite what Qualia Cult thinks, any ‘mystery’ here is merely contingent. It’s a technical matter that is likely to be resolved eventually, and even if human beings can’t do it, that would be a comment on our limitations, not upon the impossibility of providing a description. (Music is certainly my window to the Sacred, the one thing I feel mystical about). The loveliness of melody, the violence of "annihilating rhythm" -- there are rules that govern how these things work, but the rules themselves in their very existence have no reason to be, they are arbitrary, pointless, non-purposive. Exactly! That’s precisely the Cold Rationalist anti-Aristotlean view! (Same applies incidentally to the poetics and musication of language: Rhyme without reason). There is a superfluousness, a futile gloriousness, an excess to requirements, an utterly non-necessary aspect to music--- which relates very well to the Bataillean worldview. There’s too many equivocations here again. Nothing is necessary beyond the judgements of God and beyond the pleasure principle. This insight is precisely what CR makes available. 496

via the fact that one “plays” music (as listener or performer), I’d ask where “play” as a concept fits into the CR worldview--“play” and its related concept of “mischief” a/k/a the imp of the perverse. (this is something where having kids, or hanging out with them, is a very useful reminder. Kids being simultaneously Pantheism's angels walking among us, and little devils). Spinoza says children are abject because they do not know what causes their actions or desires. Like many adults, they confuse being free with ‘doing what they want’, when freedom entails attuning your desires and emotions to your reason. You’re right that CR is contemptuous of the aleatory, the improvisatory, or anything which hymns the praise of the alleged creative efflorsescence of the cosmos. Jahweh is a drunken child abuser bungler and the Spinozist god doesn’t play dice. finally I do kinda share commentator Axiomatik’s amused puzzlement at how swiftly Mark (and presumably others in the post-CCRU milieu) have junked one entire canon of thought (nietzche, bataille--whom nick land wrote a great book, The Thirst for Annihilation, about--Deleuze & Guattari, presumably Ballard too now as he’s a big fan of surrealism, mythology, etc) for its complete inverse. But I guess it’s all part of the adventure that is the life of the mind. I think this misapprehension is becoming so consensual that it needs to be killed dead right now. This requires a diversion into biographism, but since everything is impersonal, including the so-called personal.. no matter. You’ll look in vain to find anything of any substance that I’ve said that’s positive about Bataille. I read, or rather tried to read Story of the Eye as an undergraduate but found it so tedious that I couldn’t complete it. From the age of eighteen, my canon has been Jewish/ Protestant – Spinoza, who even as an undergraduate was my favourite philosopher, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Kant, Beckett, Freud, Kubrick. I’ve never had any time for Catholic transgressivism, which is why Nick’s book on Bataille was never much to my taste. But I see very little connection between the machinic Land of ‘Machinic Desire’, ‘No Future’ and ‘Cybergothic’ and that. Nick mobilised the crucial CR circuit of Kant, Freud and Schopenhauer. The tactical investment in Deleuze and Guattari was really a codename for that. I don’t think I’m alone in CCRU in having limited interest in Deleuze’s own work – and certainly the D and G of Nick and Iain Grant were much more interesting 497

than actual D and G. (You always had to subtract too much yucky Lawrentian creationist vitalist pro-creationism to keep it libidinal). And the Deleuzian equivocation of Spinoza with Nietzschean embodied subjectivism and Bergsonian élan vitale has always been a disaster from which we are only now recovering. Ironically, there is a figure who much better fits the requirements to be the deathdrive successor of Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer and Freud than D/G – and that’s Lacan. So, in short, far from being some new absolute reversal, it’s a development, and more about inclusion (we’re allowed to read Lacan now:-) ) than some exclusionist repudiation. 498

Comments: Blissblog, Surfascism, and Cold Rationalism johneffay: Ironically, there is a figure who much better fits the requirements to be the death-drive successor of Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer and Freud than D/G – and that’s Lacan. And yet Bataille's influence on Lacan is well known. I quote from Roudinesco's intellectual biography on Lacan, simply because I have it to hand: 'Not only did Bataille's reading of Nietzsche supply Lacan with a new interpretation of the philosophy that had influenced him throughout his adolescence, but Bataille also initiated him into a new understanding of Sade, whose writings would later lead him to formulate a non-Freudian theory of pleasure. Moreover, Lacan borrowed Bataille's ideas on the impossible and heterology, deriving from them a concept of the "real" seen first as "residue" and then as "impossible"'. The reason I bring this up is that I have great difficulty understanding why you are so sympathetic to Lacanian thought as part of a rationalist project. I would suggest that Lacan actually feeds quite nicely into those bits of D&G; which you find most problematic. Freud can be twisted in such a way as to fit with a materialist rationalist approach and still remain Freud, but Lacan? I'm not so sure. henrymiller: or, to put it another way, the inclusion of lacan in a list of 'cold rationalists' must provoke the question whether 'cold rationalist' is a useful category. ah, but useful to whom? after all, some people have strange ideas about use-value: 'only if we understand rationality to mean instrumental utilitarianism could Treblinka be described as "rational".' semantics for undergrads. mark k-p: Quite honestly John what you are saying is bizarre: it is definitely the other way round. Everything bad about Deleuze and Guattari, almost programmatically, is where they depart from Lacan. Lacan saw himself as an assiduous reader of Freud, no more, no less; and I don't see a problem with that description of his project. But Lacan fixates on everything that hippy-clappy D and G loathe: specifically the death drive, which he runs almost all of his interesting work through. Obviously Lacan was a rationalist, he was a psychonalyst, and psychoanalysis, when rescued from Oedipalism, just is Spinozism in that it is about addressing the causes of people's behaviour in order to change it. Yes, of course Lacan was influenced by Bataille and Sade, in the way that everyone in that generation in France was. But did his mature work have anything to do with 499

either Sade or Bataille? I don't see the connection. It's clear in for instance 'Courtly Love as Anamorphosis' that Lacan is much more interested in Masoch than Sade. Sade just is the tedious treadmill of the pleasure principle, as everyone including Lacan knew. And I just don't see any connection with Bataille's transgressivism in Lacan at all. On the contrary, isn't he its greatest critic? Henry Miller: troll warning. Have some content in your posts. Say something. Or stop wasting our time. johneffay: Mark I'm not out to attack Lacan, as much as I am out to question your attacks on Bataille, although it's worth remembering that whilst Lacan 'saw himself as an assiduous reader of Freud', an awful lot of people disgreed with his reading. Yes, of course Lacan was influenced by Bataille and Sade, in the way that everyone in that generation in France was Contre-Attaque met at Lacan's House; he attended the College de sociologie meetings; he was definitely on the fringes of Acephale and attended their meetings, he may have been more intimately involved; and let's not forget, he married Bataille's ex-wife :) All circumstantial, I admit, but the point of the Roudinesco quote (and she is far from alone in this) is that the Lacanian Real with it's 'vestige' (or whatever the term is) is directly lifted from Bataille's general economy of the accursed share; a theory which I think we can all agree is intimately linked to Bataille's transgressivism. did his mature work have anything to do with either Sade or Bataille? 'This position is not tenable for us. Experience shows us that Kant is more true, and I have proved that his theory of consciousness, when he writes of practical reason, is sustained only by giving a specification of the moral law which, looked at more closely, is simply desire in its pure state, that very desire that culminates in the sacrifice, strictly speaking, of everything that is the object of love in one's human tenderness - I would say, not only in the rejection of the pathological object, but also in its sacrifice and murder. The is why I wrote 'Kant avec Sade'' (Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis). Which was published in 1973. Note the use of the concept of sacrifice. The admirable but untenable (at least for psychoanalysts) position he is referring to is Spinoza's. 500

I won't bore you with the D&G; argument. We obviously don't agree with the role of Lacan therein, although I agree that it isn't to shore up D.H. Lawrence. Obviously Lacan was a rationalist, he was a psychonalyst, So was Jung; is he a rationalist? Seriously though, I've always had a lot of time for psychoanalysis (I started reading D&G; for that very reason), but I'm not at all certain that it's either rational or scientific. Bateson says somewhere that Freud is incredibly important, but that he speaks of concepts as if they were rigid and precise when they are in fact wooly, and sooner or later science will take psychoanalysis and firm it up into a truly scientific discipline. I'm not sure that the latter will ever happen, but the former is doubly true for Lacan. Bloot: "the major advocates of CR [Cold Rationalism] – Ray, Nina, Alberto, myself" Presumably you checked with those concerned that they are happy to be so enlisted as advocates of your position, Mark ...? mark k-p: Cold Rationalism is not 'my' position. It doesn't belong to anyone. We're not persons (you aren't either natch), and we certainly don't care about bourgeois politesse. But the other three are more responsible for channeling CR than I have been. Whether they would 'agree' with everything in this post, that's another matter. Again, though, it is not a question of quibbling between persons. Disagreements are a sign of potential inconsistency and are to be sorted out at the level of reason, not at the level of personological dispute. That is what CR is about. John, Think the relationship of Lacan to Spinoza is more ambiguous than that one quote suggests... and 'Kant avec Sade' is saying that Sade is a Kantian... it is the ultimate act 501

of Lacanian anti-transgressivism: the libertine is actually the deontologist. It is the superego that demands that we 'enjoy ourselves.' As you know, the theory of sacrifice and the accursed share ultimately originate with Mauss (a rationalist who abhorred the irrationalist direction the College went in). As for psychoanalysis and rationalism ---- Psychoanalysis often botched it, but the basic project is Spinozist rationalist --- about uncovering the causes of our actions --- and as everyone knows, Jung is not a psychoanalyst but a proto New Age mystic. His theories are anti-pyschoanalytic. johneffay: Yeah, the relationship with Spinoza is more complex. I just threw that in in passing. I won't mention the relationship with Hegel ;) The theory of sacrifice is present in Mauss, the concept of the accursed share is not; at least not in the way that Bataille and Lacan utilize it. and as everyone knows, Jung is not a psychoanalyst but a proto New Age mystic. His theories are anti-pyschoanalytic Have you read much Jung, or are you just going on what 'everyone know'? The reason I ask is that if you actually read what Jung writes on the collective unconscious, you'll find that he rigorously ties it to the physical structure of the brain which anthropomorphizes reality; critiques Freud for basically molar overcoding and deriving everything from case histories of neurosis; and Kant for universalizing from his own experience. In contradistinction, Jung claims to empirically derive the archetypes from extended research across a range of disciplines. Whether he achieves this is debatable but anti-psychoanalytic? I don't think so. henrymiller: i would also query (again, and this time a response would be appreciated) m k-p's knowledge of psychoanalysis. he can hardly be unaware that 'Lacan saw himself as an assiduous reader of Freud, no more, no less; and I don't see a problem with that description of his project' is a very unusual statement on many levels: it's a bit like saying althusser was 'clarifying' marx, and similarly loaded with prejudice. no doubt melanie klein et al were 'trolling' though. mark k-p: he can hardly be unaware that 'Lacan saw himself as an assiduous reader of Freud, no more, no less; and I don't see a problem with that description of his project' is a very unusual statement on many levels: 502

I agree that the big Other wouldn't agree -- but then he wouldn't, would he? You can only expect a response if you make a point. Simply being a mouthpiece for the big Other ('some people might disagree with this')or gnomic journalese put downs ('semantics for undergrads') does not constitute an argument. If you have a substantive point, i.e. an ARGUMENT with REASONS please present it. henrymiller: My substantive point was quite clear: Lacan was not an 'assiduous reader of Freud, no more, no less'. Was this a Big Other speaking? Well, as everyone knows, just as Jung is not a psychoanalyst, that is possibly true. Bloot: Mark -- to answer you in the same kind of dogmatic (“It is so!”) bullet-point style (not my preferred mode of discourse, I must say, but I’m in any case too busy to get into anything more involved just now): “We're not persons (you aren't either natch), and we certainly don't care about bourgeois politesse.” I *am* a person, as is Ray, Alberto and Nina (though, admittedly, I can already hear Ray rejoining “*I’m* fucking well not!”) -- you too (natch). I’ve always found each of them extremely courteous and polite, which suggests to me that they do value what you deride as merely ‘bourgeois’ mores. In fact, they are all *such* decent and polite folk that I very much doubt that they would object even if they secretly DID feel a little uncomfortable with being enlisted as proponents of something called Cold Rationalism as you present it. “But the other three are more responsible for channeling CR than I have been.” So, although CR is not a position which *belongs* to anyone, some people (people, who, allegedly, do not even exist) are more *responsible* for it than others? Can anything other than a PERSON be *responsible* for an intellectual position or discourse? “Whether they would 'agree' with everything in this post, that's another matter. Again, though, it is not a question of quibbling between persons. Disagreements are a sign of potential inconsistency and are to be sorted out at the level of reason, not at the level of personological dispute. 503

“That is what CR is about.” Could you please explain how you propose to disentangle this (so far extremely nebulous) notion of “the level of reason” from all references to the persons who propound the propositions out of which it is (presumably) constituted? Now, before you rush to accusing me of being a “monkey” (whether of the humanist, psychologicist [sic.] or subjectivist varieties) consider the following question: Is it really possible to retain the notion of the “consistency” of a rational position or discourse while dispensing with the entire language of commitments, entitlements, endorsements (and *responsibility* for those commitments, which you yourself have already had recourse to in your brief response above)? How do inconsistencies get “sorted out at the level of reason” except in terms of dialogue between rational subjects (persons) who who in the very act of forming propositions undertake rational commitments for which they are *responsible* in the sense of being under a certain socially instituted normative obligation to justify their entitlement to them? In this sense, a ‘person’ is nothing other than a rational animal (where being ‘rational’ essentially involves being subject to the force of the better reason) and a locus of responsible action. In fact, simply by participating in this dialogue you are constituting yourself as such a locus of responsibility (person) by offering arguments for which you are responsible in the above sense of being obliged to provide reasons for your entitlement to them (i.e. in terms of their inferential implications with your other commitments). Surely one who keeps insisting that people who are unprepared to provide ARGUMENTS and REASONS (see response to henrymiller above) for what they say are unworthy of his time is not now going to deny such things? There's a really a great deal more I could say, and I can already anticipate some of your responses, but really, life is short ... So, as if to prove that he's NOT a person as above defined (locus of *response*-ible action), Mark simply disavows the putative obligation to *respond* ... Well, fair enough I suppose, since I had admittedly not bothered reading your lengthy presentation above (I can only stomach dogmatic tirades in very small doses), but rather just skimmed through it and seized upon an entirely incidental comment that caught my eye ... Anyway, I spent a few minutes reading it just now (I'm waiting for the shower to become vacant) and picked out the following passage for brief comment (the other 504

issues you raise are far too difficult and involved for me to get into them here, though I also have enormous misgivings about your views on those too): "Romanticism is a kind of secular resistance to the radical implications of this Cartesian-Spinozist mechanism, the return of Jahweh in the form of the ‘inner self’. What is important, Romantics convince themselves, is what we feel (with feeling explicitly opposed to thought and action). The true reality of ourselves lies ‘inside’, in the interior, the phenomenological. Somehow, this alleged interior is to be thought of as absolutely independent of its material substrate. Feelings and consciousness aren’t epiphenomenal side-effects of socio-neurochemical interactions, they are irreducible traces of some ‘deep’ and ‘eternal’ human soul. This faith is alive today in what passes for Philosophy in university depts in the deeply anti-rational ‘qualia cult’ that deifies human consciousness as some ineffable mystery which, it is said, neurology will never be able to explain. This is mysticism, not philosophy." I honestly feel that you must be completely out of touch with the goings on of academic philosophy, Mark. 'And so much the better for it!' you will doubtless rejoin. But it seems to me that you're really not getting the kind of 'critical feedback' that you would need to really establish your position(s) on solid critical grounds in these weblog dungeons with their myriad assorted 'trolls' and cretins and ego-maniacs. I suggest that if what you really want is well-informed and rigorously argued responses (and it's obvious that you're frustrated that you don't get it *here*), you're simply hanging out in the wrong dens ... Now, trust me, I'm NOT defending the present state of academic philosophy in general (far from it), but really, your characterization of it above as thronging with 'qualia-cult' neo-Romanticists who believe in some utterly mysterious eternal soul which the sciences will in principle never be able to explain is utterly misguided. In fact, of the very tiny number of those who DO obsess about so-called 'qualia' (e.g. Thomas Nagel), if you actually *read* them (you won't, I know) you'll find that their position at least has the virtue of being well argued (though, obviously, there are of course always at least equally good counter-arguments) and rarely resort to mere polemical ranting replete with gradiose pronouncements supported by nothing other than fiery rhetoric -- unlike, I'm afraid to say, everything I've so far read by yourself. It's simply not good enough, for example, given the immense literature which has emerged on this issue (much of it in the last 10-20 years) to simply declare by fiat that what is called 'consciousness' (I don't care for the word myself) is an epiphenomenal side-effect of socio-neurochemical interactions and that anyone who remotely 505

disagrees, on whatever grounds, MUST BE motivated by some kind of cryptoreligious belief in an extra-natural eternal soul and should therefore be discredited in principle. This kind of 'argument' (obviously, it isn't one -- it's just an unsupported claim offering itself as an irrecusable, scientifically established truth [pro-science rhetoric is precisely *rhetorical*, not *scientific*] and backed up by insults, as is virtually everything you write) should really be unworthy of first-year undergraduates (ergo should be utterly unworthy of someone as clearly erudite as yourself). Honestly -- I'm not just having a go -- go back through your recent posts (I've not seen earlier ones, but would be surprised if they're any different) with your examiner's hat on, as it were, and ask yourself whether your assertions are backed up by proper evidence and rigorous argumentation (conclusions following validly from premises) - which you claim to prize very highly -- or whether they do not rather resemble the ravings of the political manifesto, recognizing no other authority than sheer bloodyminded advocacy and aesthetic preference. (And, by the way, at least on the evidence of what is so far available in English, it seems to me that Badiou's exaltations of mathematics 'in the Grand Style' are also motivated by little other than politicoaesthetic preferences -- mathematics, he says essentially, provides him with a suit of armour which will make him look hard when doing battle with the soft-ass contemporary Romanticists with their religiously-inflected pathos of 'finitude'; similarly, his advocacy of 'Platonism' seems like little more than one more rhetorical / polemical strategy, providing as it does the ideal dialectical foil for doing combat with the rabid neo-Nietzschean anti-Platonism of the post-war Parisian scene.) Anyway, shower's free now ... gotta run ... Ciao. Posh Spice: I suspect that when his mates, the other 'major advocates of cold reason' (read: tolerant recipients of eager-canine intellectual frottage) tire of the sketchy caricatures and drop him like a stone, cartoon-badiou will fade away (and after all badiou is bad enough, but badiou without the sophistication is worse) to be replaced by something else equally halfbaked, propounded with equal vehemence. Meanwhile, even accepting the viability and superior philosophical pedigree of subor im-personal explanations of human behaviour (which haven't been thought through or argued for with any degree of clarity), the sheer galumphing silliness of Mark's posturing warrants his being treated as a person/agent/monkey/male-egoconstruct and mercilessly lampooned as such: it's quite patently the right tool for the job (just as it was in sphaleotas vs land where I believe Mark spoke in defence of satire). 506

As Troll has already pointed out, the major inconsistency here is the use of the claim to have transcended personhood ('vive the depersonalized!') as a tool for bullying, powermongering and evasion tactics. But of course, exactly as in sphaleotas vs land, the use of an elementary bit of spoofing to expose this dissimulation is decried as the crime of the century and an occasion for epuration sauvage! As it goes I'd say it's evident to any reader that the becoming-invisible anon.troll is more tactically sophisticated: the trouble it's caused is thanks in large part to the overstretch of Mark's ambition over his capability to cover the ground (as in all guerilla campaigns) and the deadweight of his overcompensating character-armour. All the talk of trolls re-oedipalising the heroically-destratifying cold-rationalist is just another way to amass paranoiac tautological 'proof' of the global conspiracy against His Rightness, and at the same time delete all criticism. Troll/Bloot/Undiluted/Axiomatik et al.: Thanks for that Posh Spice -undoubtedly the most intelligent, acute and insightful commentary upon this whole so-called 'troll incident' since it began. Obviously, as you so well put it, Mark's attempt to try and turn what was essentially just a hurriedly composed piss-take of someone with a horribly overinflated sense of his own importance and of the invincibility of his own intellectual stance into an issue about wicked 'trolls' who are resentfully hellbent on 're-oedipalising' everything and thus thwarting the Hyperstitional revolution (about which I knew precisely *nada* when I wrote the spoof comment) simply served to further fuel his paranoid delusions and was used as yet another tactic for bullying and evading criticism. Really, a quite brilliant set of observations there Posh (I'm sure Becks would be proud) -- observations which I'm quite happy to let stand as the last word on this (for me at least) as I finally slip out the back door and scarper. Posh Spice: No thanks necessary. Hmm, I wonder whether we know each other Here's to the authority-disruptive force of anonymity as against the repressed personalism of the assumed mantle of 'neutrality' and 'rationality'. As a testament to this, the bloot-complex is a more intriguing and confounding character than the schlocky, lifeless occult confections usually found in this neck of the woods ( I'm sure the hits to this page would tell the same story) - and is obviously a intolerable nexus of multiplicitous irresolution for Mark since manservant sphaleotas has been charged with tracking down the culprit and *naming* him or her.) 507

The truth is, far from being a 'personalist' (or indeed 'peronalist') sideshow to the real (man's) work of 'destroying the human operating system', systematically obstructing intellectual-extremist mastery, cult-fabrication and claims of excarnation is the very heart of the matter. This obstruction may well bring certain people down from their theoretical high, which obviously will make them grumpy and cause them to protest, but since it is those very same people who are arguing vehemently *against* intoxication, the 'logic of supplementarity' that undermines this protest - (undermines, in the terms of the most sophisticated post-humanist advocate of the very enlightenment tradition of argumentation that is being espoused, who whilst arguing passionately and against all 'common sense' and academic propriety for the independent non-organic life of writing systems, as a necessary correlate also *repudiated* the all-too-human dream that biography and personality could be escaped 'in one leap') - the logic of this undermining, ought to be quite 'clear and distinct' to all. Now I know that oprah-style confessions have played an important part in the history of the 'cold rationalist' programme, but it seems that only when they contribute to the shoring-up of an intellectual (or, let's be honest, religious) position are 'personalist' episodes tolerated. Otherwise they are subject to a deletion that, unfortunately will never be complete, and - let's hope - will not go unremarked so long as the gadflies and trolls refuse this 'cold' intoxication. Hypocrisy Detector: Posh Spice is dead right, too, about Mark's hypocrisy: when Nick asked Mark not to encourage Sphaleotas' satire of him, Mark simply brushed it off with the following comment: "Nick, I'd prefer to be positive about this and think that it raises interesting questions about the acceptable limits of satire, appropriation, names, personae, pseudonyms, (cf Linda Trent on pseudononymous abominations). Surely the bizarre context of the Sphaleotas site makes it unlikely that anyone would think that the piece was the work of the 'real' Nick Land." Funny that he wasn't prepared to be so tolerant and 'positive' this time around, eh? Presumably, then, Mark's own answer to his "interesting questions about the acceptable limits of satire, appropriation, names, personae, pseudonyms ..." is, in a nutshell: look, it's acceptable and interesting JUST SO LONG AS IT NEVER 508

HAPPENS TO ME! (qualified by hopelessly [and performatively] self-contradictory assertions about how, in any case, *his* name doesn't really designate 'him', because *he* is not a 'person' blah blah ...) Bloot-HypocrisyDetector-Adam55 et al.: Posh -- again, a fantastically acute post, right to the heart of the matter. I believe I only know one 'person' who is *that* acute, and yes, I definitely think we do know each other -- even rather well (check my email for a clue -- if you don't get it, we probably don't). If it is who I think it is -- sssshhhhhh, you haven't seen me, alright? ;-) Posh Spice: sssshhhhhh, you haven't seen me, alright? It doesn't matter, since we're not 'persons' anyway, LOL real (anonymous, naturally!) email address is hypocrisypatroll@yahoo.co.uk. Let's form a kollektive ;) Bloot: Alright, re-reading your posts, I think you're probably *not* who I thought you were -- especially given the allusions to Derrida (who is not especially well-liked by the person I'd originally thought of) -- though I certainly agree with your suggestions that Derrida is far and away more sophisticated that those (e.g. Mark) who, like the buffoon of Zarathustra's Prologue, think that it is possible to overcome man 'in a single leap'. Anyway, now I'm thinking you're someone else (lol), but really, I'm perfectly comfortable with anonymity and am not going to start getting paranoid about it. Cheers. Posh Spice: My name is legion ;) Incidentally (and although I am no particular fan) Derrida seems to have pinned down the geopolitical import of hyperstition in 1984 ("No Apocalypse, Not Now") pointing up a helpful distinction in a later interview: "That’s why I’m very interested in rhetoric but very suspicious of rhetoricism." That is to say, he attempts to address occult material 'logics' (or unlogics if you must) without abandoning (or thinking it necessary or even possible to abandon) the enlightenment ideals of rational argument. Preferable, one might say, to flip-flopping between an all-is-hyperstition neomystical idealism and a hardman rhetoric of purified rationalism - which would be a rather 509

comical illustration of the reversible trapdoor-logic of metaphysical mastery rather than a serious challenge to it. Catherine: "if you actually read what Jung writes on the collective unconscious, you'll find that he rigorously ties it to the physical structure of the brain which anthropomorphizes reality" Rigour? There's rigour in Jung? terry: well done lads, excellent work. I think we might see another resignation quite soon undercurrent: Isn't all psychoanalytically-descended discourse about a rigorous description of unreason, which can sometimes dovetail into a unrigorous description of reason (we must brave the defiles of the signifier, etc.)? His introduction to the I Ching is good, anyway;) No more comment purge! Reza Negarestani (December 14, 2004) Sorry, but I couldn’t help to digest this. Please, stop purging comments. Hyperstition obviously is not a place for trollism but accusing people of being or behaving like a Troll and deleting their comments is not something that Hyperstition welcomes. So to the hyperstition crew (including myself), please stop purging comments, this is a friendly request. I know some people use purging politics on their blogs but here is a free place (ok, free in its most pitiful liberalistic sense) and we are hyperstition puppets. Also, to some of the hyperstition readers: please don't turn your disagreements into 'ego-flaring' (borrowed from Nick) insults. Comments: No more comment purge! mark k-p: Surely what you are saying is inconsistent? You demand that I purge k-punk of what you regard as undesirables, but think that hyperstition should be a free for all in which blatant trolling is to be welcomed? You 510

say that what I still maintain is harmless satire on Michael's site is unacceptable? It's all about context; no-one with a brain could have mistaken Michael's attribution for anything authentic, whereas self-evidently Adam's trolling had very intelligent ppl (you and Nick fooled). It's all about context. We've had this argument before. I absolutely refuse to accept liberal arguments. This is not a democratic forum. If ppl want to mouth off, be dispruptive and oedipal, there are plenty of places to do that, including, sadly, Dissensus. I will retain the right to purge trolls. There is no possible argument for their inclusion here. They are blocking hypersition-production, if only by diverting energy into a discussion like this. That is what they want, insofar as these wretched oedipal crumbling white males want anything besides destruction and self-destruction. Gadfly (néTroll): "You say that what I still maintain is harmless satire on Michael's site is unacceptable? It's all about context; no-one with a brain could have mistaken Michael's attribution for anything authentic, whereas self-evidently Adam's trolling had very intelligent ppl (you and Nick fooled). It's all about context." Mark, I think you'd do well to consider what one of your fellow 'Cold Rationalists' (viz. Ray Brassier) has to say about this idea that it is 'context' which serves as the ultimate arbiter of responsible and irresponsible, acceptable and unacceptable form of discourse and the guarantor of 'proper interpretation' over on the Whore Cull Site (scroll down on 'Who are the Whores' for Ray's70 typically incisive and brilliant contribution to the discussion there): 70 Here is Ray Brassier’s respond on the question of whether to change the name of the Whore Cull site after some push back. The site no longer exists so I am including Brassier’s entire response. http://www.cinestatic.com/whorecull/about.asp Ray: The Willesden Herald's point is perfectly legitimate, albeit naive. I vote we change the name -not because it's indefensible (see below); nor with the sheepish demeanour of chastened adolescent miscreants, but simply because the one and only proper defense of the moniker, which involves demolishing the concept of responsibility, seems increasingly inappropriate given the very responsible political sensibilities that inform the journal. 511

I'm afraid this issue has nothing to do with metaphorical versus literal uses of language ("we mean it metaphorically, not literally"), and everything to do with the notion of "intent". The "we mean it metaphorically" defense won't work. The McGroot Sutcliffe piece is quite transparently condoning the murder of women and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. The "whore/capitalism" trope may be metaphorical; the incitement to murder most definitely is not. Murder is never a metaphor. In fact, in McGroot's eyes, the identification of the female body with the body of Capital provides the literal warrant for killing women. Presumably then, the piece is tolerated as an unpleasant exercise in perverse self-indulgence on the assumption that the author and whatever potential readers may get a guilty thrill from the piece remain far too cowardly to act out. But surely that assumption is only slightly less irresponsible than the irresponsible fantasies it finds so reprehensible? Given the seriousness of the stakes and the obvious sincerity of people's moral qualms about violence against women, can they really afford to assume the author and readers of the piece will always be harmless fantasists? For if you suspect someone harbours potentially murderous impulses, then surely it's your responsibility to report them to the police forthwith? Similarly, why would you ever publish something if you genuinely believed it could be taken as a potential incitement to murder? Everything seems to hinge around this concept of "intent" and the unstated assumption underlying this debate about the name of the zine: "meaning=intent". The idea seems to be that the horizon of legitimate intepretation for an author's meaning is the intent or set of intentions the reader can plausibly "read back" into the text. In this regard, it's important to bear in mind that even if McGroot is interpreted as dubiously "funny" or "amusing", this in no way mitigates the fact that he's basically endorsing murder. Ian Brady was a "funny" guy: he taped little Lesley Downey's screams over a Goon show recording, deliberately engineering the shocking transition from documentary horror to light entertainment. Humour won't get us off the hook. So long as a journal called "Whore Cull" can be seen as endorsing material which can be interpreted as condoning the murder of women, then it's not just the title that's a problem, it's the kind of material we're willing to publish. So maybe we need to look a little more closely at this notion that "meaning =intent". Even cursory reflection reveals deepseated problems with it. Does the bookshop "Murder Inc" condone the legalized syndication of murder? Why not? And if not, why does "Whore Cull" condone the murder of women? It seems as though, in the former case, the shared sociocultural context makes interpretation straightforward: it's just a shop that specializes in crime fiction...But we can easily imagine a "naive" observer unfamiliar with the complicated sociocultural context that is supposed to ensure proper interpretation not only being outraged at this offensive moniker but also at the very idea that murder could be turned into entertainment: what about the families of murder victims...? Interesting to note that the popular context for appropriate interpretation that deems "Murder Inc" inoffensive is the sole guarantor for judging the moniker "Whore Cull" offensive. The point is not that "Whore Cull" is inoffensive - it quite clearly is offensive to some people. But what is that "offensiveness" really worth? 512

Why should we lend it any weight whatsoever? Surely the point is to destroy the context that encourages people to adopt an interpretation of words that makes it OK to be entertained by murder in one instance, because it's "clearly" not being condoned, but to adopt a quite different strategy in another instance, where it's not OK because it seems as if words can be interpreted -albeit "not clearly"- as condoning murder. Since it's the same context that renders intent supposedly transparent and acceptable in one instance, while rendering it opaque and therefore unacceptable in another, the point is not to engage in desperate disavowals or try to render intent transparent and acceptable, but to destroy context altogether. The only thing that guarantees the "proper" interpretation of intent is context and context is not only arbitrary but precisely the thing that can and should be called into question. Moreover, since the only guarantor for the notion of "responsibility", apart from religious faith, is investment in a shared sociocultural context, which is precisely what needs to be undermined, the concept of "responsibility" goes out the window along with the authority of context, accompanied by "duties", "obligations", "legitimation", "communicational consensus" and all such moral notions. Responsibility is an intolerable contraint. If you want to allow considerations of potential offensiveness to be the ultimate arbitrers for the contours of discursive possibility, that's fine, but remember it cuts both ways: there will always be someone who finds what you believe to be just disgustingly offensive. Consider how easily anyone defending the justice of the Palestinian cause can be pressured into having to deny that they're apologists for indiscriminate murder. The argument from offensiveness proves nothing: I wager Derek and Clive sketches about cancer are not remotely amusing to people who have lost loved ones to cancer...Similarly, Ballard's "Crash" is probably repellent to someone who's lost a loved one in a car accident. But so what? Cancer is horrible ergo Derek and Clive aren't funny? Car crashes are horrible ergo "Crash" is disgusting? I don't think so. Subversion is irresponsible. Irresponsibility begins with the abandonment of the context that ensures the "proper" interpretation. And where proper interpretation is no longer guaranteed, purity of intent is compromised. The author's intent may not only be dishonourable, but malicious: he may be guilty of "bad" thoughts. Subversion quickly becomes criminal. Those who really believe in the irrecusability of responsibility have to ask themselves whether a crime commited in word is just as bad as a crime commited in deed. And they're perfectly entitled to believe it is - so long as they bear in mind that their own commitment to "responsibility" obliges them to act on that belief and to respond to "thought crimes" just as they would respond to "real crimes": by calling the police. It's a package deal: with responsibility comes duty, with duty comes respect for law, and with respect for law comes reverence for authority. Alternately, those who don't have the stomach for all that responsibility entails should drop the moralizing cant. 513

Gadfly/Adam/Troll/Bloot/Axiomatik et al.: "Surely what you are saying is inconsistent?" That's right Mark -- you're getting it now: Reza is under a certain rational obligation to be consistent. Why? Beacause he is a PERSON, like you, and person's are just such loci of responsibility. The question is, in denying the existence of persons as mere "monkey suiperstition" are YOU being consistent? Reza Negarestani: Mark, Yes, obviously this is not a free place, you have only the right to purge the comments under your own posts; by the way, no ip banning since people who may look as Troll to you may wish to participate in discussion with other contributors. You are not the boss here, Mark, no one is the boss here. If you want to satisfy your thirst for directorship, you'd better return to your ‘Kollective’ k-punk. TO HYPERSTITION READERS: Anyone who has got his/her ip banned, please email me, so i can remove it from the black list of spammers. (negarestani AT cold-me DOT net) mark k-p: You're not the boss here either, Reza; so please no more equivocation of your own liberal political stance with 'hyperstition'. I have only deleted comments from my own posts of course. If others want to waste time allowing trolls to 'participate', go ahead. And it was YOU who wanted me to police k-punk so, when it was your perceived enemies who were to be extirpated, so, please, a measure of machinic consistency. (The last thing we expect from persons is consistency of course). Nick Land: Coming to the reluctant conclusion there just is no simple (perhaps even 'consistent') answer to the troll problem. Whore Cull is not irresponsible: it is earnest, eclectic, witty, empassioned, iconoclastic, acerbic, and quite frequently very funny. But none of these qualities, admirable though they undoubtedly are, justify the continuing use of a moniker which is so at odds with the actual character of the mag, it can't possibly be worth the misunderstandings it has and will quite probably continue to invite. 514

What happened to the Chomsky blog was quite informative in this respect. While loathing pretty much everything Chomsky stands for, even I was quite horrified by the vandalistic explosion that erupted in his comments sections, with spamming, long chunks from porn sites, whatever, he had to shut it down. Point being, 'liberal' attitudes become unsustainable under a certain level of aggravation - the enemy will just destroy you and rape your dog. How bad is too bad when it comes to trollish personalism, smug ignorance and irrelevance? -- No formula available for that. Maybe we could all chill a little ;) (Know i've been among the worst offenders in this respect, but getting us annoyed really is a clear troll triumph, of a kind i don't their much vaunted 'tactical genius' merits) Reza Negarestani: Nick, i agree but: "If you present yourselves to others as a gift, then that is dangerous. The power that this gives people over the individual corrupts them" (a quote from an anonymous source) this ‘comment purge’ politics, at this time, does nothing but increasing paranoia. So i'm against this comment purge as a tool against everyone who shows his/her disagreement. i have never asked Mark to purge anything at k-punk, i just protested against their Anti-Trigg mafia movement. Bullying people is not something that i can tolerate; you know that i have sacrificed many things here just for this cause. but again, agree with you that maybe i should calm down, but this doesn't mean that Mark can expand his dictatorship beyond his own posts and comment boxes. Anyway, thanks again. Dovregubben: I too am tired of the dictatorship of the Anti-Trolletariat. PS: And troll posts/debates. PSS: Please, don't ban me. PSSS: Back to Lovecraft. Reza Negarestani: I too am tired of the dictatorship of the Anti-Trolletariat. PS: And troll posts/debates. 515

yes, me too. After all, the contribution from readers is the main reason that hyperstition can breathe. PSSS: Back to Lovecraft. i crave for this one. undercurrent: A few thoughts on the Caricature of Pure Reason... Who's the troll? The 'trolls' here and elsewhere have been directly produced as 'hyperstitional entities' by K-punk's recent bad attitude and inability to answer any question except by means of imperious statements about 'his' own 'impersonality'. I'm sure most of them aren't the total enemies they seem to be, the polarity is an inevitable outcome of factors which I am afraid do relate to a 'person' and his lack of self(yes self)-awareness. Moreover 'we are people' or 'we are not people' are both ridiculous positions: everything interesting comes from the fact that 'we' both are *and* are not stratic beings. But if you act like a stupid self then that's what you'll be treated as. KP must by now realise that he's fallen into simliar cold-robotic mechanismo-traps as others before him , and that the 'ad hominem' criticisms made of him are identical to those he's (rightly) made about others in the past (basically, the blithe assumption of the position of completely destratified noumenal entity trying nobly to rid the rest of the world of their anthropo-illusions _if only they'd listen to pure reason_). Trying to make critics disappear won't change that uncomfortable fact. Pretending that his position has been produced by nothing but reason won't make it so. And you can't make self disappear by screaming paranoid mantras of persecution and depersonalization all over town. But also, I don't understand the need of other members of HS to protest so heatedly (particularly nick's weird - if lately characteristic - transmutation into a 14yr old american schoolgirl: "get a life asswipe" LOL!) - if someone uses up 20 lines in a comments box, so what? It's not as if server disk space is a precious commodity. If things are so fragile that you can't take an anonymous comment without it exploding into a hair-tearing community-destroying tragedy, then I would say that's a problem for the robustness of the hyperstitional fabric. Shut yourselves up into a completely private blog, or stop moaning! This is just what happens when you talk asynchronously in text. The medium is the message, so the medium is also part of the 'agency' producing these problems. 516

And since they are produced by multiple parties, to demonise an anonymous interlocutor can only look like an attempt to cover over the fragility of your own position (furthermore I would have thought such single-person intentional attribution would be anomalous in hyperstitional theory). Perhaps the cold rationalists should practice more coldness in future and just not reply if it's going to be in self-satisfied mocking slogans that will obviously produce nothing but amplified animosity. After all it is they who are taking on the mantle of authority and priesthood, so it's their responsibility to deal with their errant flock in the most 'rational' way, or alternatively just fuck off and be gnostic in their bedroom. But as regards purging, why not take your own medicine : Here more than ever Reza's warning about the dangers of an 'affordance-based openness' is totally germane. And why not treat these events, since they seem to attract such 'social' importance (even dragging me out of lurcurdom), as real hyperstitional issues rather than pranks/distractions (or is something only hyperstitional if you've said so....?) Nick Land: Undercurrent - agree that my splenetic outburst was pointless at best, but think you're underplaying the real issue here (from my PoV) which is personalization. There's huge difference between making a claim of whatever kind about personhood - no problem, whatever it is - and dragging in a whole mass of biographical content which is gross ad hominem vandalism and (speaking for 'myself') hugely destructive in that it delibidinizes the whole space. I simply don't want to participate in a zone full of bitchy personalized bullshit, so in that sense I'd vote for shutting ourselves "up in a completely private blog" if the only alternative was constant snarking. Hopefully that isn't the case. The fact that people seem vastly more interested in personal attacks and their attendant hysteria (mea culpa till the cows come home) than hyperstition is an evident fact, the depressing nature of which is scarcely exorcized by a heroic attempt to find some great significance or tactical genius in insults and provocations shielded by anonymity. If I wanted to wreck someone else's blog I'm sure I'd find it relatively easy, as noted above, I've seen it done, and quite honestly I'd prefer chunks of random cutup porn to tedious person quarrelling. All this said, I don't find your tone here trollish (though mark might quite reasonably disagree). 517

PS. flattered that my irate 'ass-wipe' comment (which i tried to delete immediately afterwards but failed btw) gets me compared to "a 14yr old american schoolgirl" makes me feel i should do it more often ;) Reza Negarestani: Mark, Nick (please read this one) I think the best solution in this condition is resting a bit; both Mark and I need some rest. ... mark, just ignore my warning post / or sudden outburst or whatever and take some rest, please! (and don't take this invitation as a means of repression or anything negative) ... let's rest and return to hyperstition in the next few days with some productive posts. Meanwhile, Nick can take care of things. Nick, Chronologics piece is getting longer than i expected, i guess i should cut it into digestible pieces. BTW, i have discovered a new ABJAD in the national library (known as ABJAD-e Saghier: minor or incomplete ABJAD); i'm working on it. undercurrent: I think the difficulty is that ruling any biographical reference out of court _a priori_ has no particular claim to being a rational or indeed reasonable approach, trying to enforce these rules simply induces a simmering state of animosity ie exacerbates the situation. Obviously I must agree that whilst punch-ups are and always have been crowdpleasers, that doesn't make them particularly productive or desirable. But I do think the troll issue, and the issue of the extent of personal involvement in apparently abstract reasoning is more interesting than it's been given credit for. Mr Bloot had a point- he made it performatively rather than discursively. Some people fell for it, which was in itself interesting. I don't see why this is _necessarily_ irrelevant or 'childish' just because it got on people's nerves. Something happened, there's no point pretending otherwise, even if not everyone wants to discuss the consequences. Sometimes things have to be pushed to the point of polarisation in order to fracture and split in a new way. But granted, the troll-debate is obviously going to get circular if we don't just perform a circuit-break now, and in future that could be done sooner and more calmly. The substantive problem I have with the whole rationalist spiel is that it sounds like little more than a conservative overreaction to the perceived 'liberal' relativism of the crisis of enlightenment reason coming to terms with its own production and limits. As if Nietzsche and everything that follows him could simply be dismissed all at once. 518

It's basically an exalted and disciplinary-minded species of 'common sense' that evades all ambiguity. And IMHO the strained pretence of depersonalization is often a worse source of problems than just communicating without having to police every thought for signs of 'liberal mind-virus'. Nick Land: Reza - Great! Think chopping stuff up definitely to be recommended, blogs seem to work best in bite-size chinks IMHO. As to the new Abjad - think we still have our work cut out getting the topic of gematria/qabbala libidinaize at all - know i've still got lots of q.s for various qabbalistic contributions here but suspect (psychologically) the qabbalistic programmes tends to be rather 'jealous'. Any possibility of getting an intro from you on your new discovery that promotes the relevance of gematria generally (to try and suck some more voices in)? Undercurrent - "ruling any biographical reference out of court a priori has no particular claim to being a rational or indeed reasonable approach" - this may be so, but could I suggest that everyone who shares your opinion on this and acts upon it is actually contributing to turning this into a Cold Rationalism dialectics site? It's of great credit to mark that his intellectual innovations are proving so extraordinarily provocative, but this is a HYPERSTITION BLOG - refuting (pseudo)rationality has exactly no pertinence here. PS. and please don't go Freudian on my 'bite size chinks' Reza Negarestani: PS. and please don't go Freudian on my 'bite size chinks' lol ... why? was it supposed to be taken as something negative? of course not. ;) ABJAD i can't understand why it is incomplete i.e. why it excludes some letters and why it doesn't get its power from general kabbalistic numbers (9 and 10). recently, found a very old family book and rediscovered this system, seems it has been very popular for Summonings, binding spells, and reading Quran. Nick Land: Reza - obviously huge improvement in tone and direction. All we need is a few snarky personal insults and all kinds of folks will get interested ;) 519

PS. maybe we should set up a Hot Rationalism or Cold Irrationalism or Lukewarm Snarking About site just to clear the air? PPS. Tachi had some questions about Hyperstition and the WoT which I left aside for the moment, assuming things would shift into that space quite quickly anyway. Obviously, as Anna noted way back, there's nothing like a religious war to lock hyperstition into current events. Anything connected to reading the Quran plugs all kinds of stuff together right now. Reza Negarestani: Nick, All we need is a few snarky personal insults and all kinds of folks will get interested ;) Doesn’t this fit greatly into a strategy for the more-more infernomatics? ;) Well, have you checked the visitors’ statistics recently? PS. I just started to purge myself ... see how polytically effective a Freudian selfrepression works (see my foaming, seething comment this morning) ... Zoroastrian self-purgation has still a lot to say. PPS. Tachi had some questions about Hyperstition and the WoT which I left aside for the moment, assuming things would shift into that space quite quickly anyway. Obviously, as Anna noted way back, there's nothing like a religious war to lock hyperstition into current events. Anything connected to reading the Quran plugs all kinds of stuff together right now. Yes, get ready for the jihad you infidel ;) ... but seriously, there is no better solution to subvert this bedlam than channeling it into a religious war discussion. Only Col. West and Jay Can Save US! btw, i am looking for Anna ... there is a piece I’m writing on Women in WoT that needs her thoughts. Nick Land: Reza - Forthcoming Col. West piece is based on exactly the dyad you mention - as carriers West/Jay need to rigorously bear the Gog/Magog dichotomy IMHO we should suspend any tendency to patronize them from a position of integral superiority, but rather allow these 'cases' to express their perspectives to their ultimate consequences without inhibition. 'Perspectives' is not meant as a dismissive relativism, but rather as a potentiality to take something to an extreme without the necessity for artificial 'balance' (or 'reasonableness'?). Col. West, I 'know' sees the US war machine as the germinal inheritor of the earth the 'Skynet scenario' - with the US Order of Battle (available at globalsecurity.org) as the compositional description of an incomparable 'Thing' verging on escape from 520

confinement within human/State politics. If he has a problem with the state of contemporary Global Jihad it is disappointment, anxiety that it may not test this entity to the point of radical escape ... 'Freedom' has come to mean something very unfamiliar by this stage ... PS. Guess we've all been doing plenty of purging recently ... PPS. Anna's obviously got a lot on her hands right now, so it might take a little patience viz feedback on women/WoT issue. undercurrent: Cold Rationalism dialectics site ugh, point taken. I think the air has been appropriately cleared now with due credit to (..almost..) all parties. (despite the fact that things seem to be lapsing back into the staple hermetic mythocodes that I find mostly incomprehensible...) this is a HYPERSTITION BLOG - refuting (pseudo)rationality has exactly no pertinence here. yes, see my comments on the other thread... 'bite size chinks' I hear that this sort of thing can get you chucked out of the PRC! Reza Negarestani: Absolutely agreed that they should be traced to their omega-zone of insurgency. Jay (Whore, Witch, Hag, the Un-manned), on the contrary, believes that Global Jihad or more precisely pax islamica is too pestilentially creative to be screened or concluded, its ferocious line of flight is so twisted to be traced by the technocapitalistic tendrils which can be stimulated usually after and during the meltdown, ‘the post-911 Thing’ (and according to the Tellurian pattern of affordance towards the outside), its line of flight is entirely un-manned while it strategically chooses Man (or men?) as its hosts. She believes that the Delta Force’s redemptive answer to its global failures (‘it didn’t work out’) has been channeled to the Col. West’s PoV on ‘Pack Islamica’ and has been rooted as some kind of deterrent module in radically grasping the Cosmodrome. “It doesn’t work out because it is not supposed to work for you, it works for the Zcrowd, its ‘un-manned journey’ artificializes the illusion of disfunctionality, failure, 521

disappointment or lack of radicalness for man. It is the point.” (Jay, The Codex of Yatu) I’m sure of something: we should reinvent the fury of the Gog-Magog through these two pest-positive carriers. Don’t you think so? PS. Guess we've all been doing plenty of purging recently ... more more self-purgation; Zoroastrian polytics: "it is not enough yet." Nick Land: Reza - "I’m sure of something: we should reinvent the fury of the GogMagog through these two pest-positive carriers. Don’t you think so?" Absolutely. 522

Problems And Mysteries mark k-p (December 16, 2004) Highly stimulating paper presented by John Collins tonight at Roehampton University. John was reformulating a distinction made by Chomsky between problems - which are, at least in principle, amenable to human solution - and mysteries, which are of their very nature insoluble, at least insofar as humans are concerned. As John conceded in the discussion afterwards, the problem-mystery distinction had very definite echoes of Kant's division between the phenomenal and the noumenal, and the empirical and the transcendental. Problems are always contingent and empirical. It just so happens that we have not yet solved them, but that is an empirical question (it might, for instance, be because we don't have the right equipment or the right concepts yet) not a transcendental one. Exactly those allegedly 'insoluble' enigmas inevitably cited by devotees of Qualia Qult in the audience as the very quintessence of the mysterious - consciousness! love! - are of course nothing of the sort. Needless to say, as trivial technical matters, both consciousness and love have already been solved philosophically - if I smash your brain, you won't have any consciousness; if I take you into a lab and stimulate your neurons in a particular area, you will feel overwhelming lurv. (cf Burroughs, The Ticket That Exploded for the grim details of how sexual love was cooked up in a neuroporno lab by the Nova Criminals). All we're waiting for is a neuroscience sufficiently fine-tuned to provide the details. On the other hand, there are what I will hesitatingly call meta-mysteries, or conundra the very existence of which we cannot conceive. To speak like Donald Rumsfeld, these are things we don't know we don't know about. Or rather: things we not only do not but cannot know we don't know about. These meta-mysteries would be noumenal in the Kantian sense, but they aren't mysteries by dint of the very fact that we cannot formulate them. (This suggests that, while mysteries are noumenal, not all of the noumenal is a mystery). The issue seems to be formulation. A rat cannot formulate its mysteries, and so properly speaking, does not have mysteries at all. (The aspect of its world it samples 523

but does not conceptually process would presumably be a kind of background fuzz of the inexplicable-unthought.) So while John said that we cannot know in advance what would constitute a mystery - because a genuine mystery must be insoluble in an absolute sense and the issue of what the limits of human cognition are is an open empirical question at the moment - good candiates would be Godel's theorem and Cantorian continuum. There is something structural about the insolubility of these conundra. One of the counter-arguments against the distinction between problems and mysteries is that human beings are special. There is, it is held, something about human beings - capacity for language, or mathematics - that means that no problem is in principle resistant to our attempts to solve it. But the mathematical examples of potential mysteries suggest that our capacity to think mathematically - or rather to run mathematical programmes - is precisely a mystery-generating faculty. This raises the possibility that, if there is anything special about us, it is our very capacity to see ourselves and our cognition as abject local contingencies. It is this ability to use reason to probe its own limits that allows us to unplug ourselves from carnocentric animal narcissism. The paper raised all sorts of fascinating transcendental materialist questions that can be posed in both a PKD-cyberpunk and a Lovecraftian-Horror register. On the PKDcyberpunk level I was put in mind especially of Dick's speculative fictions about humans who have their intelligence artificially augmented. At what point does an empirical adjustment produce a transcendental shift? But I was most often reminded of Lovecraft, whose stories relentlessly expose both the arbitrary origins of human cognition and its pitiful limitations. The entities looming at the threshold of sense in Lovecraft's cosmos are transcendentally, not merely empirically, alien. In other words, it is not a question of different body shapes or an extraterrestrial origin, but of a constitution wholly alien to Human OS's space, time and causality. To face these Outsiders is to be confronted with the radical arbitariness of the universe. Houllbecq: 'The universe is merely a chance arrangement of elementary particles. A transitory image in the midst of chaos. Which will end with the inevitable: The human race will disappear. Other races will appear, and disappear in turn. The heavens are cold and empty, traversed by the faint light of half-dead stars. Which, also, will disappear. Everything disappears. And human actions are just as random and 524

senseless as the movements of elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, fine sentiments? Pure “victorian fictions”. ... Lovecraft is well aware of the depressing nature of these conclusions. As he wrote in 1918, “all rationalism tends to minimize the value and importance of life, and to diminish the total quantity of human happiness. In some cases the truth could cause suicide, or at least precipitate a near-suicidal depression.” ... Of course, life has no meaning. But neither does death. And this is one of the things that chills the blood when one discovers Lovecraft’s universe. The death of his heroes has no meaning. It brings no relief. It doesn’t bring the story to a conclusion, not at all. Implacably, HPL destroys his characters without suggesting more than the dismemberment of a puppet. Indifferent to their wretched comings and goings, the cosmic fear continues to grow. It expands and articulates itself. The Great Cthulhu arises from his slumber. What is the Great Cthulhu? An arrangement of electrons, like ourselves. The terror of Lovecraft is rigorously materialist. But it is strongly possible, from the free play of cosmic forces, that the Great Cthulhu has at his disposal a force and a power of action considerably superior to ours. Which is not, a priori, anything especially reassuring. In all his voyages in the strange worlds of the unknown, Lovecraft never brings back any good news. Maybe, he confirms to us, there is something hidden, which can sometimes be perceived, behind the veil of reality. But in truth, it is something vile. It is certainly possible that beyond the limited purview of our perceptions, other entities exist. Other creatures, other races, other concepts and other intelligences. Amidst these entities must surely be some of far superior intelligence and knowledge. But this isn’t necessarily good news. What would we think if these creatures, so different from ourselves, exhibited in some way a similar moral nature? Nothing permits us to suppose a transgression of the universal laws of egotism and wickedness. It is ridiculous to imagine that these beings would wait for us in some far corner of the cosmos, full of wisdom and benevolence, to guide us toward some sort of mutual harmony. To imagine the way they would treat us if we came into contact with them, we should rather recollect the way in which we ourselves treat “inferior intelligences”, rabbits and frogs. In the best case scenario, they serve as food; sometimes - often – we simply kill them for the pleasure of it. These are, Lovecraft warns us, the true models for our future relations with “alien intelligences”. Maybe certain particularly 525

fine specimens of the human race may have the honour of ending up on the dissecting table; and that’s it. And, once more, none of this has any meaning whatsoever. For humans of the end of the twentieth century, this cosmos devoid of hope is absolutely our world. This abject universe, where fear spreads in concentric circles from the unnameable revelation, this universe where our only imaginable destiny is to be crushed and devoured, we recognize absolutely as our mental universe. And Lovecraft’s success is already just a symptom of those who want to capture this state of mind in quick and precise soundbites,. Today more than ever we can make our own this declaration of principles which opens Arthur Jermyn: “Life is a hideous thing; and from the background behind what we know of it peer demoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.”' Comments: Problems and Mysteries John Collins: Thanks for the very interesting response. Precisely how the problem/mystery distinction maps onto the Kantian distinctions of phenomenal/noumenal or conditioned/conditions is very complex and something to be addressed by continuing research, although I do definitely agree that there is something of substance here. One slight quibble concerns your appeal to Gödel's theorem. In essence, Gödel developed a technique (as it were) by which one could show that any formal system which is capable of representing finite arithmetic will contain a formula P, such that neither P nor -P are provable within the system, and yet, one can show within the meta-theory that P is "true". So, in a sense, there will always be true but unprovable formulae, but this doesn't hold for any particular formula. This result differs from the undecidability of Cantor's continuum hypothesis. Here, one has a particular proposition which is provably undecidable within ZF set theory. It is an interesting question to what extent there are undecidable propositions of finite arithmetic independent of the Gödelian technique. Paris and Harrington have shown that the finite Ramsay Theorem is true but unprovable. This is one case, there may be many more. Thus, Gödel's actual results don't give us definite examples of "mysteries", although they certainly show that the boundary of mathematical space is not flush with the boundary of our formalisms. mark k-p: OK, I knew I shouldn't have meddled with the maths! 526

But can you clarify what you are saying about Gödel in relation to mysteries? What precisely is the relationship between the incompleteness theorem and mysteries? Nick Land: Great to see you here John - hope you'll be around for some Goedel chat when it comes up. Even for now, think you can usefully help to 'disintimidate' it, since even though the incompleteness theorem is quite elaborate, Goedel coding is a major achievement in its own right - in the most powerful tradition of basic arithmetic - and not especially daunting. Know from previous conversations that you take a 'logicist' (rather than arithmeticist) view of this, even defending an extremely ugly alternative to G-coding from some philosophy bod i forget who - but the sheer conceptual elegance of the original code is worthy of immense respect IMHO. mark - note you've disallowed comments entirely on your post above, isn't this maybe a step too far? Know troll-defence policies have become heatedly controversial, but I for one am definitely willing to give pragmatism a good listening and would rather see you ruthlessly eliminating trollism than shutting down discussion altogether especially given that the Nash post opens lots of interesting avenues (he had his own qabbalistic system as you know, highly baroque from a practical PoV - but arithmetically very clean - actually quite close to the Goedel code in its fidelity to Euclid's fundamental theorem of arithmetic). K-Punk = KerPlunk?: nick - seems that mark has finally decided to hermetically seal himself off from all and every possible criticism in order to save himself getting battered any further - bless. Could it be that K-Punk has finally gone KerPlunk? Nick Land: K-Punk = KerPlunk? - But was that the objective? If so it seems sadly uninspired. I'm in no way a Cold Rationalism disciple - and to be honest I'm also radically unclear about its connection to hyperstition - but surely persecutory targetting of mark on a personal level is an entirely contemptible way of expressing ideological disagreement. undercurrent: Yes, since the CR position seems to rest on a repudiation of "Nietzsche-and-his-neoromantic-cronies" fatal mistake in decoupling (i) the basic intuition that sense/value and truth are not necessarily conjoined, from (ii) the "actual 527

scientific truth of nihilism", which mistake leads to a position demonised as 'gliberal' ('all stories about the world are equally valid, they just have different degrees of force'), thus the CR recourse to rational truth-seeking - the interesting question this raises is how can you hope to stitch this back together with hyperstition, which is (potentially) a more sophisticated position than either of these, but closer to Nietzsche's intuition than to CRism? KP=KP, given what you (yes quite rightly) say, I think any further bashing will only damage what validity the 'trolls' position ever had; surely pulverizing an enemy until they emerge as an sympathetic persecuted anti-hero, you emerge as equally 'shrill and harrying', and the whole sorry cycle begins again - cannot be a wise tactic.... K-Punk = KerPlunk?: surely persecutory targetting of mark on a personal level is an entirely contemptible way of expressing ideological disagreement Yes, indeed it would be - that is, *if mark were a PERSON*. Anticipated response: alright, in that case, you really *are* just saying 'come on, admit it, everything is personal, it's all about baboonery and personal feuds ...' etc. Nonsense. Admittedly, it can be fun having the odd poke in order to bring Mark down off his high horse a little, yes. But substantive, reasoned objections have also been forwarded which -- if Mark is to convince anyone that his 'Cold Ratinalist' position is anything more than a lot of huffing and puffing of hot air, at least -demand a considered response. Mark's total refusal to respond to serious criticism in any other way than by either dogmatic reiteration or puerile name-calling inevitably invites the kind of ridicule and ad hominem counter-attacks which -- while they can admittedly from time to time introduce a little levity (often sorely lacking in these discussions) -- we would all ultimately prefer to leave out of serious philosophical discussion. If Mark is intent on closing down all comment boxes, thus giving free, unobstructed reign to his soliloquys, frankly, nobody is going to bother even listening any more (and I, personally, have definitely heard enough already to last me a lifetime). Last point: if Mark is uncomfortable about the kind of attacks launched against him over this past week, perhaps he ought to consider making his points in a less polemically-charged and deliberately *provocative* manner? After-all, if you spend your life running off at the mouth and abusing everyone left, right and centre -- well, fairly obviously, sooner of later someone is going to give you much deserved slap. 528

Anyway, as someone else also said to you in recent days, you obviously have everything already figured out, so, what can anyone else possibly say except -- bon chance! I think any further bashing will only damage what validity the 'trolls' position ever had; surely pulverizing an enemy until they emerge as an sympathetic persecuted anti-hero, you emerge as equally 'shrill and harrying', and the whole sorry cycle begins again - cannot be a wise tactic.... Of course, you're obviously right about this. I suppose I was just frustrated by the total lack of response from Mark and was trying to provoke him out of his hole -- but you're right that these are puerile tactics. Anyway, if I *do* make any further contributions in the future (though it's very unlikely), I promise not to revert to such moronic bullying. Nick Land: K-Punk = KerPlunk? - "you obviously have everything already figured out, so, what can anyone else possibly say except -- bon chance!" - If this 'you' is general it seems a ridiculous accusation. Almost nothing is 'figured out' and it is difficult to see where anything to the contrary has ever been asserted. To reiterate to the point of emetic weariness - only personalistic snark is being threatened with elimination (and even in those cases liberalism looks like winning out predominantly). PS. K-P = KP? - If the 'you' is just mark, could this blog please be spared the fate of becoming a default K-Punk bashing zone. K-Punk = KerPlunk: Yes, sorry -- the 'you' was supposed to refer solely to Mark. Re the 'bashing': I can perfectly well see why it would be both irritating and tiresome, especially on this site, so please accept my sincere apologies. I'll be doing no more kpunk 'bashing', here or elsewhere. Ciao. Nick Land: K-P =KP? - Apologies wholly accepted - why not launch a Cold Rationalism Watch site? Seems from what's been happening here that you'd have an Instapundit-level audience within a year ;) undercurrent: Almost nothing is 'figured out' yes, just to clarify, when I say (on other thread) :It[CR]'s basically an exalted and disciplinary-minded species of 'common sense' that evades all ambiguity. - I don't mean (as it would no doubt be misinterpreted) that I believe in the necessary retention 529

of an area of floaty creative ambiguity, I mean that the CR 'position', if it can be called that, constitutes a horrendous squandering of important and productive problems for the sake of a nice feeling of confident, triumphant vigour. ********** _FIN_ *************** Nick, Reza, if we're allowed to go back to 'first principles' like this, rather than take the piss perenially I'd be interested in a technical thread on numerology/decimal reduction/kabbalistics. I promise not to get angry. Reza Negarestani: Nick, Reza, if we're allowed to go back to 'first principles' like this, rather than take the piss perenially I'd be interested in a technical thread on numerology/decimal reduction/kabbalistics. I promise not to get angry. lol ... just a suggestion: start with some questions and we will post them here for discussion. uncurrent: OK Well my basic question is what the combined mechanism of numerisation/decimal reduction (which I assume is behind the regular X=Y=Z statements made hereabouts) is supposed to offer: given that it consists basically of systematically hacking out and disposing of information, pulping everything into a mush and then doing a sort of reconstituted-potato-snack manouevre. What is being said/produced when you say X = Y = Z ? Obviously I realise that its done in the spirit of Barker's comment that [remembered quote] the key to signals analysis is the vigorous repudiation of all preconceived expectations of meaning and sense. But what is it that distinguishes one such system from another, or is it simply a case of choosing one and sticking with it until you become attuned to getting something out of it (even so, I still don't understand quite _what_ you get out of the X=Y=Z except a childish glee!) If I can make a strained analogy, in the case of ley lines, it has been shown mathematically that, given any square mile of map, you can 'find' multiple convincing ley lines; however if you're "on the ground", at least the discovery of a ley line has a relation to a psychogeographical assemblage (you, in the landscape). Which isn't the case with numerological systems (ie there is no question of the numerologist's unconscious 'participation' in the process). Actually, in this respect perhaps the I Ching might be a better example to contrast it with. Is it simply that numerology supplies the most rigorously evacuated form of arithmetic - a self-sufficient calculus and a tracking of actually-existing, contingent 530

difference? If so, what is the significance (sorry, couldn't police myself to think of any other word) of pursuing this, and isn't the sheer wastage of information a problem? Hope that doesn't all sound hopelessly missing-the-point. Nick Land: Undercurrent - hope your questions yield multiple responses, since there are certainly multiple 'positions' on this floating around even here (topic is totally 'unconverged'). From my PoV (feeding on Barrow and trad. of Anglossic qabbala when required), some preliminary pointers to further discussion: 1) All qabbalistic practice in this restricted (gematria) sense is deeply embedded in particular hyperstitional lines and thus dis-authorized at the Numogrammatic level of pure digital connectivity. It is 'merely' an improvised way of ensuring crash numerization of all linguistic complexes (speaking for AQ, those in the neoroman alphabet A-Z). 2) Information is added rather than lost, the equation ensures the preservation (rather than substitution) of the linguistic original, while supplementing it with a series of rigorously (numerically) decoded resonances. These resonances are scandalously 'incredible' (a virtue within the field of hyperstitional unbelief) and account for the possible proliferation of methods, as well as for complete skepticism - which is surely the most 'natural' response. Such 'crash-qabbalization' would only be 'justified' in a chaosmos thoroughly transpierced by occultural conspiracy, non-secular to 'the core' - this is its provocation (against Good Sense). In the past Ccru has called this dimension of the practice 'coincidence engineering'. 3) Qabbalization demonstrates a savage destruction of meaning (which does not in fact take place) to produce a momentary micro-seismic event in the linguistic order (of logical communication). A series of such events can perhaps play a supportive role in delineating the numogrammatic multiverse (as if by instants of sheet-lightning on a dark night). 4) "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" = 777 [This is surely extraordinary 'beyond belief' - are people simply refusing to register it?] Thelema = Number = Crypt = Theta = 127 = TX (((((:))))) Countdown = 210 531

Death = Time = 83 = Prime 23 (23 = Prime 9) [Freud/Burroughs synthesized qabbalistically] In the qabbalistic regions you don't ask whether it's meaningful, but only if it's demonstrable - so in this spirit I also ask Barrow's competitors to indicate their most striking results. 5) 'Qabbala 101 part 2' is long overdue, BtW 101 TX = (:(:(:))) prole: that really is a load of rubbish though isn't it Nick? Even worse than cold rationalism really (which is what? not wanking when you want to? give us a clue k punk!) Reza Negarestani: Undercurrent, sorry for my irrelevant questions which are not interrogative ... forgive me for putting them into How and What classical interrogative machines ... I just want to unlock some answers for myself in regard to geophilosophy? 1. How do you define / demarcate a landscape (whose temporal / mereologic cognition definitely affects psychological patterns through certain mediums; example, the ‘event’ of ‘you in a landscape’ should be assembled through an ecological niche [constituted of divisors, surfaces, surfactants, Ab-parthood relationships, mediums, etc.], without being in a niche [a temporal mereologic dwelling system] you can hardly get a cognitive pattern of a landscape)? 2. What is a psychogeographical assemblage? Nick, Forgive me for clumsily putting this into question (which is not a philosophical interrogation) ... am fascinated to grasp it completely. Maybe I have missed something. but only if it's demonstrable based on what it is demonstrable? surely there should be an underlying meshwork based on which it becomes demonstrable? what / where is it? Nick Land: Reza - I'm taking the underlying 'network' as assigned gematria values and elementary arithmetic - with the former raising no issues of principle beyond those involved in assigning values to any set of numerals. Qabbalistic calculations are 532

noncontroversial, only their 'significance' is disputable (and IMHO all involved will readily admit they are strictly nonsensical). 533

Reza Negarestani: Nick, again the same question about 'gematria values and elementary arithmetic'; do they connect to another network? or let me put it this this way (sorry if it looks naive) what is in numbers that makes them the most positive vectors towards positive Unbelief? guess, we discussed it in the past but we didn't develope it. and i guess this must be one of the basic questions for those who are interested in The Numogram ... so i strip my questions from any technical diversity. If unbelief communicates with belief then numeric vectors also pass belief as thier primary zone, now, how is possible to grasp the alignment of numbers towards belief or unbelief? When / Where is the positive unbelief triggered in this panorama? northanger: Nick, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" = 777 [This is surely extraordinary 'beyond belief' - are people simply refusing to register it?] http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003609.html "Why did Crowley entitle his book of qabbalistic essays '777'?" asks Barrow-Scholar Peter Vysparov. No. It doesn't register with me. And maybe this is where Reza's questions come in ... I remember the evil nun who kept us after class until we could count to 100. It was right in front of us. Didn't register. The glee comes when the pattern unfolds (reveals?) itself. Something else happens when you're asked, "what comes after 100?" And you see infinity. Why doesn't [DWTWSBTWOTL = 777] register? This discussion also makes me wonder: are numbers viral? Nick Land: Reza - your questions definitely require some careful thought and a full post. Northanger - "are numbers viral?" This could be taken at a number of different levels (specific numbers? number systems? viral RNA as molecular numbers?) and the response might be positive at several of them. IMHO the basic trend of this question is deliciously intense and persuasive. "Why doesn't [DWTWSBTWOTL = 777] register?" 534

Does DO (= 37) + WHAT (= 88) + THOU (= 100) + WILT (= 100) + SHALL (= 97) + BE (= 25) + THE (= 60) + WHOLE (= 108) + OF (= 39) + THE (= 60) + LAW (= 63) = 777 [!!!] help at all - oh well, worth a try ;) Could you be persuaded to pass on some elementary remarks about your own qabbalistic methods? PS. Wish i'd had an evil nun rather than bored State ed. bureaucrats. Northranger: DO (= 37) + WHAT (= 88) + THOU (= 100) + WILT (= 100) + SHALL (= 97) + BE (= 25) + THE (= 60) + WHOLE (= 108) + OF (= 39) + THE (= 60) + LAW (= 63) = 777 [!!!] {ah ... i mushed the letters together and didn't count each word separately!} Nick, My father is a surgeon who taught me games of strategy, tactics, analysis and memory. Many years ... {hmm ... there are 11 letters, never quite noticed that before} ... after the evil nun, I played a game of chess with my father. Who beat me. Turned the board around, put the kings back ... {777 - 418 = 359} ... and proceeded to beat me again with the other color. Since then, I have always been able to recognize superior intelligence -- and avoid all chess players. So I fail to see how discussing my meager qabbalistic methods are worthy of discussion. Especially since you gave part of it away: it's simple arithmetic. The other part is being taught by a master. {359 = ShTN (Satan)} Yes, it did help a little and you provided more possibilites to consider. {hmm ... the 777 virus} 535

Reza Negarestani: Northanger, It’s great to have you here. Agree with Nick, we’d like to hear more. ABJAD: Shaytan=370=Ghaar (Kata, Abyss) Nick Land: northanger - your numerical and linguistic references (not to mention the material on your site) reveal your profound immersion in this entire problematic, so I am confident that the utter vulgarity of the Alphanumeric Qabbala from a traditional viewpoint (I say this with no defensiveness or apology) will have struck you - its brutally innovative character has evidently functioned as a key to its resilient hermeticism. Of course, all educated qabbalists have expected the Anglossic gematria to echo traditional forms, resonating with those of the Hebrews, Greeks (and later Arabs and Persians, which Reza is my window onto of course). It seems inconceivable from this point of view that a 'master' such as Crowley could have recognized a system based on simple modular numeracies of the modern type (in the AQ version, mod-36, proceeding in strict conformity with hexadecimal notation (0-F...)). There are ambiguous hints however (in the Book of Thoth, in at least one table he re-numbers the Hebrew alphabet in the same numeral-supplementing fashion, with aleph as 10). Vysparov's question cited by you above continues to tantalize me, but even if Crowley did himself 'deliberately' work with the AQ, numerous levels of coincidence remain. Another thing, while the AQ 'explains' the status of AL as a key (AL = 31 (10 + 21) = Aleph (1) + Lamed (30)) - the 'promise' of an Anglossic gematria given in the Book of the Law remains entirely cryptic. Liber AL. Book II. 55. Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto. 75. Aye! listen to the numbers & the words: 76. 4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L. What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chose none, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word. 536

"What meaneth this" indeed. Utter bafflement. undercurrent: nick I'm afraid (don't want to moan, etc) that a lot of what you say is already too far-gone for it to make sense to me right now (eg "deeply embedded in particular hyperstitional lines and thus dis-authorized at the Numogrammatic level of pure digital connectivity" !) but let me try to simplify what I do understand for myself: (1)It's simply _a_ way to ensure numerization of language. There is no _right_ way to do so, so therefore you may as well use a working model that has the benefit of a long pedigree (why this numerization is desirable is obviously a large part of what's at stake though. Are you saying that the aim is to produce a fully mathemomechanical model of the world, and it doesn't matter where you start - I suspect not...) (2)There is no 'end product' of gematrialization (I don't know the terms here, so you'll forgive me for inventing them). What you get once you have initially numerized a word/phrase (with no loss of information) is both the simply numerized result, plus a set of supplementary versions progressively mulched through the decimal-reduction process (a bit like derivatives in calculus?) so that we have a multilevel mapping from words at the 'top' to dense networks of interconnections in the 'depths'. Taken together, the whole assemblage is a seething multiplication of information rather than a subtraction. I can see that. These two points are interesting, but as for the 'demonstrations' I don't think that they get the sceptic anywhere. The only way you could show that these 'amazing' results had any real importance would be if they were to provide the basis of a practice of some sort (again, I'd like to investigate the connection or nonconnection with the I Ching). My response to Reza should make this point clearer... Reza: I was being vague, of course ;) What do I mean by a psychogeograhpical assemblage...well, ley lines were 'discovered' by a businessman who was driving through england and suddenly reached a vantage point where he 'saw' an unmarked straight line reaching for miles, with little relation to the 'overcoded' modern landscape. Since then the 'existence' of ley lines has been disputed (ancient trackways, shamanic pilgrimage lines, 'energy ducts' etc.) What is interesting, of course, is that they are produced by the meeting of your unconscious mind/perception, and the landscape; and if you pursue them (that is, walk them) you 'make them real' in some 537

hyperstitional sense. So what I mean by a psychogeographical assemblage is a becoming or material vector, neither imagined nor 'physically real' revealed by the contingent coincidence of 'you, in a landscape'. I was contrasting that to gematrialization, where there _is_ an undisputable reality to the numerical results (nick:"Qabbalistic calculations are noncontroversial, only their 'significance' is disputable"). But obviously it's this question of 'reality'(difference) that's fundamentally at stake. "what is in numbers that makes them the most positive vectors towards positive Unbelief" - this is what's most compelling in Badiou, IMHO, the basic idea that number is the element that leads us into textures of reality that are utterly outlandish and seem to bear absolutely no relation to any phenomenologically-sanctioned 'reality' but are nevertheless non-negotiably real; now, if they were simply a novelty that wouldn't necessarily be important, but the fact is that these apparently bizarre and 'useless' discoveries turn out to be incredibly powerful in practical - that is, computational - situations. The precise question then is, in what situations are gematrial calculations transformed from mere curiosities into something powerfully practical? ps I'm a hopeless amateur at calculus. I meant that you might analogise to the process where you differentiate over and over again to get a different curve (which relates to different traits) each time... northanger: The precise question then is, in what situations are gematrial calculations transformed from mere curiosities into something powerfully practical? Nick, How is Uncle AL's puzzle pertinent to the discussion of Hyperstition? Reza, Did you get any 55 ABJAD values yet? What is the number of letters for short and long ABJAD? [IDEA = MAN = ADAM = 55] ............ Liber AL. Book II. 55. Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto. 538

{checkmate} Liber AL I, II, III 7. Behold! it is revealed by Aiwass the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat. 7. I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. "Come unto me" is a foolish word: for it is I that go. 7. I will give you a war-engine. Reza Negarestani: Robin, Yes, Watkins’ ley lines are definitely exciting hyperstitional subjects (Geopathic stress / health, Tellurian openings to the Outside and as you suggest shamanistic pilgrimage, and other geomantic threads) ... there is a fascinating paper by Varzi, Casati and Smith, three cognitive philosophers, heavily under the influence of Gibson, who modeled ley lines as ‘events’ and according to the temporal relations constructed through mereologic links between the Subject (person) and its niche in a given landscape (so the concrete geologic processes [diagenesis] that give rise to any landscape or faceground machine). Unfortunately, can’t find the paper on the net; it should be in my archive. The fascinating thing is the point where these hyperstitional entities (entityas-event) are connected to geophilosophy of landscape. They insist that the event of ley lines as a process mainly happens through the anomalous mereologic bonds between events (primary entities?). If we take this account, the role of unconscious becomes insignificant (but not faded), then we have a shift from the preceptor as the ‘one who makes real’ to the preceptor as a part of the system, an affording surface and a medium (or a nexus) of other mereologic events which render ‘ley lines’. Anyway, looking forward to more materials on this and if you have time a short article on ley lines as hyperstitional entities. non-negotiably real. Another question rises here: Why? Nick Land: Undercurrent "deeply embedded in particular hyperstitional lines and thus dis-authorized at the Numogrammatic level of pure digital connectivity" - come on! this isn't hard. 539

All the qabbalistic systems floated here are 'carried' by avatars, and thus lack absolute status vis-a-vis the (forgive me for this!) pure decimal implex of the Numogram. But maybe this is just H. Hackhammer-style Lemurian fundamentalism? - apologies, night's coming on here and the reign of confusion is digging in its claws. You seem to suggest 'scepticism' is a problem to be overcome, rather than a resource of unbelief to be cherished - utter scepticism + morbid fascination is the formula, so if we can just crank up the morbid fascination ... ;) "I suspect not" - afraid you're right - your questions are great though, so response imminent (some cross-chat with the Badiou discussion elsewhere? - we'll cope somehow) northanger - "Liber AL. Book II. 55." - good to see someone has their eyes open. Confirmation from my PoV that pretentions to mastery will always be subverted by impersonal qabbalistic 'coincidences' - collective spirals are the only social arrangements that will ultimately find anything Reza Negarestani: northanger, Did you get any 55 ABJAD values yet? Not yet; but i'm working on it. What is the number of letters for short and long ABJAD? ABJAD-e Kabir (complete, major): see “The ABJAD version of the numogram: phase 1” ABJAD-e Saghier (incomplete, minor): Alif = 1, Ba = 2, Jeem = 3, Dal = 4, Haa = 5, Waw = 6, Za = 7, Ha = 8, Toin = 9, Ya = 10, Kaaf = 5, Laam = 6, Meem = 4, Noon = 2, Seen = Aborted, Ayn = 10, Fa = 8, Saad = 6, Qaf (Ghaaf) = 4, Raa = 8, Sheen = Aborted, Ta = 4, Sa = 8, Kha = Aborted, Zal = 4, Dhwad = 8, Zoin = Aborted, Ghayn = 4 BTW, have a few remarks on ‘Al’ according to ABJAD (will post them soon). undercurrent: Robin, 540

reza are you trying to imply that undercurrent is to be identified with a person, how dare you ;) Yes, Watkins’ ley lines are definitely exciting hyperstitional subjects Definitely. Watkins also invented the pinhole camera (er...not sure why that's interesting actually ;) mereologic links what does mereologic mean? If we take this account, the role of unconscious becomes insignificant yes, I quite accept this point: it shouldn't be modelled as a synthetic product of a subject/object encounter, but as a signal from shared palaeostratic resonances (or something...). As a photographer I am very aware of this; the ideal of (a certain tradition of) photography is to set up a routine so that the mechanical process of noticing and capturing becomes automatic; then the results will reveal something about such unattributable psycho-socio-environmental mappings (hence the triadic link between cities, surrealism and photography). When you see a photograph and don't understand why you took it, but somehow it haunts you as the ghost of something real , then you have succeeded (and I say much the same about Bacon, whose painting has a unique relation to photography) Would love to see the paper you mention if you find it. non-negotiably real. Another question rises here: Why? Presumably because, as Badiou says there is no such thing as being lazy in maths; to perform the calculation is to experience its compelling reality. You can't understand it *and* dispute it. The simplest yet most powerful example of all this is the complex plane: produced hyperstitionally by imagining that the square root of -1 exists; as soon as it becomes clear that this results in a consistent system (with the omnipresent fictional entity acting as a sort of lubricant to allow number to slip out of its confinement in a single dimension), it becomes real; and later reveals astonishingly powerful relations to physical reality. 541

I always thought it was particularly comical how the mandelbrot set became a symbol of stoner neo-hippiedom since despite its pretty colours it's a terrifying lovecraftian abomination whose utter abject mechanoid genesis only makes the thing's eldritch writhing unfathomability more terrifying from the POV of Spirit ((C) that phrase) ;) nick: I'm honestly not playing dumb (I'm sure there are other more reticent lurkers who would back me up here). You need to make some effort to create some decoded edges to this jargoplex, if it is to connect to the outside...intimations of gothic grandeur are not enough...I realise the very concept of instrumentality may be moot, but humour us... utter scepticism + morbid fascination is the formula formula for what...? Surely you could construct similar justifications for any otakusolipsistic practice (becoming obsessed by conspiracy theories about Princess Diana, for instance); as dark and dangerous as it might seem it affines dangerously to mere narcissistic time-passing entertainment unless the machine can be plugged into social production processes (and beyond) somehow. northanger: this Alain Badiou? http://www.egs.edu/faculty/badiou/badiou-on-evil.html In philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, evil is back ... In 1993, the philosopher Alain Badiou published Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, an analysis, critique, and reformulation of the discourse of evil in contemporary thought. Rejecting both the theological and the scientific (psychological, sociological, etc.) interpretations of evil. he locates good and evil in the very structure of human subjectivity, agency, and freedom ... The interview with Alain Badiou was conducted via email in July-August 2001. Alain Badiou asked to add the final paragraphs of his interview after the events of 11 September. {first question} "You argue that in our philosophical and political discourses today, evil is "self-evident," and that both this "self-evidence" and this conception of "evil" are problematic." BADIOU = 32 = HAMON-GOG (GoN gematria) Hamon-Gog: Multitude of Gog, the name of the valley in which the slaughtered forces of Gog are to be buried # Eze 39:11,15 "the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea." --Ezekiel 39:11 542

7 = TA (or TOIN is nine in ABJAD) = THE POST-911 THING = UNDERCURRENT (sorry) = [northanger's real name] 91 = NICK LAND + REZA NEGARESTANI = DIVIDE, ADD, MULTIPLY AND UNDERSTAND (using GoN gematria) undercurrent: with apologies to northanger for the comparison (and obviously not wanting to 'troll'), just heaping up 'demonstrations' is really no more helpful than kpunk's repeatedly saying he's not a person... Surely one can only grant these 'equivalences' the importance that is being solicited on their behalf, if one already subscribes to some notion of significance (totally against Barker's dictum)? It all seems to come down to choosing what correspondences you publish according to their interpretative significance, which sort of defeats the object (certainly it would destroy any interest I have in the process if it turned out to be merely a hyperdeconstructive practice of interpretation). northanger: Undercurrent, I agree. undercurrent: LOL! Nick Land: Undercurrent - determined to cooperate with your agenda here (explaining the 'jargoplex' etc.) but think you have to meet us in the middle - your recent scolding of northanger is really verging on totalitarianism - there's plenty of space here for every (non-trollish) line of development, from lucid exegesis and discussion through nonsensical demonstrations to gothic jargoplexing (all of which I would like to see more of) ... hopefully as we 'self-organize' these different modes of proliferation can separate themselves out into variegated threads ('let a hundred flowers of evil bloom' and all that tasty liberal stuff) Ironically, while I'm probably quite close to you on the primacy of the practical, Badiou - who you cite in this regard - seems to dismiss this criteria as 'technicism' and valorizes pure mathematico-platonic apprehension of the infinite (isn't even science is suspect to him, let alone engineering?). Sure, Imaginary numbers yield practical results, but Cantorian set theory doesn't obviously do so. Anyway, Badiou's politics are still indecipherable to me from the infinitesimal contact with his work I have so far enjoyed, so I'd be interested to know more about that. 543

When it comes to numbers, D&Gons; would surely route the problematic of 'pragmatics' through the culture of the nomad war machine, where numbers directly produce agentic composites ('units') - e.g. the name of the Hazara in Afghanistan, a NWM relic population, means 'the hundred' - so NWM popular numeracy schematizes the auto-division of the social being, with the number taking on the character of a 'subject'. Without in any way wanting to denigrate engineering, the NWM functionalization of the number obviously radically exceeds mere technical application Of course, how this relates to qabbalization remains unclear northanger - apologies for being a pest on this subject, but where can i go for an intro to GoN gematria (tried searching your site, but so far ineffectually) PS. sorry for grammatical garbaging of last-comment-but-one - just woken up here, or more accurately, obviously haven't Also would like (without quite singing KUMBAYA (= 137 (= prime-X))) to express my delight at presence of northanger and undercurrent here in such great form - think if this site can remain swollen enough to host both rigorous sceptical inquiry and finely-honed qabbalistic insight its unutterable powers will shake the earth to its foundations, or something like that ... northanger: Nick, ............................invisibility cloak....................................... 28 = OPEN SESAME = {28 ABJAD major letters} = {28 Liber AL puzzlies*} *4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L = 28 characters (two ligatures) 28 letters (east) + 28 puzzlies (west) = 56 GoN 56 = Gematria of Nothing; the work of the wand and the work of the sword; THIS IS THE ROARING VOICE OF THUNDER (Liber Arachnid); LAND OF THE WATCHERS; REINCARNATED; SORCERER + NECROMANCER; shoggothic apocalypse; THE KEY AND GATE; Fiery Darts To Fan The Earth {Enochian Key: 6}; DAOX (5678) Times In The OL (24th) Part Of A Moment {Enochian Key: 10}; Judgment of the Highest {Enochian Key: 19}; Nyarlathotep is 544

"the Dreamer"; HALL OF MAATI; Standing alone my senses reel {Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd}; Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night {Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd}; The key to the maze is the last expansion of this form; THE BROTHERHOOD OF NINE 24 = KUMBAYA = QIYAMAH = LEARNING TO FLY OPEN SESAME (28) – JARGOPLEX (18) = NUMOGRAM (10) JARGOPLEX (18) – OPEN SESAME (28) = HYPERSTITION (-10) OPEN SESAME + JARGOPLEX + NUMOGRAM = 56 .................................................................................................. Nick, GoN Calc http://www.deathandhell.com/gematria/innuendo.html Gematria of Nothing FAQ http://www.deathandhell.com/faq.html Liber Arachnid http://www.deathandhell.com/arachnid.html Gematria of Nothing (Infekshun) http://chaospace.hyperlinx.cz/index.php?act_id=4&id;=24 Nick Land: northanger ++ thanks - much digesting to do northanger: Reza + Nick = 25 ............................invisibility cloak....................................... 25 = 545

CIPHER NUMBER NINE WATCHER OF THE WEST {Antares} ARIEL (Satevis | Antares) - Flame or Light of God - Watcher of the West LINE OF FLIGHT = 45 = {Pandemonium} PANDEMONIUM = 29 = THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS 2 CRAZY ACE FLYBOYS = 24 STRATEGY = CHORONOZON = CROWLEY = BURROUGHS = TRANSLATORS = ASTRONOMERS = -3 ----------------------------MY EXQUISITE PLEASURE = 2 = SORCEROUS TRIGGERS ................................................................................................... Reza Negarestani: Nick, Northanger, There is a proverb among the Quranic / ABJAD scholars in regard to AL (Aleph and Lamed or Laam): there is no Aleph and Laam without Meem: The second sura (Al Baghara) starts with the well-known Quran’s invitation to all other Books for a challenge. Alif Laam Meem (one of the secret gates of the Koran) comes before this verse (aayeh). Alif Laam Meem are among the Muqattaat letters of the Koran. Sura 2: “Alif Laam Meem. This IS the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, to those ‘who fear Allah’ (Motaghien [= 600] or those who use Taghieh?).” Taqieyah: (strategic dissimulation). The belief of the concealment of the true beliefs in situations where harm or death will definitely be encountered if the true beliefs are declared. Six chapters in the Koran begin with these Muqattaat letters (Alef Laam Meem): 546

(A): The number of chapter (Sura) in the Koran; (B): Occurrences (the letter Alif); (C) Occurrences (the letter Laam); (D) Occurrences (the letter Meem); (E) Sum (A)-- (B)-- 2 -- 4502-- 3202-- 2195-- 9899 (19x521) 3-- 2521-- 1892-- 1249-- 5662 (19x298) 29-- 774-- 554-- 344-- 1672 (19x88) 30-- 544-- 393-- 317-- 1254 (19x66) 31-- 347-- 297-- 173-- 817 (19x43) 32-- 257-- 155-- 158-- 570 (19x30) ==== 8945-- (C)-- (D)-- (E) 6493-- 4436-- 19874 (19x1046) What we have here is 19, or one of the most active numeric subroutines of the Koran. 19 is one of the keys. Nick Land: northanger - thanks for that ... so it's all in Death and Hell. More persuaded by the GoN II version, at least by superficial elegance ('0' in GoN I seems redundant to me), but having not worked with this I'll gladly defer to any comments you feel inclined to make on the subject. PS. For anyone else interested in the GoN northanger has been using, this might be the most direct link: http://www.deathandhell.com/index2.html (you can click on GoN I or II for the actual values). Reza - not sure I quite understand your comment - in the "Occurrences (the letter ...)" keys, did you forget to switch second and third "Alif"s to "Laam" and "Meem"? If not, I'm lost (and if so might still be lost, but I'll postpone that predicament). Reza Negarestani: Plus, Alef (consists of three letters: Alef [1] + Laam [30] + Fa [80] = 111) Alef = 111 = Alef (1) + Ya (10) + Ghaaf (100) 547

It only needs another ‘1’ (1000 = Ghayn) to become the complete Number of ABJAD: 1111 or 11:11 Both in Islamic and Kabalistic traditions, Aleph also means ‘One Thousand’; so we already have it (1111). Nick Land: 1111 Tic-Xenotated = (((:)))(:(:(:))) northanger: {GoN} ALM = 16 = PERSIA; QUATREFOIL; Govern Those That Govern {Enochian Key: 19}; AVESTA; MERCURII (Liber 231); AUD; DGon http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/aba/chap4.html 12 = Muqattaat = Lamassu = Frodo 26 = Taqieyah 26 = NTI{AL}TIA (diagonal Hex name divisible by 15) 15 = AL 59 = secret gates of the Koran 59 = IT IS THE DAWN OF THE AEON {V&V;, DES, 26th Æthyr} 59 = Mitochondria are transmitted only by women {Parasite Eve} 59 = A Mighty Guard Of Fire {Enochian Key: 9} 59 = The Virgin of God is enthroned upon an oyster-shell {Liber 231:3} 41 = strategic dissimulation 41= ABOMINATION 158 = belief of the concealment of the true beliefs 158 = they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights Liber Arcanorum (231) http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib231.html 548

ALEPH (Atu Fool)~ 0. A, the heart of IAO, dwelleth in ecstasy in the secret place of the thunders. Between Asar and Asi he abideth in joy. LAMED (Atu Adjustment) ~ 11. Also the lady Maat with her feather and her sword abode to judge the righteous. For Fate was already established. MEM (Atu Hanged Man) ~ 12. Then the holy one appeared in the great water of the North; as a golden dawn did he appear, bringing benediction to the fallen universe. Liber AL I, II, III 19. O azure-lidded woman, bend upon them! 19. Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us. They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of us. 19. That stele they shall call the Abomination of Desolation; count well its name, & it shall be to you as 718. Nick, GoN II You know even numbers are feminine & unlucky. {hehe} Seriously, I think you should use it. Reza, [1] Explain Muqattaat. [2] What is the challenge of the Quran to all other books. [3] Does "This IS the Book; in it is guidance sure" refer to Sura 2 or the Quran itself. [4] Brief synopsis of the six chapters beginning with Alef Laam Meem. [5] Why is there no Aleph and Laam without Meem. Reza, {GoN} 16 = ALM = MERCURII {Mercury goes direct today -- mercury is the ruling planet of gemini (the twins) and rules all forms of communication: books, television, internet, computers ... alphabets} 549

Nick Land: ALM = 53 = GOD (or DOG, Liber AL II:19) northanger: Nick + Reza, GoN II. I change my mind. ABJAD-major (28-letters) is installed on the Numogram establishing its numerology (its rules need to be formalized). The GoN has no direct relationship with the Numogram whatsoever. Neither does Anglossic, Tic Xenotation, or ABJAD-minor. IMHO. What are you doing with all of these alphabets? The ABJAD version of the numogram: phase 1 We are a network! (A note on the ABJAD installment of the numogram) Nick Land: northanger - think Reza's installation of ABJAD on the Numogram has high generality - providing a schema appropriate for all decimally reducible qabbalistic systems. Not sure how it would work for the negative values in GoN, unless by reversing (or ignoring) signs. TX is sub-decimal (nonmodular) and decodes any numeracy into sheer (Euclidean) arithmetical relation - it's a notational tool with no commitments so shouldn't really be classed among qabbalistic systems / gematrias. "What are you doing with all of these alphabets?" - seems like the Undercurrent question raised from another direction, thus equally worthy of fuller treatment than an off-the-cuff comment. Your virus remark offers the preliminaries - gematrias spread (through users). What do users do with them? How are they invested by other agencies (which transmit signal through them)? - These Q.s need a post. northanger: IMHO, "GoN" is perceived as -virus- you are suggesting something else. || viral reproduction :: attachment : penetration : replication : assembly : release || {Not sure how it would work for the negative values in GoN, unless by reversing (or ignoring) signs} "Once inside the host cell, the virus induces the host cell to synthesize the necessary components for its replication." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus 550

Reza Negarestani: Undercurrent, reza are you trying to imply that undercurrent is to be identified with a person, how dare you ;) oops, I’m really sorry ... after all, what do you expect from a rotting oedipus in cyberspace? ;) what does mereologic mean? It is one of the basic topics of logics, metaphysics, eco-logics and cognitive philosophy. Mereology simply means any relationship emerged based on the role of a Part within a Whole (mostly along the axis of entity-as-event and regarding the temporal / spatial relations between accommodating and dwelling systems), even abparthood relationships (also sometimes mereology is oversimplified as part-whole relationships ... but this mainly returns to classic definitions). Mereology is, of course, very vast and multifaceted. For some basic definitions, see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mereology/ Basic Problems of Mereotopology (a very simplistic and introductive essay by Varzi): http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/rd/65456421%2C604629%2C1%2C0.25%2CDownload /http%3AqSqqSqwww.columbia.eduqSq%7Eav72qSqpapersqSqFois_1998.pdf I have found rigorous mereotopology very helpful in grasping a concrete account of Deleuze-Guattarian geophilosophy. Some recommendations if you are interested: J. J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception O Stock (ed.), Spatial and Temporal Reasoning A. U. Frank and W. Kuhn (eds.), A Theoretical Basis for GIS B. Taylor, Modes of Occurrence: Verbs, Adverbs and Events (etc.) hence the triadic link between cities, surrealism and photography Urbanomics? Needless to say, I wish to see a detailed article about these links at undercurrent. To this extent: Photography is thinking in terms of events, which as Deleuze reminds, is very difficult. 551

Would love to see the paper you mention if you find it. Let me exhume all zip files in my archive ... will try to find it. I like to read it again too. Nick, - These Q.s need a post. Nick, i can't wait for the post ... Northanger, will answer your questions as soon as i can log on to hyperstition (i'm posting this comment from another place) viral phases i guess you missed one: Virus Uncoating [uncoating of the virus membrane] 'Robbins Pathology' without uncoating the gate to the host cannot entirely be engineered. northanger: || viral reproduction :: attachment : virus uncoating : penetration : replication : assembly : release || hmmm. well, if GoN = virus then are we uncoating numbers? how does number shed its membrane? how does a gematria system shed its skin? Nick Land: On GoN. Positive(+)/neutral(=)/negative(-) features as evaluated loftily, prior to serious experimental engagement. 1) Derived by revelation - this locates it in mainstream occult tradition (back to at least the origins of monotheism and probably through Khem to unspeakable antiquity). This makes it interesting, since qabbalism is historically bound to the topic of supramundane signal, but also negative since it shatters immanence in the name of a transcendent authority (=/-). 2) Ciphering by sequential unitary increments, GoN breaks with qabbalistic tradition and installs itself indisputably in modernity, a prerequisite IMHO for a truly intense affinity with the Anglobal-oecumenic alphabet. Usage of negative numbers and relation to zero reinforces this modernity (=/+). 552

3) As consequence of (2) GoN operates as a (highly) compressive qabbalism, producing small numerical outcomes in comparison with traditional gematrias. This might be considered negative in that it reduces the scale of coincidence production (improbability), or positive in that it increases connectivity (resonance waves) - my tendency is to the latter judgement. The introduction of a negative array dilutes this effect (basically halves it) (=/+). 4) By distributing values 0-9 (GoN I) or 1-9 (GoN II) this gematria reproduces redundancy typical of traditional systems. This both shatters its digital immanence (by entering into relation of overcoding with numerals) and reduces its versatility (by eradicating any strictly numerical functionality) (-). 5) Is GoN supported by a reservoir of spectacular demonstrations? Simple ignorance on my part here, but if there is a lack of demonstrable results the user is once again thrown back onto transcendent criteria of validity (principally, authority of revelation) (=/-/+??). Since these points are not necessarily evenly weighted, to attempt to use them for an overall evaluation would have no value. Not necessarily at a stage where I'm enthused to start rampantly spreading GoN-virus yet. Unless modulus is the coating for a tic-xenotative viral machinery (just fantasizing) don't see where you're going to get a membrane from. northanger - in lieu of doing the work, highly persuaded by reference of AL puzzle to Enochian tables. Too much to take in right now. undercurrent: Nick: "your recent scolding of northanger is really verging on totalitarianism " come one, don't be silly...who's acting as troll (=bad vibe amplification unit) here? Quite agree there is room for all (kumbaya) and I'm sure northanger didn't take it personally, it wasn't meant like that, only as impatient demand for enlighten(ok, enarken)ment. Agree that engineering-applicability can't be cited as support for nomad potentiality of number (or at least, that it begs the question). I'm unclear about "NWM popular numeracy", would like to pursue this foggy line further. Also how to distinguish functionalisation from instrumentalism, pragmatic 'working' from scientific 'usefulness' (think this is germane wrt nick's badiou point, too). Anyhow we're in dire need of a new thread now.... 553

Reza: thanks for mereotopological pointers. Urbanomics = a sociological term - the study of how trends spread from urban center to periphery (but when I first used it I didn't realise it was a real word, I just 'invented' it from its general etymological sense.) Photography/Psychogeographical event: I have a piece in progress about this (links with Baudrillard's writing on photography (better than his other stuff, photography as last possibility of becoming-technical-object for the human. [Baudrillard is a photographer himself].) Lastly, A treat...an (almost too good to be true) piece of dialogue that succinctly treats the relationship between mathematics and belief (see recent discussions at hyperstition), with hyperstitional entity as lubricating-supplement; and the complicity of institutionalised dogma and institutionalised relativism: ' "But..." Lyra struggled to find the words she wanted: "but it en't true is it? Not true like chemistry and engineering, not that kind of true? There wasn't really an Adam and Eve? The Cassington Scholar told me it was just a kind of fairy-tale." "The Cassington Scholarship is traditionally given to a free-thinker; it's his function to challenge the faith of the Scholars. Naturally he'd say that. But think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one: you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn't be imagined without it" ' (Philip Pullman: Northern Lights) northanger: must admit that some of the stuff from GoN is intriguing (like east = west), but this is still couched in terms of enthusiasm for 'symbolically significant' results. Nick, could you post a link to whatever system you're using too? "Mereotopology... is highly general and highly domain independent. It is ontologically neutral, treating all entities as individuals, i.e., as entities of the lowest logical type. (Set theory, by contrast, forces a distinction in ontological status between the first and second arguments of its primitive relation.)" Could this be a good way to dismantle ontomaths, then? Nick Land: Undercurrent - realize i went into meta-scolding, apologies (but think 'troll' accusation should be reserved for non-immanent personalized abuse). Gotta crash (if you can find Qabbala 101 pt1, think that outlines the Anglossic gematria, otherwise i'll provide a link tomorrow) 554

undercurrent: thx, in the spirit of experiment eleutheria (RUTH=ROBIN=103) is now hard at work. Nick Land: Undercurrent - just dragged out of bed by guilt at my scrooginess to appeal to your techie side and say just keep counting from hexadecimal ... but who needs redundant advice? Not that I've any idea who RUTH = ROBIN might be referring to. 103 = prime-R too, so you've got a triple whammy. Reza Negarestani: Still, hyperstition is out of reach (am getting paranoid ... Does the Apocalypse begin from iran?). Undercurrent, just a quick answer: mereotopology Varzi's article as i mentioned is oversimplified; no , in its more sophisticated forms, mereotopology doesn't treat entities as individuals but events (however not exactly in a Deleuzian sense) made out of spatio-temporal connections / relations. however, usually, according to its inflexible principles, it cannot be separated from ontological laws. An exception: Gibson (who was an eco-logical psychologist) brought so much diversities to the field which was previously an ontological ground for part-wholeboundary subjects. Baudrillard and photography: the only parts of his writings I can read without reactionary knee jerk are his writings about Photography. His photos are also not bad ;) ++++ This is an archive for http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/varzi96part.html logics and mereology: (you can always use the 'related articles' link to expand the archive) undercurrent: baudrillard can only be trusted when he gets excited (photography, the chapter about graffiti in Symbolic Exchange and Death). Other than that you have to treat him as a depressive symptom ;) Nick techie side is already fatally appealed to...you'll see how... 555

Nick Land: Some WoT-related seasonal/topical offerings: QABBALA = YHVH = ISLAM = YULE ISLAM + W = prime-W = CHRIST I love the smell of MOABs in the morning! Undercurrent - can't wait Reza Negarestani: Northanger, [1] Explain Muqattaat. Mughatta’at letters: There are twenty-nine Suras in the Koran that start with disjointed letters, known in Arabic as Al-Maghata’at. These letters on their own have no obvious meaning. There are numerous interpretations to the meaning and purpose of these letters. Some of the prominent Islamic commentators like Az-Zamacheryand, AlBaaqilaanee and Ibn Asaakir claim that their purpose is to prove the miraculous nature of the Koran. As if to say “the Koran is made up of these letters; now, can anybody imitate one verse of it?” Sometimes, Mughatta’at letters are called the gates of Koran. [2] What is the challenge of the Quran to all other books. No one can imitate a verse of it in Arabic (let alone the Book itself); or The Book, itself, is the unparalleled miracle of Mohammad. [3] Does "This IS the Book; in it is guidance sure" refer to Sura 2 or the Quran itself. Yes to the Koran itself but in a very strange way (few people have mentioned it): the Koran refers to itself as ‘That Book’ not ‘This Book’ (Zaaleka instead of Haaza); is this a schizophrenic twist? [4] Brief synopsis of the six chapters beginning with Alef Laam Meem. Check this page for summaries: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/maududi/ (chapters 2, 3, 29, 30, 31, 32) [5] Why is there no Aleph and Laam without Meem. Because in the Koran whenever Aleph and Laam appear as separated (independent) letters, they are succeeded by the letter Meem. Some commentators suggest that ALM 556

is Alam or the Secret Name of Allah, the 100th name of Allah which was not revealed in the Koran. Also because ‘Aleph Laam Meem’ is the first cipher that the Koran presents before declaring its uniqueness. undercurrent: ok well this is how I see it...realtime... http://www.urbanomic.com/gematrix.html using any mapping you want (or the two preset ones, GoN and nick's hyperhex). It shows the initial numerical translation plus n layers of decimal reduction. I think I got this right (at least, DWTWSBTWOTL works as 777!) What I wanted to do was to do this graphically so you could compare the vectors of different phrases as they descended through the layers of decimal mulching and see the attractors working across the levels. Also to add the possibility of shifting the ciphers left and right. But this is enough for now I think... [disclaimer: undercurrent takes no responsibility for any havoc this may wreak on your browser/computer/brain. you need Flash 4 plugin] northanger: {newbie stuff}. A line of escape is different from a line of flight, yes? Laughter disarms by illuminating & appropriating all lines of escape. (Superior intelligence has a certain rigor to it and if you can't stand the inquiry you need to go play with your barbie dolls and stop playing chess with the big man. i'm a-ok flyboy.) this doesn't mean anything........(GoN I) -4 = SNARKY = JESUS = INSTITUTE NEW GOVERNMENT = FOUR = TRUE = PEST = VCU 27 = APOCALYPSE = MAGOG = VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY 157 = {II:55. Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto.} 1+5+7=1+3=4 4 = RHIZOME = EMERGENT PROPERTY = NEOPHYTE 51 = RULES OF ENGAGEMENT 557

100 = Does the Apocalypse begin from iran? 100 = A false balance {Proverbs 11:1} 100 = "My friend somehow had left the room, but I'm not sure where he went at the time {Liber Arachnid Commentary}" 100 = Which Opens The Glory Of God To The Center Of The Earth {Enochian Key: 18} 100 = Partakers of Undefiled Knowledge {Enochian Key: 19} 14 = MARK K-P = IRAN the northanger may be fooled, but thinks hyperstition, being oedipal(=36 = binah), may be playing a great game of chess. but i'm still a newbie, so i dunno.... SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE = 44 = hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org RHIZOME (4) x IRAQ (11) = 44 ALAM = 29 = THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS ABYSMAL NUMMIFICATION OF THE SIGNIFIER = 1 = DWTWSBTWOTL undercurrent: northanger I'm not sure you should use it, your productivity is too dangerously high already! may be playing a great game of chess. COLDRATIONALISM = 300 -> 3 using HeX divide it in two to get CHECKMATE = 150 -> 6 (rules of the game : it doubles by splitting) ;) northanger: whoa......LOL! undercurrent 558

(whoa on the double-splitting stuff) my productivity?! ABYSMAL NUMMIFICATION OF THE SIGNIFIER excellent bit of work there, btw Nick Land: Undercurrent Swooning in (almost) wordless awe. Try JARGOPLEX on your infernal machine. Think you've also mechanomically delineated a hugely intriguing topic that has remained latent until now (at least here) - the searing affinity between digital technology and qabbalization GoN2: WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT = 55 We need a glossary - new terms i love: jargoplex, nummification, hyperhex, gematrix ... Note on the wondrous Gematrix engine: Decimal reduction (DR) is evidently a crucial dimension of qabbalistic signals processing - Undercurrent's description (glossed) as an excavation of digital attractors seems an excellent way of understanding it. However, on issue of information maintenance its worth pointing out that other features of the unreduced number that get mulched out by DR are fully preserved by arithmetical analysis (by tic xenotation / factorization), so these should IMHO take a certain priority insofar as the exegesis of the number is concerned. [recent example, that 103 DRs to 4 is a relatively paltry result compared to its TX of ((:)(:)(:)) IMHO] Reza - how far can we go before this thread blows up the server? Hot button link to the Urbanomic Gematrix would also be good at some point, don't you think? 559

Az-Za - LOL = 66 (GoN2:3), FATWA = 96 (GoN2:19) Noam Chomsky - Sorry to interrupt, but what has all this to do with my distinction between problems and mysteries? Also, surely you know that esoteric hobbies such as kabbalah and numerology, like celebrity trivia and football statistics (cf. undercurrent's comparisons with otaku-solipsistic practice, becoming obsessed by conspiracy theories about Princess Diana etc.) is but an invention of the political elites designed to keep the masses distracted and thus as far away from meaningful participation in the public realm as possible? if this site can remain swollen enough to host both rigorous sceptical inquiry and finely-honed qabbalistic insight its unutterable powers will shake the earth to its foundations, or something like that ... Hmmmm, yes - or something like that ... Immanuel Kant: Well, I'm just glad that they're keeping MY name out of it! C'mon Noam, let's go solve some problems ... sufi: http://www.submission.org/miracle/alif.html good discussion troll is a verb peace & love Nick Land: Sufi - thanks, very interesting link Noam Chomsky - "an invention of the political elites designed to keep the masses distracted" - does this mean we get a TV show? Az-za - sincere apologies for annihilation northanger: nick, ah.....my first question. what is "Az-za"? when you do this: GoN2:3, what do mean? 103 DRs to 4 is a relatively paltry result compared to its TX of ((:)(:)(:)) 560

why is 4 paltry to ((:)(:)(:))? (btw, i am double-checking that Gon2 55) Nick Land: northanger Az-za short for "Az-Zamacheryand = 2 CRAZY ACE FLYBOYS = Shaytan = 370" whose prophetic insights - now sadly lost to H. blog readers - seem to have thrown Hyperstition into a major international crisis (I have a copy of the Book of Az-za if anyone needs one - don't use Hyperstition board for this discussion though - click on my name for email). If Az-Za is out there - tried to contact you, but your email was junk. Note to readers: Please try to be sensitive to intercultural vulnerabilities of this space - we don't want to censor discussion, but some of us occupy precarious situations. can now see "GoN2:3" might seem obscure - just means in "GoN II has value of 3" "why is 4 paltry [compared] to ((:)(:)(:))?" - multilevel Q., but crude answer is just to restate Undercurrent's loss of information point - digital reduction deliberately destroys information in order to facilitate convergence between disparate numbers (with the decimal 'attractor' acting as a neutron star - if not quite a black-hole crushing-out complexity). Obviously this convergence is an important component of the qabbalistic sense of the number, but it doesn't adequately substitute for it. No dismissiveness viz DR intended. northanger: nick, Ah... Methinks I should creep quietly back to my quiet hidey hole. AND, only slight error ... this is GoN I, not II WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT = 55 this is GoN II WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT = 40 did {((reza))} give you a copy of my deleted post? this appears there northanger: nick, 561

JARGOPLEX is one of Undercurrent's invented words (i'm guessing) about you making an effort to "create some decoded edges". Why is the fact that the Decimal reduction (DR) of JARGOPLEX = 9 such a humdinger for you? What meaning are you placing on this? Can we expect some DECODED stuff in the near future. (strongly suggest you look that up) Nick Land: northanger GoN1 - you're sure? - can't access the Gematrix from work so i've no choice but to believe you! If so, Undercurrent should be persuaded to upgrade from GoN1 to GoN2, what do you think? Liked the fact JARGOPLEX acts as a zone of convergence between GoN and HeX on the Gematrix. Guess that's relatively common at final stage (GoN 0 and negs make exact probability slightly obscure), but this one goes up a level (to 18). Will look up DECODED (and no doubt thousands of other words) after work - when I can prostrate myself before the Gematrix (computer here doesn't support Flash). Not sure what you mean by deleted post - unless you are 'the Evil One', in which case I annihilated you myself at R.s strict instructions - anyway, thought I recognized the phrase, searched but couldn't find it ... sorry for redundancy. What hidey hole? (if this is another "I am the Evil One" remark, if so just wink, or better still, let us pass over the matter in silence [chuckle]). Actually good if you are "..." [the unmentionable one] because then you understand why we had to take such illiberal measures to suppress you. northanger: positive it's GoN I. You said earlier: "'0' in GoN I seems redundant to me" -- be aware that you cannot escape ZERO. Add all GoN II letter values and they equal zero; add all GoN I values and you get 13 = FOLLY OF NUMBERS = CRIKEY (1+3=4) ... as far as "upgrading" ... DWTWSBTWOTL. 562

DECODED decimal reduction in GoN I & Hex is 4. CRIKEY ... it's so fast and loose in here you get confused about who you're talking to, huh? No ... this is a post i (northanger) deleted on my journal with 55 values, etc. now that i've been confused with "the evil one", i *know* it's time to go ... LOL Nick Land: northanger - "Add all GoN II letter values and they equal zero" - that's why it seems redundant to have '0' included among the original values. I was assuming the GoN crew had realized this themselves, and upgraded to a neater symmetrical 0sum system. Still, somewhat traumatic if "WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELFEVIDENT = 55" goes down with the rusty hulk of GoN I. Now to be really obtuse - what exactly was the GoN1 DWTWSBTWOTL thing? (I've been blinded by hyperhex fanaticism on this point) Damn! so "..." is still out there, probably feeling really pissed northanger: nick. I have always found it interesting, being a woman, discovering how Babalon deals with men (Crowley, Parsons, Birocco, another guy i know ... ye gods, now you!). Be careful my friend. In GoN I: 56 = I BABALON 56 = IT IS I BABALON YE FOOLS (read earlier post) crikey! i ain't posting this one here. can i send it to you? Nick Land: northanger - even by your standards that was really cryptic Why did you delete your 55 post? 563

northanger: nick, me cryptic?! I deleted it because everyone seemed to be in delete mode. Why not me? Nick Land: northanger - our posts crossed, just to add to total conversational dislocation "can i send it to you?" of course Tachi: Undercurrent, that is fucking cool. But before I carried away with mulching endless words through the Nummificator, I have to ask anyone: what is the most interesting thing about noting that certain words share a numerical value? Aren't you still relying on some semantic relation between the words that a given number shares to confirm some significance to the number? If not please someone explain why not .. Not wanting to spoil the party or anything - perhaps I am just not getting what all the fun is about. Is it that patterns can be found not only between words mulched through either gematrix, but that there may be patterns to be 'discovered' between these respective patterns? Even if so, what does this imply? If not, maybe I am just totally lost, or looking for some 'deeper' point to it all. Reza Negarestani: i'm still off the entire net ... am posting this comment (the 100th) from another place. Nick, northanger is pointing to a post at his own journal about hyperstition, ccru and cold-me, not the one i asked you to delete. Az-Zamacheryand = 2 CRAZY ACE FLYBOYS = Shaytan = 370, My sincere apologies for deleting your post ... as you may have noticed i live in iran so the post was a bit 'too problematic'. i hope you understand; if you want to hear more about the reasons, please contact me. once again, my apologies. 564

Tachi: Undercurrent: "The precise question then is, in what situations are gematrial calculations transformed from mere curiosities into something powerfully practical?" I have a feeling this is a great question, Undercurrent, but what could a ‘powerfully practical’ calculation possibly look like, in order to be able to distinguish it from a ‘mere curiosity’? Reza Negarestani: Noam Chomsky, just a quick answer: Ismaiel Aien, the Iranian political historian, in his masterwork on Freemasonry in Iran, discusses that while conspiracy theories look as phenomenal hobbies for the masses; they contaminate the channel regimes by which macro-politics of the state targets collectivities. Conspiracy theories produce too much noise, too much offbeat signal (superfluous or trash-politics: polytics?) for these channels. The result is a sabotage of political agencies, pushing their affect space to produce anomalies. The contamination between conspiracy theories and what is established as the real politics is mutual and irreversible. If the state uses a strategic weapon to distract masses, this does not mean that the weapon always functions properly and not targeting its socalled users at the same time (as a two-edged sword). Aien coins the term ‘political pollution’ (polytics?) for this process which progressively becomes out of control for the State’s macropolitics. Conspiracy theories are surely running as strategic weapons, and the State and its lines of command 'try' to work with them through the plane of logistics (the plane through which strategy becomes communicable for political agencies and lines of command). And it is mainly on the plane of logistics that the strategy can be opened to anthropomorphic participation (lines of command) since the autonomy, tactical multiplicity and inter-dimensional dynamism [1] of strategy render it impossible to be located (loss of trace); a traceability which is prerequisite for all voluntary participations of different entities / agencies with strategy. To this extent, who can guarantee strategy is in the battlefield when it is supposed to be and not somewhere else engineering war polytics of its own? This sinister question is always concealed by lines of command which frequently seek to communicate with strategy through the plane of logistics to protect their military survival, both ‘by’ and ‘from’ strategy: A political irony, which results in political pollution and gradual but brutal erosion of the state’s macropolitics. 565

[1] also the multiplying semiotics of strategy: multiplicative trajectories -- not disappearance of trajectories -- enmesh an intricate space of traces instead of cutting all traces (which consequently produces an empty space or 'politics of disappearance' appropriate for the state’s simulacra industry.) Such an empty space made out of the 'aesthetic of disappearance' is a latent factory for producing the State's invisible warmachines. northanger: seek to communicate with strategy = 39 = BEING OPEN (you know Reza, if i permutate your name i get the name of my father) Nick Land: Reza - we want you back! Tachi - "Aren't you still relying on some semantic relation between the words that a given number shares to confirm some significance to the number?" Still going to be a bit evasive here because I'm hoping for a long wave of discussion on all this, so just a truncated response at the moment. Think there are probably a multiplicity of qabbalistic agendas, procedures, agencies, motivations and functions. Hyperstitionally, it would be expected that each carrierline had a singular qabbalistic orientation, without any possibility of totalization by a master-position or 'Qabbalistic philosophy'. As this thread has demonstrated, qabbalistic practices and performances are evidently able to run away without the need for any coherent theory, legitimation or purpose. This could be attested from the perspective of occult history, hyperstitional method, technological potential or sheer empiricism (back to this thread). So IMHO (= 81 = CCRU) 'theory' has a secondary position, 'making sense' of what has already begun to operate, appropriating it to a variety of strategies or research programmes (Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals springs to mind, but that's probably just me). The importance of the viral schema is at least in part that it captures this priority of the practical - why does virus spread? It can be technized (as a genetic engineering tool for instance), it might become adopted into a piece of ecological machinery, bacteria uses it to swap information, it might even follow some deep strategy imperceptable to current human microbiology - but basically it just spreads, because spreading works and anything that doesn't spread most probably doesn't get to do anything else either. 566

On your more specific question about whether qabbala is parasitic upon significance, it seems to me the opposite is more the case. The 'scandal' of qabbalistic affinities is that they produce cross-linkages on the basis of supposedly arbitrary informational properties, so that any significance whatsoever should be dismissed as 'pure coincidence' from the perspective of logical communication. Of course, working with words - on a tide of primary decoding - always offers the opportunity to exploit the code (as a surplus value), for the purpose of demonstration, communicative inflection or simple stratic assimilation (as Undercurrent says, we are all amphibiously half-glued into the strata, so the 'ideal' of an absolute qabbalistic intelligence perfectly indifferent to the conventional semiotics of language belongs to science fiction or horror, not for sure to any of 'us' except as an unsustainable pretention). Given that your stimulating questions seem to be posed entirely at the level of conventional linguistic values - with qabbalistic 'argument' (by way of numerical equivalences) playing no apparent role, I can only assume you are not suggesting indifference to such quotidian semiotics on your own part - of course the bulk of communicative interaction between semistratic beings will remain deeply enmeshed in these lexical values. I hope I am not entirely losing the gist of your question here. Qabbalism is a signals processing technique, and my guess is that there is a delight in pattern-hunting that hints at realms of subterranean sense and profoundly unfamiliar intelligences, opening the narrowly structured world of social conversation onto chaotic (coincidence-drenched) 'societies' of unimagined kinds. Qabbalism is like SETI, although (I guess) the signaletic material it processes is vastly more intricately structured and suggestive. That qabbalistic results could be anything other than frivolous noise is a prospect so extreme, that the mere intimation of it is sufficient to cast the qabbalist into an intoxicating encounter with 'Outsideness'. Why are people lured into listening to elctromagnetic buzz from distant stars, playing with ouija boards, participating in vudu rituals, reading Lovecraft ... my guess is that "what all the fun is about" is the same in every case - making contact with the Outside. Obviously hoping there'll be much more on this question ... Time-lapsing right out of the thread - missed the last three comments - so Reza, can we relax now? northanger: Hex 81 = CCRU {DR:9} 567

GoN 81 = LET HIM THAT READETH UNDERSTAND {Mark 13:14} (this phrase is DR:9 in Hex and GoN) undercurrent: Noam, Tachi : a certain trickster once proposed to me : 'hermetic practices have no subversive potential'. I love to play, but I'm still unconvinced on this main point. So, thanks to Reza for his response to this. Digital tech has an affinity with this stuff at least insofar as it can accelerate it with uncertain results. Must say that I find the 'attractor-plumbing' aspect more interesting than the comparison of 'final results'. Will try to digest Nick and Reza's substantial posts and be back later (must try to spend some time _away_ from the keyboard today) Everyone: just post up here the specifications for other matrices and I will add them to the default options. Reza: hope that whatever it is has been fought off for now. Nick Land: TACHI = 86 = REZA ... join the '14' apocalypse club (140 = VAUUNG, my [HeX] qabbalistic twin) ... as far as my researches with Reza have been able to ascertain, smells pretty goddamn sulphurous in the 14 territories ... NORTHANGER = 210 = COUNTDOWN ... what's that about? There's been something vaguely terrifying about your recent comments (hope you don't take exception to the 'vaguely' and 'recent') - finally actually looked at the GoN on the Gematrix and (of course) you're right - I've got a talent for blindness (the Smurfs found me so ineducable they spat me out after drilling holes in my mind) "LET HIM THAT READETH UNDERSTAND" - did you follow the Sufi link? - a certain resonance with this northanger: nick, NORTHANGER = 210 = COUNTDOWN ah, that means, i should go to bed now. do i hafta? me ... terrifying? :O) 568

your talent for blindness is exceeded by your talent for sheer utter density. feel better? In the heat of, uh, relocating my signal (since I dropped it somewhere along the logistical coastline) I did relay Sufi's excellent link and must extend extensive, uh, exquisities in that direction. ;) undercurrent: nick, reza - your two posts above take things into exactly the zone I had hoped: the question of radical arbitrariness (melting significance into generalised kabbalistic non-sense) has incredible importance to pop-philosophy/conceptual contagions/transversal material semiotics (see coincidence of my recent post on space invaders http://blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/2004/12/insert_coinsfor.html ) . Also good to see explicitly the evolution of the 'admit it, it's signifiance/admit it, it's not' differend into a more fertile 'amphibious' form (signifiance as fatal flaw or proneness-to-virus). Hope to build on this (but could someone please start a new thread!). What is Prime-R? On the question of digital acceleration, presumably you could run the whole dictionary through something like this and end up with a model of all connections at all levels of vertical descent - hasn't anyone thought to do this before? Tachi: Nick - thanks for your reply to my poopering question; actually not really meant to spoil anything. I am pushing, lightly, gently, at where my boundaries are, just feeling out my way in this relatively new terrain. I'd like the chance to engage with some of your comments later when time permits, but want to say a big thank you for taking the time to deal with my questions seriously. [Nick] my "questions seem to be posed entirely at the level of conventional linguistic values - with qabbalistic 'argument' (by way of numerical equivalences) playing no apparent role, I can only assume you are not suggesting indifference to such quotidian semiotics on your own part" - What? I don't buy into anything special about 'meaning' or 'significance' which is why I was bothered by a seeming reliance on relationships betweeen words to confer value to shared numeric code. My greater interest is not just in questioning whether there is something wrong about leaning on linguistic semiotics to unearth raw numeric processing, but rather to provoke a shared examination of the relationship between linguistic and numeric semiotics - I am not 569

valuing 'theory' above practice, or anything like that, but just being cautious about steering libidinal energy into the most honestly productive channels. TACHI = 86 = REZA ... join the '14' apocalypse club - MORE ON THIS PLEASE! badly worded last post - I mean I am cautious since I hope to invest energy in the most productive channels ... headache, more later undercurrent: northanger: Can we expect some DECODED stuff in the near future. (strongly suggest you look that up) because DECODED=103 ? hmm...so it's clear what our duty is...:) northanger: Tachi, this may be irrating, so forgive me and i'm butting in, i know ... but if you're a 86 then you resonate to a LONG-PERIOD HIGHTLY ECCENTRIC ORBIT just like Reza which means you have as much DENSITY as Reza does (as you so richly illustrated just now) and are quite capable of setting off way amazing SORCEROUS TRIGGERS like the Great Reza. And if you became as great as Reza, well, you're a NUMBER NINE and that means you're part of that niner club thingy. hyperstitionally speaking of course Oh Great Nummifakator, {gee, i need to look that up} you're just suffering from FLUXIONAL DYNAMISM, i suggest you consult the AVATAR OF SET, make sure you reach the GATEWAYS OF SLUMBER so you can awaken to your role as one of the NEPHILIM, because you're just one of those ANGELS, y'know ... DECODED is that DR thingy you invented. DECODED is 4 in GoN and Hex. I said so way up there^ undercurrent: northanger - get some sleep :D northanger: okie dokie smokie. 570

btw, the 119th post: 119 = SACRED WORD THAT IS THE LAST LEVER OF THE KEY TO THE LITTLE DOOR BEYOND THE ABYSS {V&V;, DES, 26th Æthyr} Nick Land: As many have said before: don't you guys ever sleep? Tachi - really value your questions, and trying to respond helpfully, honest ;) See Undercurrent response to my response - think approach has interesting and producive similarities to yours, viz invigorating skepticism and a prediliction for the interrogative mode - definitely not remotely irritating (except in the best sense of the word) - hope the headache not Hyperstition induced (copious amounts of qabbalistic debauch, alcohol, sleeplessness and anxiety about theocratic oppression helps a lot IMHO) northanger - as usual, you're overloading the circuits - I'm heading into DECODED now so you can see I'm behind the curve - confident I'm not the only one ... 119 - keeps coming up - what was that all about? -Reza and I were planning a qabbalistic dictionary so we could immediately access this kind of thing (forgotten qabbalistic complexes) - interested? (Undercurrent has cranked this notion up by galactic magnitudes if I'm understanding the suggestion) Undercurrent - clock is excellent addition to the site, suddenly technology is on our side! Now I can watch everyone's sleep deprivation in real time. "prime-R?" - you know this already, R = [HeX] 27, 27th prime = 103. Strongly recommend immersion in the shallows of the prime number series (at least up to prime-Z = 149), they're delicious. "presumably you could run the whole dictionary through something like this ..." what whole dictionary? You mean like the OED? - us sad qabbalistic day-labourers don't even get to imagine thoughts like that - that's what florid technoschizoids are for. Wow! This planet really is going to cook! Yes we do need a new post/thread - but we could always shift upstairs a level, where Tachi was before the numbo-jumbo party dragged him down here to the basement. I get a week off from Thursday so I'm now delaying the long promised Post 'til then maybe Reza's got a more immediate plan 571

northanger - "but if you're a 86 then you resonate to a LONG-PERIOD HIGHTLY ECCENTRIC ORBIT just like Reza" - how on earth do you discover things like this? (did i mention the word 'terrifying' or - more to the point - UTTER HORROR - something like a CHRONOSEISMIC DISTURBANCE, as all the DAMNED-TO-THE-ABYSS-SHRIEKING DOOMED NUMBER FOURTEENS slide off the edge of the world to COOK IN HELL) Tachi take note ;) (Reza knows already) Az-Zamacheryand = 2 CRAZY ACE FLYBOYS = Shaytan = 370: "Az-Zamacheryand = 2 CRAZY ACE FLYBOYS = Shaytan = 370" ... whose prophetic insights ... seem to have thrown Hyperstition into a major international crisis ... Note to readers: Please try to be sensitive to intercultural vulnerabilities of this space - we don't want to censor discussion, but some of us occupy precarious situations. My sincere apologies for deleting your post ... as you may have noticed i live in iran so the post was a bit 'too problematic'. i hope you understand ... Nick, Reza -- I can quite see that my translation of excerpts from Qu'ran might seem a tad controversial to some, and obviously the furthest thing from my intentions in posting it was to get anyone in trouble. Also (obv.) no need to apologise for deleting it -- It only took me a few minutes to write anyway, and I think there were probably only a few funny lines (errrm, I mean, note-worthy re-translations) in there anyway (e.g. "when the oceans start to act a bit weird"). Reza -- Chomsky sends his sincere thanks for your very thought-provoking response and is about the revise 'Necessary Illusions', 'Manufacturing Content' etc. in order to take it into account ;) as Undercurrent says, we are all amphibiously half-glued into the strata, so the 'ideal' of an absolute qabbalistic intelligence perfectly indifferent to the conventional semiotics of language belongs to science fiction or horror, not for sure to any of 'us' except as an unsustainable pretention ... Nick -- thanks for unambiguously declaring your lack of sympathy for a recently much-discussed pseudo-rationalism ... Mr Bloot nods in (open / non-conspiratorial) recognition. 572

Nick Land: Az-za Will treasure the Prophetic Book forever - thanks for understanding our second-order theofascist clampdown thistle: Fascinating discussion, all. THISTLE = 156 [my middle name] = 93 [my full name] = 358 Nick Land: thistle - If I'm remembering correctly Kenneth Grant had a real 156 thing going thistle: http://www.billheidrick.com/works/hgemat.htm [my first name] = 82 = Full of Holes [my last name] = 183 = Field of Blood, weapons of war But a question for everyone here: What becomes of the meaning-values of numbers expropriated from one linguistic context to another? Is there a way of accounting for the gloss in translation from, say, English gematria to Hebrew? Also, is there an Atlantean alphabet? nick, 156 = KAOS/BABALON, the great beast and the whore of revelations, conjoined. This is via Hebrew transliteration, I think. http://www.biroco.com/kaos/ I haven't read any Grant to speak of. Care to elaborate? northanger: As many have said before: don't you guys ever sleep? sleep deprivation is the poor man's drug 358 {Enochian: expletive deleted} 573

{777 - 419 = 358} //Heb 358 = Shame; Shilo shall come; the Messiah, Nechesh, the Serpent that initiated Eve; (Taking the three HB:H's in AHYHVH as concealing the Mothers, we get GR:Iota. GR:Alpha. GR:Omega. &) AShYAVM// {darnit. that came up the other day but i forgot the context. goes to show if you don't write these things down they come back to bite you in your ... is that a prophetic pun? yes indeedy it is: PROPHETIC PUN = 7 = [my first name]) good morning, thistle. nice to see ya. undercurrent: ...still digesting this 'good meal'... You mean like the OED? - us sad qabbalistic day-labourers don't even get to imagine thoughts like that yeah, well...you workers and your 'intense hobbies', eh, LOL! Actually I think it would be more interesting, instead of doing a dictionary, to do an actual piece of text (ie the hyperstition archive, geology of morals, or something) and see what sort of banding/patterning is displayed on the numerical/vertical mulch plane. Will have to think about this a bit longer tho'. thistle: Good morning, northanger. GOOD MORNING = 230 (Yes, not writing these things down can be frustrating. I've had at least four other 230s since investigating undercurrent's converter.) 358 has shown up in just about every intro to qabalah I've looked at, because of the serpent-messiah equivalence. Ah, here it is. BOOK OF SOYGA = 230. undercurrent: Yes, not writing these things down can be frustrating. maybe instead of running a text through it, a good (more pleasingly piecemeal) feature would be to record all results from all users and then show matches with the current result. 574

I believe this is what the microserfs call 'feature creep' northanger: thistle, http://essenes.net/gem2.html 230 ANNULLING [5x46,10x23p] Cairo Calendar: Stay home today, very adverse. Historical date: Entry of the Procession of the Equinoxes into the middle Decan of Taurus, approximately 3500 BC, the approx. conjectured time of the first Dynasty (according to the "Secret Science.") ANNULLING, Knifelike actions, or phalanx movements. just as i read your post i was finishing this ... think they resonate somehow: http://blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/2004/12/insert_coinsfor.html 10 = BOUSTROPHEDON {H/G DR:1} = NUMOGRAM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon {well, you can run gon1 one direction and gon2 another direction; N (1 and 0) is the connector} 15 = boustrophedon movement = AL = {4-letter curse word} = NO GOD = SATAN = APSE Apse: (exedra), space defined by a wall with a semicircular, or curved, or polygonal ground plan. It is usually vaulted with a semi-dome. When used in this sense, the word exedra (pl. exedrae) is an alternative term. Another common definition of "apse" is a semicircular or polygonal recess at the eastern end of a Christian church that houses an altar. However, if an altar is present in an apse then a more precise definition would be "altar apse", or "east facing apse", or "sanctuary". 127 = Need to calculate relative trajectories with pinpoint precision 0 = The xenovirus spreads transversally 34 = alien xenotonic compulsions 575

40 = WELL DONE EARTHLING THIS TIME YOU WIN 16 = NOW DO BATTLE WITH OUR SUPER FORCES 50 = vertical descent 52 = transversal material semiotics {H/G DR:7} 53 = conceptual contagions 31 = 'amphibious' form 80 = signifiance as fatal flaw or proneness-to-virus Nick, Thelema = Number = Crypt = Theta = 127 = TX (((((:))))) ... been meaning to tell you, THETA does not equal 127 in Hex. you need to calculate relative trajectories with pinpoint precision. nick, northanger - as usual, you're overloading the circuits - I'm heading into DECODED now so you can see I'm behind the curve - confident I'm not the only one ... 119 - keeps coming up - what was that all about? -Reza and I were planning a qabbalistic dictionary so we could immediately access this kind of thing (forgotten qabbalistic complexes) - interested? (Undercurrent has cranked this notion up by galactic magnitudes if I'm understanding the suggestion) ah. BOUSTROPHEDON 119-911? OVERLOADING THE CIRCUITS = 51 {what do you want me to say?} i have 1,946 GoN I values (not counting what i just put up) in my dictionary ... which can either calculate my interest level, illustrate how much sleep i really get, or how obsessive i can really be. overloading circuits = i feel your pain? lol. 576

brain fart: how many ciphers are you covering? 7, 9? in the Great Nummifakator's gematrix (is that what you call that thing?) you need parameters that immediately "parse" that too if you do that you know... nick, i'm so sorry. i just like - posting! since my calendar needs updating (i need to run a ton of ephemerides) and i'm in a new 12-day cycle with no planetary positions feeling like time is dead stop ... why don't i go work on that for awhile and give this blog a break. thistle: Good morning...stay home today...knifelike actions, or phalanx movements... Yes, this makes sense. The Book of Soyga, it was claimed--by the angels--was given by the angels to Adam in his innocence. Reading this in Reed's essay on the structure of the Soyga's tables [ http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~reedsj/soyga.html ], I was struck by this idea of a book in Eden. What need for literacy in Eden? Unless the "book" was written otherwise, not a writing but what makes writing possible--difference, repetition, quantity, combinoric of forgotten signs deeply embedded, programmed into the Adamachine. The other interpretation is this: hyperstitional enochian entities were using John Dee as a medium to promote their own program of colonizing time, backdating written history into unspeakable prehistory. Hence the angels of the hours. Time guarded by knives in the air. Yes, maybe the Enochian tablets are a hoax, but a hoax perpetrated by unknown beings... northanger: thistle, lol. synchronicity. i go outside just now and my neighbor asks whether i needed a calendar, she had two. sure. she's adorable, one day she showed me this mason ring her father wore -- i'd never seen one before -- and there's this latin phrase: Virtus Junxit Mors Non Separabit. she didn't know what it meant, so i looked it up for her: WHOM VIRTUE HAS UNITED, DEATH SHALL NOT SEPARATE = 81 (ah, krakotor? what's that word Reza?) 361, good morning thistle: northanger, your latin reminded me of the phrase 'lignum crucis arbor scientiae,' of which I was writing and reeling some time ago. 577

lignum crucis arbor scientiae = The wood of the cross is the tree of knowledge = 777 gridded, aerosolized time = ? northanger: thistle, gridded, aerosolized time = 81 hmm. where's the apple? nick, - how on earth do you discover things like this? (did i mention the word 'terrifying' or - more to the point - UTTER HORROR - something like a CHRONOSEISMIC DISTURBANCE, as all the DAMNED-TO-THE-ABYSS-SHRIEKING DOOMED NUMBER FOURTEENS slide off the edge of the world to COOK IN HELL) -blrrp!how on earth do you discover things like this? = 46 what is the DEAL with FOURTEEN? the good twin mentioned FOURTEEN too. (51 - 15) = 36 = COOK IN HELL CHRONOSEISMIC DISTURBANCE = 70 = ¤I was more or less doing absolutely nothing at the time {Liber Arachnid Commentary} CHRONOSEISMIC DISTURBANCE = 482 {oops .... been meaning to put this one up and 481 reminded me --> ANNULUS = -4} this might be offensive to some cultures reading this blog ... i can send the reference to you directly, nicholas WHERE'S THE APPLE? = 35/287 (gon/hex) another DR trigger: 8 8 = GREAT WORK {the art of doing this is putting stuff in the dictionary that matters to YOU or to the GROUP that you're analyzing -- i'm censoring #35} 578

35 = ABBEY [as in Northanger Abbey]; The worst foe lies within the self {PARASITE EVE tagline}; THE LORD OF THE RINGS 37 = what the heck is a Pars Azymorum? = PALLADIUM = ANNAEL = ARGENTINA 287 = 287 NEPTHTHYS [7x41p] http://essenes.net/gem3.html -18 = Pars Azymorum = THIRTY-TWO PATHS OF WISDOM Az-za, nice seeing ya, you crazy ace flyboy. {for some reason, your name reminds me of.... http://www.songofazrael.org/azrael-tyson.html} undercurrent: http://www.urbanomic.com/gematrix.html is version 2.0 with the addition of a hyperglossolalary. If you type something and wait in a second you'll see the equivalences at all levels of DR (within the same system). There are no mappings for numbers at the moment (should they just map to themselves?) You can add to the glossolalary with the button on the right. From a bit of experimentation it gets most interesting when you discover certain phrases 'contain' others (ie KUMBAYA=137, but at DR2 it=11, therefore KUMBAYA contains DEATH and TIME !) Please don't all go too insane at once (northanger this means you :)...we have limited server space/processor power... Nick Land: northanger, thistle - now you're both swarming in synch looks like we'll pass 200 anytime now. 579

Obviously need a 'focused' Enochian Tables discussion some time (somewhere deep in the past would be cool and fitting) - "a hoax perpetrated by unknown beings..." is right up our alley, so to speak We'll 'do' Kenneth Grant sometime soon, his Lovecraft obsession is hyperstitionally twisted in an intriguing way Getting to the stage where if I can't get into the Nummificator it's impossible to communicate at all (Undercurrent - when will it be available as a neural implant?) - so I better head off to work ... Undercurrent "I believe this is what the microserfs call 'feature creep'" - excellent (Dr Evil cackle). don't think I'm going to get to load it before heading off to work (my bandwidth here is pathetic), but maybe should remind you that HeX 'alphabet' is 0-Z not A-Z. Y2K = 56, not 54 (which from a Khattakoid PoV is kind of disappointing) Tachi: Nick: "UTTER HORROR - something like a CHRONOSEISMIC DISTURBANCE, as all the DAMNED-TO-THE-ABYSS-SHRIEKING DOOMED NUMBER FOURTEENS slide off the edge of the world to COOK IN HELL) Tachi take note ;)" = Eek! DESIRE=6 WAR=6 MASH DOWN BABYLON=6 thanks for the upgrade undercurrent! Nick Land: Tachi - stiff upper lip and all that, you know what the Dark Prince said: "better a cook in hell than a burger-flipper in heaven" northanger: Wicked, wicked (oooo) - had to kick it I'm not shy so I asked for the digits Nick Land: All Tachi's sixes have reminded me that I've got to try and mobilize a glossary shift - Stillwell uses HEX (= 64) as a term of Numogram cartography, for 580

the inner wheel of the Numogram (Vysparov's "Time Circuit") - perfect combination of I Ching (numerical) and occult allusions plus qabbalistic exactitude. Hyperhex/Anglossic/Barrow gematria has a far less compelling call on 'Hex' IM(in this case not very)HO ... so unless people start calling it something else I'll start stamping my foot and pouting [I'll use AQ, for Alphanumeric Qabbalism, until one of you guys comes up with something better] PS. Of course, since AQ = 36, maybe no one will. northanger: you think you're so cute nicholas :Þ Tachi: Hi Nick, do you think it would be helpful to have a brief summary of the different gematria out here being used, just to avoid confusion? I mean, a simple table, with name of each gematria at the top of each column, say, plus the number-letter twinning running down each double-column. One thing that has become apparent it that the blog format is pretty limited to cope with such runaway interactivity, locking it into the stratic confines of a post which has no clear relation to emergent productivity. I don't mean to encourage an overorganization of information, but I do think we need to think about how to harness production most effectively. Relying on the location of a supposedly relevant post to free up the generation of heat doesn't work, so I suggest a review of the structure of the site, with a view to allowing spontaneous interactivity structure the site itself. Of course not being a tekki I am perhaps talking out of my ANNULUS, but maybe this will spur ... Northanger: IRON SHARPENS IRON Tachi: Undercurrent, this Nummificator is addictive. What can I do to stop feeding the fucking thing? Nick, this glossary is going to explode out from the Nummificator sometime soon .. but INYHO are we using the wrong gematria, and if so, why? 581

Nick Land: northanger - call me 'nicholas' again and i'll set Vauung on you - unless you've got some warped 153 thing you want to talk about, and probably even then [:Þ :Þ] Secret doctine revisted: OLD NICK = CHRIST = BARROW = ROOMY (not the poet but upstairs on Q&A; thread)= ISLAM + W = prime-W [can't do GoN in my head, so plunged even deeper into AQ fanaticism until finishing work - and this is my late night] Tachi - Reza's great at diagrams - sounds like a good idea (the Gematrix kind of serves this purpose in the interim, and at the rate it's being upgraded i wouldn't put too much weight on 'kind of') northanger: nicky, you're just a young pup, a young war dog. quit yapping. ah, now i see nicholas what your real problem is! AQ=36 --- so, i can go toe-to-toe with you on any 153 issues. [:Þ :Þ :Þ] Nick Land: northanger - 'YOUNG' is REALLY funny for a NUMBER of reasons northanger - PS (= DOG). :Þ:Þ:Þ:Þ Or KALI-type E-DOG. SORRY (says VAUUNG), put down the e-dog, my virtual gematrix chip is malfunctioning. It should have just been a YAP dog, as you said, it's Undercurrent who has the DOGGY. northanger: nicholas [1] do you know what your name means etymologywise? ++ [2] has anyone taught you basic (much less the devil's) arithmetic? [seems like a small set of repeating DR numbers w/ this tool] well, doh ... they're just 1-9. Nick Land: northanger - "do you know what your name means etymologywise?" probably knew once, but i've repressed it (assuming you're not referring to the Satan and reindeer stuff). 582

So I went here (triumphantly): http://mizian.com.ne.kr/englishwiz/library/names/etymology_of_first_names.htm Sure you can run rings around us in this territory … "has anyone taught you basic (much less the devil's) arithmetic?" - missed out on the evil nuns ... northanger: you tricky thing! http://www.collings-system.se/man/CollingName.htm Nick Land: northanger - what was that "basic arithmetic" question about exactly (and remember, I can't access the Nummificator until much later, so anything too GoN will not impact)? Are you at all worried about the effect 72 hours of unceasing qabbalistic calculation might be having on your nervous system? northanger: nick....this snarky question has anyone taught you basic (much less the devil's) arithmetic? is probably due to this... Are you at all worried about the effect 72 hours of unceasing qabbalistic calculation might be having on your nervous system? yes. Nick Land: BtW - Where's Reza? northanger: ::running to check my mail box:: he wanted me to post something, brb Reza Negarestani: Another quick note, thanks to northanger for posting this for me: These calculations are driving me mad; I am coming to this conclusion that they gradually induce savage metamorphoses to the so-called mind / cognitive patterns. Surely, at this point, we should bring the subject of Krypts to our discussions. Krypts or subterranean paths should be ‘ex-humed’ (ungrounded) instead of discovered, traced or engineered (much of Anonymous-until-Now here), they have no architectonic value (they do not work as accommodating / dwelling systems thus 583

resistant to processes of modulation which can be superimposed to carriers through the channel’s conductive / capacitating structure71). When a krypt is exhumed, it starts to cross-contaminate (restlessly engineering bonds and connections) the zones of the numogram, especially the apparently disconnected, ir-relevant and out-of-reach zones (exhuming virally latent paths). When the process reaches its functional autonomy, it enmeshes a nested krypt-network, a launch pad for hyperstition vortices. Krypt does not produce anything in a conventional sense but exhume anomalous events-entitiespaths by participating with the ground in subversive ways (look for the process of exhumation at hyperstition and cold me). ‘...’ = ‘...’ = ‘...’= ‘...’ which of course does not emphasize on sameness or equivalency but excessive connections and artificialized correlativity, works in a similar way; it does not permit any probing line (process of thinking?) follows a particular mode of conductivity, that is to say, it does not allow a probing line to switch72 between different correlations / connections according to its spatio-temporal or internal relations with a particular subject (the object of exploration) and opening its probing route based on these affordance-based selections or switching mechanisms, and eventually constructing an economical line of exploration. These kryptoid equations exhume (exploiting the established ground as an artificializing space) excessive tunnels, burrows and subterranean paths73 between subjects, currents and zones which gradually begin to undermine any ground supporting selective/affordance71 Through a channel, signals are varied continuously according to the content of modulating signal which is intrinsic to the architectonic / encoding structure of the channel; the channel’s machinery is capable of ‘trapping’ noise for correcting and error-detecting purposes at the reception point (noise is introduced to the channel to be rejected or to be exact, working as an additive for smoothing the process of recovering and reconstructing the desired signal through a pre-programmed variation [disparity or negation-based difference], and finally saving the synchronous data hierarchy in the channel) or where the signal is delivered to the arrival zone which can be a receiver, another channel or a political target. However, sometimes as a result of anomalous participations between carriers, loss of modulation, alterations (as a result of sabotage, etc.) in the architectonic / conductive structure of the channel or introducing excessive carriers to the channel, overloading (etc.), the signal-to-noise ratio progressively decreases. The channel is not suffocated at this point but is reinvented as a space of an-omalie, a flood of anomalies. 72 Every switching mechanism operates by affordance-based interruptions, shifting the path or the current in the circuit according to its management logics towards economic displacements and investments. 584

based lines of exploration (thinking?); ungrounding the zone of exploration by artificializing redundant bonds (redundant to the economy of the ‘grund’) and making the zone ready for launching the line of flight is one of the most crucial tasks of polytics towards the Outside. This process of ungrounding (which here is carried out by nummificators) should never end since the radical journey to the outside constantly feeds on the corpse-of-solidus (the Unground) to be opened by the outside instead of accommodating it (what the grund is trying to fulfill; see ‘Sorcerers and Necromancers: part v’). The effective presence (the affect space) of any hyperstitional carrier to other carriers highly increases through krypts. Nick, let’s exhume some dusty krypts of WoT for future posts. Sleep deprivation: The chronopolytics of Islamic apocalypticism (inherited from the Z-crowd) works with restless insomnia. Don’t ask me why because you will read about it in the coming piece about time and Islamic apocalypticism. ==================================== Nick + Az-Zamacheryand, Have you read or heard about ‘Ardavieraf Nameh’ (perhaps the most influential book on the monotheistic visions of heaven and hell) written by ‘Ardavieraf, the mage’ (or as in Persian Mogh) who has been certainly an agent / a puppet of the Z-crowd? If not, I’ll write about it. Undercurrent, Superb discussions, love these oscillations between rigorous investigations and foaming agitations ... btw, the clock looks awesome. As you know, I can’t access to the net atm; so I’d be grateful if you add a link to your neuro-assassinating machine to the side bar; perhaps under a new category (any name you wish) because we are going to add more diagrams, machines, virus-proliferators to hyperstition in the future. And please don’t forget to credit yourself as the engineer. ;) undercurrent: It seems you've taken my warnings on server overload a bit too seriously, V. disappointed to wake up this morning and find the glossolalary-entrycount only in triple-figures, I was hoping it would have reached the thousands... HeX 'alphabet' is 0-Z not A-Z 585

ok, will add alphanumbers - I assume they'd map to themselves in GoN too? do you think it would be helpful to have a brief summary of the different gematria out here being used, just to avoid confusion? I second this tachi, I'd like to see it all 'spelled out'. Meanwhile, we need to return to the vigorous pursuit of meta-qabbalogical clarity to prevent this from turning entirely into a nicholas-northanger flirt thread ('call 0900-QABBALA-CHAT to meet other people like you!') Nick Land: Reza - “The chronopolytics of Islamic apocalypticism“ - just what we need to get the WoT lines re-started "Have you read or heard about ‘Ardavieraf Nameh'" - really love to be able to say yes, but no. "If not, I’ll write about it" - please. (my computer's trying to insist that i write in Chinese which is a little irritating) undercurrent: Reza/everyone : 'cryptomats' was the best I could come up with please replace as see fit... Nick Land: Undercurrent - you're placing your AQ mastery in the service of dubious forces - FLIRT = THREAD = BABALON northanger - OK, see at last that 153 (= multiple of secret-magical-number-not-tobe-named)- now what? northanger: should i be paranoid, angry, or what? LOL, oh i forgot to do the numbers. You guys are simulating enders game. why me?! {multiple of secret-magical-number-not-to-be-named} Nick Land: northanger - "paranoid, angry, or what?" about what? northanger: acquired i mean, i got the joke (the number) and while i didn't do the division i got it another way (always wondered about where you got the DIVIDE part) "paranoid, angry, or what?" about what? 586

ah, take a wild guess and put yourself in my shoes Nick Land: northanger - now i'm totally lost northanger: i got invited to this party nick. i'm the one that's lost. who is Ardavieraf Nameh? oh boy, are you going to make me run around again? Nick Land: northanger - more time-slippage - i was already lost one comment previously to the one it looks as if i'm responding to with idiotic insensitivity, but actually idiotic insensitivity is worth a try, it works well with this crowd (probably better than paranoia, anger, or even what?) - i'm going to make it my standard fallback position Just think 200 (comments) northanger: lol, i have to go look (you are making me run around!!} {checkmate} Nick Land: And (as if by magic) we're all back in the basement. Az-zaamacheryand = 2 CRAZY ACE FYBOYS = SHAYTAN = 370: "Have you read or heard about ‘Ardavieraf Nameh'" - really love to be able to say yes, but no. "If not, I’ll write about it" - please. Ditto, do tell! Bloot: 'hermetic practices have no subversive potential' northanger: lol ah, i'm afraid to permutate that name (Ardavieraf Nameh) undercurrent: well, as if to prove heronprole right, watching this is indeed just as tedious as reading about cold rationalism. Nick Land: Has anyone run UNDERCURRENT'S ABYSMAL NUMMIFICATOR through Undercurrent's Abysmal Nummificator yet? northanger: it certainly is. 587

Nick Land: Ha! -time-slippage! northanger: yeah, so ah, get out of the basement, that's a line of flight hermetic practices have no subversive potential what does this mean? bloot: 'hermetic practices have no subversive potential' (bloot [ascribed]) Well, it's just as well -- it's always best to have a good hard think about precisely what it is you're aiming to overturn and why before you start randomly 'subverting' all over the place IMHO. Nick Land: Is qabbalism problematical or mysterious? It seems to participate amphibiously in both domains, proceeding according to rigorously constructible procedures - as attested by the affinity with technicization - yet intrinsically related to an Outsideness through which alone it could derive programmatic sense. If there is no source of at least partially coherent signal that is radically alien to the entire economy of conventional human interchange, then qabbalism is nothing but a frivolous entertainment or a fundamentally futile practical error. Yet unlike any kind of metaphysical assault on 'the noumenal', qabbalism cannot be definitively critiqued on a purely rational or formal basis, as if its mode of 'error' was that of logical fallacy. Since qabbalism is a practical programme, rather than a doctrine of any kind, its formal errors - mistakes - are mere calculative irregularities, and correcting these is actually a procedural requirement of (rather than an objection to) its continued development. It is the rational dismissal of 'the' qabbalistic enterprise that is forced to take a metaphysical stance: ruling out on grounds of supposed principle what is in fact no more than a guiding 'empirical' hypothesis (that signal from 'outside the system' is detectable by numerical analysis of codes circulating within the system). Epistemologically speaking, qabbalistic programmes have a status strictly equivalent to that of experimental particle physics, or other natural scientific search programmes, even if their guiding hypotheses might seem decidedly less plausible than those dominant within mainstream scientific institutions. 588

Lovecraft understood the epistemological affinity between natural science and programmatic (as opposed to doctrinal) occultism, since both venture into regions once declared mysterious, following procedures of a rigorously calculativeproblematical type. It is the alliance between purely speculative metaphysics and common sense that betrays such affairs of pure reason to futility, since they lack the calculative traction to revise their own conventional notions on the basis of their encounters. Practices - however implausible their guiding motivations - can know nothing of absolute mystery or metaphysical transcendence because their realm of certainty is procedural-problematic and uncontroversial, whereas their reserve of knowledge is empirical, refutable, repeatable, revisable, nonmystical and accumulable [the distinction between the Nummificator calaculator and glossary exactly captures this distinction]. There may be know 'empirical', procedurally aproachable mysteries - or mysterious problems - of the kind qabbalism guides itself towards. If so, it will approach this fact in its own way - empirically, probabilistically, impressionistically, without any logical, transcendental or philosophical meta-discourse ever having been positioned to put it in its place. undercurrent: thanks for answer, nick - unfortunately just on my way out but have a look here: http://www.urbanomic.com/banding.html a first attempt at visualising the 'texture' of the HEX numbering-system, this shows the density-clusters between 0-300 (you should be able to right-click to zoom in. This is 'live' so as more words are added, presumably the banding will become more distinct (and, also presumably, different languages/uses of language would be characterized by different banding patterns - the pattern probably says something about the relative use of higher-value letters...must try to think about this properly...) later... Nick Land: Bloot - do you think it's possible you're projecting this 'subversion' issue? Can't see it playing much role in the discussion here so far. Qabbalistic practices are so thermonuclear in terms of quotidian significances, that to valorize them as part of a subversive politics would be the equivalent of valorizing the K/T Missile (cosmic saurian killing rock) as a genetic engineering tool - OK it 'engineered' some DNA, but there's a several magnitudes scaling problem 589

Chaos politics is an adolescent excuse for orgiastic sensation - not necessarily dissing it, just describing it accurately Undercurrent - getting first chance to play with the upgraded nummificator - cool or what ...(As they'd say in the horror B-movie 'My God man! What have you done!') thistle - CTHULHU = 156 (GoN 11). Since K. Grant was a Crowleyite 'mauve zone' DAATH-freak and a Lovecraft obsessive, it works quite well both sides Tachi: Nick - "It is the rational dismissal of 'the' qabbalistic enterprise that is forced to take a metaphysical stance: ruling out on grounds of supposed principle what is in fact no more than a guiding 'empirical' hypothesis (that signal from 'outside the system' is detectable by numerical analysis of codes circulating within the system). Epistemologically speaking, qabbalistic programmes have a status strictly equivalent to that of experimental particle physics, or other natural scientific search programmes, even if their guiding hypotheses might seem decidedly less plausible than those dominant within mainstream scientific institutions." Great post Nick, thanks. First, is it clear that attempts to rule out 'the' qabbalistic enterprise are strictly in principle? If so, is this because there cannot be any empirical grounds for ruling it out - nothing would falsify - like with astrology etc? And if so again, is the retort that it doesn't matter at all, since what is important is not any metaphysical or empiral claim, but the way the enterprise functions as an open system? If all this follows, is the implication that people's beliefs about qabbala are all wrong and irrelevant(since some people do *believe*), and that the way information is processed by qabbala is what is important, the way the 'outside' is communicated? Does this mean that the truly 'wise' sages probably understood that no truth lurks in the qabbala - as with the i ching - but that instead what is important is the relation betwen inputs and outputs (libidinal investments and affects)? Nick Land: Tachi - guess i'm arguing here (bound to hit incoherence since this is hyperstitionally completely unprocessed) that qabbala is an experimental cultural 'technology' which is even more doctrinally uncommitted than your "what is important is the relation between inputs and outputs (libidinal investments and affects)" - not that i have any problem with your take of the issue Look at the nummificator (yet again ;)) - who can prejudge its potential 'applications', yet its qabbalistic character is (i'm assuming this is uncontroversial) utterly manifest 590

The more qabbalism technizes itself, evacuating doctrinal prejudices, the more it escalates its potentiality FASCISM = ANARCHY ANTICHRIST = REVELATION POPULAR NUMERACY = SLEEP DEPRIVATION thistle: TROLLISM = LIBERALISM = NIETZSCHE AMPHIBOLOGY ("The science of false knowledge") = GoN 31, HeX 222 = 6 DIVINE COBBLE ("to make makeshift shoes for The Path") = 66/210 = 3 COBBLISM = 37/147 = 12 = 3 HERMETIC PRACTICES HAVE NO SUBVERSIVE POTENTIAL = 872 = 17 =8 PLAYING TIDDLYWINKS IN HELL = 510 = 6 MR RHIZOME HEAD (Cthulhu) = 260 = GLOBALIZATION Nick Land: thistle - to be honest, think you need to put more marketing effort into pumping up the 'miracle' aspect of your qabbalistic discoveries While us adepts immediately understand the arcane significance of "PLAYING TIDDLYWINKS IN HELL = 510 = 6" this could get lost among the lower orders of occult insight Undercurrent - while not exactly delighted about raising the grief-freighted subject of deletion, can already see a problem emerging in the hyperglossolalary ('Derida' and suchlike - had other examples, but sleep deprivation executes a very effective 'delete' command all of its own) - don't know what the best answer to this is, but assuming no one wants bizarre mis-spellings accumulating like junk DNA. PS. ROGER TRIGG seems to be doing well between CYBERGOTHIC and TECHNOLOGY - always knew he was a cutting edge kind of cat. thistle: nick--more or less agreed. i'll stick to the necessary. 591

MARKETING TECHNIQUE = DEMONIC CONGREGATION = ADOLF HITLER northanger: nick, took liberties with GoN II, seems -1 is key, note 14 shows up, and both ciphers (GoN onsie/twosie) equal 13. what an unlucky number. A = 14 N B = 13 O C = 12 P D = 11 Q E = 10 R F = 9 S G = 8 T H = 7 U I = 6 V J = 5 W K = 4 X L = 3 Y M = 2 Z ps: note number (1) is missing from this cipher. = = = = = = = = = = = = = -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 bloot: Bloot - do you think it's possible you're projecting this 'subversion' issue? Can't see it playing much role in the discussion here so far. You need to ask undercurrent about that, since, despite appearances, the one/several who is apparently been identified with the subject-potition 'bloot' here never in fact raised that issue, but merely responded to the ascription of it to her/him/it. A careful re-tracing would reveal that it was in fact *undercurrent* who has been trying to insinuate that particular thread. He may even admit it if you ask him. But really, I'm happy for anyone to acribe to 'bloot' anything they like -- I'm not especially attached to it. Btw, we have no idea what "Chaos politics" might be, or what the relevance of the allusion to any such thing here, but are happy to take your description of whatever it may be as "an adolescent excuse for orgiastic sensation" as accurate. PS. ROGER TRIGG seems to be doing well between CYBERGOTHIC and TECHNOLOGY - always knew he was a cutting edge kind of cat. 592

Hey, let's just leave my Dad out of this, ok? You know that he's not *really* responsible for my schizophrenia, don't you? (But oh! -- the stories we could exchange about Roj!) subject-potition ? Yes, well, whatever. A wink's as good as a nudge to a blind bat; there's many a slip twixt cup and lip etc. Eh? Nevermind. northanger: 13 + 13 = 26 NTI{AL}TIA: diagonal Hex name divisible by 15 RAPHA: "invigorating"; "vigor," strength, energy, lustihood, stamina, virility, hard, potent, masculine, male, virile NEPHILIM (see NEFILIM 30) The Secrets Of Truth ERAN {Enochian Key: 18} GATEWAYS OF SLUMBER AVATAR OF SET FLUXIONAL DYNAMISM FAILURE {7 Disks} 7 is Netzach & Zn-7 [0348.78] Uranus first, there are currrents that blindside us (see, don't register) or knee-jerk reaction (really trigger happy) second, failure in what sense? {posting thoth's skew on this on journal} third, another path opens up: UNDERTAKING ARALIM Tetragrammaton (YHVH) 593

NEFILIM (see NEPHILIM 26) voodoo death The Eve within you will awaken! {Parasite Eve} NECRONOMICON i'll end with the last, since it fits so nicely. BELIAL = 7 = ROGER TRIGG DEMON KING OF HOD (Belial) = ... LOL! Meanwhile, we need to return to the vigorous pursuit of meta-qabbalogical clarity to prevent this from turning entirely into a nicholas-northanger flirt thread ('call 0900-QABBALA-CHAT to meet other people like you!') Proverbs 30:18–19 ~ There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. note: this (30/18/19) is triangulating through several posts (different locations). 18 + 19 appeared in MY=NORTHANGER deleted 55 post (does this need to go back up? and where?) sleep = something settling; sinking in (oh god these guys are fucking brilliant! -- that kinda thing, honest!) nicholas, i'm not sure whether you need to practice self-control or you are the exquisite embodiment of it. what a national treasure you are. yet i flirt again ... true mastery gets me every time. undercurrent, do you have to click the addy button twice? once for GoN and once for HeX (or, AQ)? when adding words/phrases to the glossolalary. revised GoN2: 594

GoN II 54 = BABALON GoN I = 54 = (equivocation or equivalence?) THE SHATTERED TURBULENCE (Liber Arachnid) EXPERIENCE IS BEYOND THOUGHT (Liber Arachnid) LORD OF PEACE CHAOS MAGE BAAL-ZEBUB DHYANI CHENRESI, The Lord who sees forms with his penetrating vision; translation of Sanskrit Avalokitesvara. THE SECRET LIES WITH CHARLOTTE {from the movie National Treasure; first clue} The Mind Of The All-Powerful {Enochian Key: 2} And Their Powers Are As The First 456 {Enochian Key: 4} ACAM Continual Workmen {Enochian Key: 6} The Great Name Righteousness {Enochian Key: 15} Dwelling Places {Enochian Key: 19} GATE OF INNOCENCY {Nalvage} PUREST ANCIENT MAGIC THE BOOK OF ENOCH TACTICAL LINES undercurrent: do you have to click the addy button twice? once for GoN and once for HeX (or, AQ)? when adding words/phrases to the >glossolalary. yeah, afraid so - because (as currently constructed) it only calculates in one system at a time. 595

Do you know Roger Trigg, northanger? Will add Gon II, later, when POPULAR NUMERACY = SLEEP DEPRIVATION recovery allows. I'll also make a pass at deleting the junk every now and then. northanger: undercurrent = roger trigg = [my real name] HEX TRIPLET = TIME ANOMALY = MARKETING TECHNIQUE = DEMONIC CONGREGATION = ADOLF HITLER undercurrent: nick have a reply brewing to your excellently crunchy ((C) NL) post above, but have to take some time off to match said crunchiness in response and next set of questions... northanger: Gon II POPULAR NUMERACY [=] GREAT WORK Gon II SLEEP DEPRIVATION [=] THE NUMBER NINE = INTERDIMENSIONAL ZONES = HADITH = THELEMA RECOVERY = OPEN SESAME = NUMOGRAM = DIVIDE, ADD, MULTIPLY AND UNDERSTAND RECOVERY = LOVECRAFT [=] ARCHITECTONIC ORDER OF THE ESCHATON undercurrent: added GON2, and updated the genome-print thing to show more detail in the lower (1-20) register. Density on 5 and 9, I see. LEO SAYER = 172 = DAMNATION northanger: Is qabbalism problematical or mysterious? It seems to participate amphibiously in both domains, proceeding according to rigorously constructible procedures - as attested by the affinity with technicization - yet intrinsically related to an Outsideness through which alone it could derive programmatic sense. {parsing=decimal labyrinth} Do 'hermetic practices have no subversive potential'? 54 = PARTICIPATE AMPHIBIOUSLY || 15 = AMPHIBIOUSLY. whoa......gotta get a cup of coffee on that one. added GON2, and updated the genome-print thing to show more detail in the lower (1-20) register. Density on 5 and 9, I see. 596

AMPHIBIOUSLY wonderful of you, undercurrent! know i was being kinda a pushy you-know-what ;) undercurrent: and since I may as well add all the fuel I've got to the fire, try this historische model constructed years ago: http://www.urbanomic.com/enigmail.html northanger: fire away! neato: BXVCJAULGHOHYYEXCMZPST = -1 = HYPERSTITION {what is NEGATIVE ONE?} HEADLESS GOD = 55 THE UNTHOUGHT-OUT IDEALISM OF 'COLD RATIONALISM' = NUMOGRAMMICAL SELF-AWARENESS = 83 GoN II anybody, what is the problem with cold rationalism? Nick Land: northanger - "took liberties with GoN II" - indeed. [I'm trying to sound like Instapundit] You surely can't expect to get away with calling it 'GoN II' anymore (whatever the hell it is now) - unbeliveably berserk violence of your alteration leaves me a little discombobulated - "Kill god! KILL GOD!! I've got the rusty jagged butchering instrument right here in my hand ..." hack, chop, squelch ... northanger: nicholas, if you so much as delete anything in there, i will delete this post about WOMAN=111=OTHER that i am currently composing. {she said calmly} Nick Land: northanger - "what is the problem with cold rationalism?" - this has proven to be quite a dangerous question (blowing gaping holes in the blog) - some (often trollishly expressed) opinions seemed to be along the lines that it wasn't actually very cold or rational Sure others have a much better understanding of this food fight why is this such a food fight? 597

Nick Land: FOOD FIGHT = AZATHOTH Northanger: FOOD FIGHT = AZATHOTH = 171 AQ FOOD FIGHT = COLD RATIONALISM = 3DR GoN I&II; 1 + 7 + 1 = 9 = 171 9/3=3 ok nicholas, we have food fights about cold rationalism because we can't help ourselves? that's just the form it takes? a little ray of reza would work about now Nick Land: northanger - I'm just about the only person here (well I exaggerate, Reza is another, and Tachi ... oh well ...) who actually doesn't think Cold Rationalism is raping my dog northanger - "[O great and ominous Vauung] if you so much as delete anything in there [...]" - in where? northanger: "[O great and ominous Vauung] if you so much as delete anything in there [...]" in where? oh, just hallucinating, ignore! Cold Rationalism is raping my dog {oh my god, LOL} i assume dog=god and "cold rationalism rapes god". why is it believed that cold rationalism is like raping dogs? (did i state that question correctly -- assuming it's dog in general?) http://blog.urbanomic.com/undercurrent/archives/000374.html does cold rationalism have a political agenda? Nick Land: northanger - "does cold rationalism have a political agenda?" - I don't think it likes KKKapitalism, but I'm not an expert 598

northanger - "http://blog.urbanomic.com/undercurrent/archives/000374.html" that thread is quite cryptic, but also surprisingly short - I've never seen a "Cold Rationalism is raping my dog" thread under 20 comments before northanger: send me one nick, are you a cold rationalist? if not, what are you? and if yes, why? Nick Land: northanger - this blog has several, also try dissensus - Bloot et al might know more MARTYR = GOD IS DEAD northanger: MARTYR = GOD IS DEAD yeah, so what? Nick Land: SHOGGOTH = AZATHOTH northanger: yeah, so what? Nick Land: northanger - "are you a cold rationalist?" - do you mean a Cold Rationalist? COUNTERCULTURE = POLAR OPPOSITES northanger: are you a.....excusemwa...Cold Rationalist? Nick Land: think I'm a 'gliberal' - but not entirely sure Cold Rationalists eat gliberals for breakfast, so it can be quite scary northanger: of course you're a gliberal, else, you wouldn't be you. do AIs have agendas? Nick Land: northanger - "do AIs have agendas?" - that merits more than a flip response PS. TIME SPIRAL = BEYOND BELIEF Vauung is more of a nummocratic subrationalist 599

... which is only natural AXISNORTHANGER = HEART OF DARKNESS northanger: man, this has been the best thing i have ever experienced. NICK LAND + REZA NEGARESTANI = HEART OF DARKNESS AXISNORTHANGER Ø HEART OF DARKNESS oops there it is! AXISNORTHANGER = HEART OF DARKNESS mrs bloot: northanger, what is the problem with cold rationalism? the prole above has a good definition (but of course Austin Spare would approve) Nick Land: Does this mean we've all finally cleared out of the (sub)basement? [We've certainly trashed the place] Lone Voice: Does this mean we've all finally cleared out of the (sub)basement? I wouldn't count on it. Bloot seems to have snipers stationed all over the fucking building (avoid the roof!). Nick Land: Lone Voice in Dark - Bloot has that effect on me sometimes as well ... PS. From Problems and Mysteries to Qwyzes. Or as the D&Gon; would say, 'a Blooting' "Our name is Bloot for we are all the names in history." northanger: nicholas, what does the word "nietzsche" mean? Nick Land: northanger - is that Gematrix "SACRIFICE ME" yours? "what does the word "nietzsche" mean?" - didn't mad nuns and prietzsches tietzsche anything? 600

northanger: it must be: SACRIFICE = DECRYPT (but i didn't put it in there, honest) - didn't mad nuns and prietzsches tietzsche anything? well, what does it mean? Nick Land: northanger - what is this "nietzsche" thing you're doggedly pursuing all of a sudden? You know, you're beginning to come over as quite the philosophy buff "it must be: SACRIFICE = DECRYPT" no it's SACRIFICE ME = NIETZSCHE ... anyway, i'd ask Bloot - he's all the names in history (excepting possibly H.P.Lovecraft) Anybody else thinking: (could be) 300!!! "... Bloot - he ..." sorry - 'he, she, or it' but mostly 'they' ... ('we' would be getting disturbing, but it could even come to that ...) northanger: we = nietzsche tzaddi is not the star okay Reza! what is the great mystery of the House of God? hello Blootus, how are you? this is HEX: SACRIFICE ME = NIETZSCHE that's the language you're speaking this is GON1: SACRIFICE ME = COLD RATIONALISM SACRIFICE = HYPERSTITION NECESSARILY INVOLVES AN OPENING UP OF/TO THE OUTSIDE ME = NICK LAND + REZA NEGARESTANI 601

plug in the meaning of the word NIETZSCHE, and maybe we can get somewhere Nick Land: northanger - sure you must be aware that evey time you call AQ 'HEX' you throw Vauung into a snarling tantrum. AQ = 10 + 26 = 36 AQ not to be confused with Alpha-Qwertian (A-Q). northanger: snarl away! but it still says !HEX! on the nummy-thingy and you're (lol, as usual) confusing the issue with this new AQ thingy. AQ, A-Q, whatever. guessing all problems + mysteries solved Nick Land: "but it still says !HEX! on the nummy-thingy and you're ... confusing the issue with this new AQ thingy" - well at least that's clear ;) northanger: christmas present for you nick! _______oOo__________ [HEX, i dub thee AQ] -------------------merrymerry & all that Nick Land: [A-Q]*ADFHJV = QABALAH (Crowley's spelling). "HEX, i dub thee AQ" - weird thing is, HEX + AQ = 100 (thanks ;) + merry etc). MERRY = LILITH "[A-Q]*ADFHJV = QABALAH" might be confusing, should probably say: [A-Q qry] *ADFHJV (in AQ) = QABALAH (have learnt to take Crowley's spelling decisions very seriously, but still can't generally comply with this one) 602

northanger: WEIRD THING IS = HEAVEN ON EARTH = 1 HEX + AQ = 100 = ZERO THANKS = THELEMA = NUMBER = 1 LILITH = ONE [AQ] QRY * ADFHJV = QABBALA Proverbs 30:18–19 ~ There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. THE WAY = MAN = ADAM = IDEA = THELEMA = NUMBER = QWYZ an eagle in the air = ROSE : a serpent upon a rock = EVE : a ship in the midst of the sea = ADAM : a man with a maid = LOVE A MAN WITH A MAID + CHILD = LOVE A MAN WITH A LAW + MULTIVERSE = LOVE TOO WONDERFUL FOR ME = DENIZENS OF THE ABYSS = LOVE THE LAW OF THELEMA (1) = HEAVEN ON EARTH (1) = 2 (DECIMAL) THE LAW OF THELEMA + HEAVEN ON EARTH = YULETIDE FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE merries, nick ok, so maybe SHE=EVE gave... or, could be who knows, SHE=OLD NICK=REZA gave Nick Land: northanger - OK, it's XMAS = BLOOD, but don't get carried away ;) LILITH = 1 ?? (Is this your new surgically enhanced GoN?, or [AQ] 7 processed through cumulation/reduction?) 603

Staring at this thinking: "should i leave it for someone else since it's XMAS = ABUSE?" but then, after some reflection - Hail SATAN! [= ZERO] - 300!!! northanger: OK, it's XMAS = BLOOD, but don't get carried away ;) in AQ, but nicholas, all values and equivalences map to that AQ-NUMBER, so LYRA IS SPOT ON, she's RAW and she's QRY in GON2. GON2 is aligning to AQ. GON2 + AQ = NICHOLAS DECODES NUMOGRAM. btw, HAIL SATAN! LILITH = ONE in AQ Jacques Derrida! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction The central move of a deconstructive analysis is to look at binary oppositions within a text (for instance, maleness and femaleness, or homosexuality and heterosexuality) and to show how, instead of describing a rigid set of categories, the two opposing terms are actually fluid and impossible to separate fully. The conclusion from this, generally, is that the categories do not actually exist in any rigid or absolute sense. [Deconstruction] is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis' itself, which etymologically means "to undo"—a virtual synonym for "to deconstruct." ... If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyses the specificity of a text's critical difference from itself." (Barbara Johnson, 1981). Nick Land: "LILITH = ONE in AQ" - ah ha northanger: [AQ] AU = 40. In French AU means "flight" if not mistaken; AU abbreviation for Astronomical Unit. Seems to fit for Satan since DR = 40 and SATAN=ZERO=NUIT. 418 = ANONYMOUS UNTIL NOW 604

believe MARITIMA+PAX+YILDUN are triangular key to time travel (figuring out = making northanger quite nuts) GON128=MARITIMA+PAX+YILDUN=NUMMOGRAMMIC HUMANITY=OPEN SESAME don't know how this maps to AQ and need to run to xmas dinner .... be back more bits RE: SACRIFICE ME = NIETZSCHE Root definition of SACRIFICE DHE - http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE92.html KOM - http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE236.html anything ping for you RE: THE KOM? AQ 1111 = (ZZ777B :: MARITIME+PAX+YILDUN :: NUMOGRAMMICAL HUMANITY = OPEN SESAME) but in AQ = ANTICHRIST=AL=ABRIDGETOOFAR=AU=ALIENSIGNAL ... etc not quite there yet, but, gotta run! and it also (in DR) equals ANONYMOUS UNTIL NOW 311=Archangel of Binah TzPQYAL kabbalistically speaking, of course aq countup ... SACRIFICE ME = NIETZSCHE = 1 HAIL SATAN = TWO THIS POST #314======================================== previous post is #313 = 3+1+3 = 7 #313 ~ ANGEL OF 1ST DEC. VIRGO = GJ = GEMATRIA OF NOTHING 605 IS

GJ = P = DECIMAL REDUCTION = VIOLENT CASTING-OUT OF MYTH ............................................................. #314 ~ (3+1+4) = 8 MTTRVN, Metatron, Archangel of Kether, and Angel of Tiphareth of Briah. [When spelt with HB:Y after HB:M it denotes Shekinah]; Out of the way, remote RChVQ; Shaddai: "The Almighty"; a name of GOD ShDY DX = MTTRVN = OVERLORD = ARYEH KAPLAN = MATHEMATICS {DX reduces to B} B = ATU VII ADJUSTMENT = MARITIMA = THE BOOK OF THE LAW = VENUS = 1 QWERNOMICS = THREE enter the gate with humility, in posture and in words, and We shall forgive you your faults and increase (the portion of) those who do good [01] #315 :: Formation YTzYRH ALIF{(470)}-----LAAM{(341)}----MEEM{(233)} Then gushed forth therefrom twelve springs. Each group knew its own place for water. So eat and drink of the sustenance provided by God, and do no evil nor mischief on the (face of the) earth. [02] #316 :: JESU YShV LAAM{(341)}-----MEEM{(233)}----ALIF{(470)} [03] #317 :: [Vide Ps. xcvii. 11] ZRa'aM MEEM{(233)}-----ALIF{(470)}----LAAM{(341)} [04] #318 :: Labrum lavacri, et basio eius KYVR VKNV ALIF{(470)}-----LAAM{(341)}----MEEM{(233)} [05] #319 :: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------606

LAAM{(341)}-----MEEM{(233)}----ALIF{(470)} [06] #320 :: The friends Ra'aYM MEEM{(233)}-----ALIF{(470)}----LAAM{(341)} [07] #321 :: Angel L.T.D. of Virgo LSLRA ALIF{(470)}-----LAAM{(341)}----MEEM{(233)} [08] #322 :: Lamb KBSh LAAM{(341)}-----MEEM{(233)}----ALIF{(470)} [09] #323 :: Long-absent brother ACh RChVQ MEEM{(233)}-----ALIF{(470)}----LAAM{(341)} [10] #324 :: See no. 314; it denotes Shekinah MYTTRVN ALIF{(470)}-----LAAM{(341)}----MEEM{(233)} [11] #325 :: Spirit of Mars BRTzBAL LAAM{(341)}-----MEEM{(233)}----ALIF{(470)} [12] #326 :: Jesus [Note the letters of TETRAGRAMMATON completed by HB:Sh 300 q.v. the Spirit of GOD] YHShVH MEEM{(233)}-----ALIF{(470)}----LAAM{(341)} [13] #327 :: Day Demon of 2nd Dec. Virgo BVTYSh ALIF{(470)}-----LAAM{(341)}----MEEM{(233)} [14] #328 :: 4 Princes + 8 Sub-Princes + 316 servient to Spirits LAAM{(341)}-----MEEM{(233)}----ALIF{(470)} [15] #329 :: Angel of 1st Dec. Libra TRSNY MEEM{(233)}-----ALIF{(470)}----LAAM{(341)} [16] #330 :: Revolution; hurricane, tempest Sa'aR 607

ALIF{(470)}-----LAAM{(341)}----MEEM{(233)} [17] #331:: Archangel of Chokmah RTzYAL LAAM{(341)}-----MEEM{(233)}----ALIF{(470)} [18] #332 :: Lux Ardoris AVR HYQVD MEEM{(233)}-----ALIF{(470)}----LAAM{(341)} [19] #333 :: Qabalah of the Nine Chambers AYQ BKR ALIF{(470)}-----LAAM{(341)}----MEEM{(233)} [20] #334 :: A still, small Voice [I Kings, xix. 12] QVL DMMH DQH LAAM{(14-----MEEM{(9----ALIF{(15 (14+9+15)=38 Nick Land: northanger - time to leave the goddam basement? northanger: northanger - time to leave the goddam basement? [21] #335 :: The KING above the King of Kings MLK MLKY HMLKYM [22] #336 :: An attack; a request, petition ShALH no. still got a problem! Genius/ Lunatic/ Oedipus http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004583.html "Genius/ Lunatic/ Oedipus" post by mark k-p excellent hyperstitional topic. closed conversation currently. why is schizophrenia (madness) hyperstitional? where does "genuis", "lunatic" and "oedipus" fall on the || FICTION ||---------------|| REAL || hyperstitional spectrum? can we say that the level of (possible) madness is equal to the degree of the (potential) strength of the fiction? therefore, the impact of HYPERSTITION becoming real is based on [madness level] x [fiction level]? what is the phenomena of hyperstition? hyperstition, if Nash is considered, has the potential (my mind) to skate the border of sanity-insanity. my request: can we open this topic for conversation? 608

[23] #337 :: Ruler of Earth PVRLAK; Hell of Supernals; a City of Edom; the Place of Askings [Vide Liber 777, p23] ShAVL aha.......AQ DR: AIWAS = 9 (and there's 23 & 777) [24] #338 - arrgh! CORRECTION: AIWASS = 9 Love is the Law, Love under Will LAAM{(14-----MEEM{(9----ALIF{(15 XIV Art----------XI Lust----XV The Devil Amalantrah Working? http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib97.txt GON1 27 = APOCALYPSE = LOVE IS THE LAW, LOVE UNDER WILL {Liber AL I:57} D26 X = LOVE IS THE LAW, LOVE UNDER WILL = ALM = NOTORIOUS IRANIAN OIL SMUGGLER :Oþ [27] #341 :: Sum of the 3 Mother Letters: AMSh; The Name ShMA [28] #342 :: A blaze, flame ShLHBH; Coction [cooking; digestion (of food); burning | dealer; broker] [29] #343 (7x7x7) :: "And GOD said" [Gen 1.3] VYAMR ALHYM [30] #344 :: A plantation, garden [Cant. 4.13] PRDS [31] #345 (15x23) :: "The" NAME HShM; Moses MShH [See 543 (AHYH AShR AHYH), numerical Temurah of 345] [32] #346 :: Good pleasure; the Will-power RTzVN 609

[33] #347 (PRIME) :: Palanquin (Cant. 3.9) APRYVN, Bridal bed; nuptial chariot ["thalamus seu coelum fabrile sub quo copulantur nubentes"] [34] #348 :: Five (seals of the temple); to set in array ChMSh [35] #349 (PRIME) :: L TARE NOCO ZOIGA ~ Winter Solstice [36] #350 :: Intellectus ShKL; A sapphire (Ex. 28.18) SPYR [37] #351 :: SUM (1 -26) Man ANSh; The Flames AShYM; PERDURABO; Moses the Initiator MVShH [38] #352 :: ARK APYM; The Exalted Light AVR Ma'aLH; Lightning BRQYM; An approach QRBN; HODOS (road) [39] #353 (PRIME) :: Secret of TETRAGRAMMATON is to His fearers [Ps. 25.14] SVD YHVH LYRAYV; linking up "Road" of #352 [40] #354 :: Grew fat; anointed DShN; Heptaeteris intermissoria ShMTH [41] #355 :: Thought; idea MChShBH; Year ShNH; SPIRH Sphere, number, emanation [42] #356 :: {AQ 59=DJED=EVE}; The Cedars of Lebanon ARZY LBNVN; Spirits of the living RVChYN DChYYN [43] #357 :: {AQ 148=KGD-YKSh=BEHEMOTH} 42-fold Name, Geburah in Yetzirah [44] #358 :: {AQ 97=NChSh=HEART} Nechesh, the Serpent that initiated Eve [45] #359 (PRIME) :: AQ 100=SATAN=UNIT=ZERO=ZION=NUIT [46] #360 :: {AQ 46=X418 || D26 X=418=ALM=LOVE IS THE LAW LOVE UNDER WILL} 360=(36 | 9) [47] #361 :: AQ 10=361=BLACK MAGICK=WHITE REVOLUTION = THREE SIX ONE = 241 MAGICK || Ah ... what the heck am i doing here, eh? 360 is the number of the circle & the number astrologers work with. i'm not a professional astrologer, but found myself studying astrology after 911. time is also an astrological consideration. americans will always remember 911 because we can locate before & after. however, they're thinking of a 610

name to call a generation who will think of 911 as ... no big deal. it'll be a fact of life for them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z while i was doing whatever i was doing above this came to mind from "Liber Pennae Praenumbra" : --constant watchfulness is the first act - the abyss is crossed by minutes, every day-- astrologers use celestial arithmetic to track planetary positions by degrees, hours, seconds and minutes. what's going on above is me becoming aware (at gate 314) of being in the abode of choronzon. i wanted to give each post a number to keep track of them and go all the way to 333 (since it's all hail satan in here anyway). copied info from crowley's "sepher sephiroth", yadda yadda. and at #333 thought that was the end of the show ... but, ok i'm certifiable. in this long post you should find reza's ALM. it became important to me to thread these along after me (like petals, like flowers) -- because of hyperstitional zaniness. how do you divide all those letters in 19 posts? unfortunately, there were a few left over. on my journal, i try to explain a system of astrology based on the law of thelema. didn't want to restrict anyone by traditional meanings. however, had a hard time explaining things. someone asked me yesterday if i was going to explain what it was i was doing. when i decided to go to 360 those left-over petals provided an important clue about what undercurrent writes concerning the "dis-entanglement" of philosophy and mathematics -http://blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/2004/12/notes_on_badiou.html the left-over letters, ALM, could stand for (1) tarot cards, and (2) thelema, philosophy and mathematics. but, i was confused: which was which? adjustment was easy, it should stand for the law of thelema; the fool could be assigned to mathematics because it was related to Maut, the vulture goddess. but when i read "love is the law, love under will" things got hyperstitional. there must be a time when we finally let go of meaning. these assignments are based on NUMBER: LAAM{(14-----MEEM{(9----ALIF{(15 XIV Art----------XI Lust----XV The Devil these letters of the Quran can generate similar gates to the kabbalistic 231 gates & assigned to an astrological system. still have a lot of work to do ... 611

Astrology is a matter for philosophers —Paul Valéry [48] #362 :: AQ DR 11=ASTRO-ANALYSIS=TIME LAAM{(14-----MEEM{(9------ALIF{(15 --XIV Art-----IX Hermit-----XV The Devil (ok, can't read roman numerals) Nick Land: northanger - i am slowly processing this tidal wave - honest! [know i'm not supposed to say that ('honest'), 'cos it doesn't add anything, just breeds suspicion] resonance of 360 geometrical degrees and the (implicit) mod-36 of AQ is enough to get me engaged - Crowley is fascinating, but also a brother in blindness - his concrete qabbala (OK, qabalah) seems to miss all the most intense numbers - no 360, even ignores 127 (the key to THELEMA (prime-AL)), which just makes me laugh - I'll try and post something on this whole topic (will take a while) Madness q. will definitely lead to results somewhere down the road - despite what mark (k-p) says, mathematicians are definitely prone to falling off the edge of the world PS. A few of your AQ qabbalistic strings are conditioned by what's been fed in to the Gematrix - e.g.: "AQ 100=SATAN=UNIT=ZERO=ZION=NUIT" so I can't feign surprise (been tracking these guys for a while) - still, any acknowledgement of these linkages is very welcome Gwendolyn: nick, have you ever checked out TAARP (alpha-astrophysics.org) & The Complete Astrological Writings of Aleister Crowley? http://www.alpha-astrophysics.org/InPraise.htm the challenge with crowley is flattening the crust of meaning to understand his thinking. crowley does not, IMHO, "dis-entangle" philosophy and mathematics. the problem with crowley is that he manages to tangle EVERYTHING up together. Nick Land: AQ 200 - I'm on it 612

[AQ] 200 - followed this link, but it doesn't add much - think the Crowley case really interesting, he's evidently a 'genius' in this domain, but he's also incredibly 'demonic' in the sense that he really screws you over - either he's basically lying (in an interesting way, admittedly) or he's so inhabited by malignant alien **** that it works out the same, so naive 'Thelemites' really don't know what they're getting into. My advice to anyone is to treat Crowley as you'd treat an unknown visitor from the Outside assume he wants to hurt you psychically in a profound way and leave you writhing in the mud, given that precaution, Crowley's clearly the most interesting gate available and those who come close (Grant, Bertiaux) share the same ominous traits Think the system has blocked further comments apparently not, wanted to make comment based on AQ equation: ADOLF HITLER = CHORONZON check it out: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/642011.html gwendolyn: checking out: THE PLACE OF ENCHANTMENT http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/642011.html Think the system has blocked further comments wondering: are we counting to 418 or 777? 418 = ADOLF HITLER + CHORONZON = ANONYMOUS UNTIL NOW (and i think this maps to D26 IK = THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS Nick Land: ****** "Questionable content" - this is demonic hell gwendolyn: D26 IE = QUESTIONABLE CONTENT = INVALUABLE INFORMATION = WARRIOR LORD OF THEBES (hm, "ie" - for example) Nick Land: gwendolyn - for ****'s sake, get with the programme - type in (as a word) the letters AQ: 12, 18, 10, 21, 18, 28 613

Then you'll understand we're not being allowed to discuss this topic by some transcendent power of unspeakable evil Crowley magickally triggered the IIIrd Reich (probably 'by accident') but I'm not being allowed to talk about it ... ;) ('cos i like you, not because it's not serious) gwendolyn: D26 GL = this is demonic hell = triky bizness mapping to ... [1] GON2 direct approach [2] AQ spastics society [3] GON1 okie dokie smokie tricky business! Nick Land: gwendolyn - the unspeakable word is on your site - where it is allowed, just try to say it here, a comment consisting of nothing but ****** [the unspeakable word] what the ****'s going on 'Fuck' is totally cool, but ****** ... Guess what? It's = 31 in GoN1 - ever feel bullied? ****** I hate demons gwendolyn: the unspeakable word is on northanger's site which is my site? c.i.a.l.i.s = GENDER D26 = REMOVE PERIODS = THE BOOK OF THE LAW Nick Land: northanger - you are brilliant! yes - c.i.a.l.i.s - why is this forbidden? (without the periods) assuming you've tried it raw (then get angry, that would be not only OK but expected) Anyway, before Choronzon interrupted, Hitler is Crowley's magickal bastard child gwendolyn: c.i.a.l.i.s - why is this forbidden? 614

gender does not equal the great work (actually you're supposed to "seek and destroy this") Hitler is Crowley's magickal bastard child you want me to list all the connections to this phrase? occam's razor: hitler was not crowley's magickal bastard child. that is an example of HYPERSTITIONS THAT HAVE CEASED TO BE EFFECTIVE. c.i.a.l.i.s - why is this forbidden? (without the periods) this is forbidden to say on your server Nick Land: gwendolyn - go on, say it otherwise, what exactly does "this is forbidden to say on your server" mean? Also, this is so typical Choronzonic demonic bullshit - as if i had any goddamn interest in saying (un-periodized) c.i.a.l.i.s. before that ... started screwing me over ... did i mention the fact i ****ing hate demons? gwendolyn: this is forbidden to say on your server this = c.i.a.l.i.s. can't say it over here...such a demonic monstrous place :looking around: now.......at my place you can say it all you wanna nanananana-na http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/642011.html In the following discussion the event itself is deconstructed with a view to presenting both a microanalysis of a magical rite performed in a specific context, and a focused discussion of the relationship between psychologized magic and the exploration of subjectivity. [continued from "upstairs" - What was West thinking?] numbers can only get you so far. as humans, we have to analyze what the numbers tell us. this is important, i think, in rebraiding law, philosophy, science, mathematics, etc. which of these holds the authority for "reality"? 615

someone living in england wants to move to australia - natal chart indicated asteroid australia 3 degrees from apollo-type asteroid named tantalus ({Apollo-PHA} Temptation; Unreachable; Problems giving right thing to right person). suggested this as restricting issue stopping move since it was at the ascendant. response: you can sell sand to egyptians. counter-response: stop running around like a chicken with your head cut off because PHA means "potentially hazardous asteroid" and you fear the sky is falling. the power of astrology should lie not in telling someone what their week will be, but revealing any possible traps of meaning. if we look at numbers long enough we can find proof to believe anything. the issue isn't BELIEF. the issue involves TRUTH. so what the hell is colonel west really up to? Nick Land: gwendolyn - SPAM FILTER = CHORONZON = ADOLF HITLER gwendolyn: nicholas...[hoity-toity] you really are annoying check this out AQ 333=TURQUOISE QUEEN did i mention the fact i ****ing hate demons D26 LE=VIOLENT CASTING-OUT OF MYTH [thinking: should i put goetic demons in one post? or in separate posties?] GATE #399 ShGVPY ~ D26 DN = HIROSHIMA=KURTZ=LIBER ARACHNID=LIGHTSABRE=SO|C-I-A-L-I-S|M=THE ABYSS=WHITE TIE STAR: MARITIMA 11Pi27 @ 00UT, 29-Dec-04 Phase 25 - 250º10'10.3555'' http://www.khaldea.com/eon/eon25.shtml RULING GÖE OF THE QUINARY (PISCES 10º–15º): MARCHOSIAS, GREAT AND MIGHTY MARQUIS http://www.hermeticgoldendawn.org/Documents/Essays/shemha.html aka Marchosias, Great and Mighty Marquis, appearing at first in the Form of a Wolf (or OX) having Gryphon’s Wings, and a Serpent’s Tail, and Vomiting Fire out of his mouth. But after a time, at the command of the Exorcist he putteth on the Shape of 616

a Man. And he is a strong fighter. He was of the Order of Dominations. He governeth 30 Legions of Spirits. He told his Chief, who was Solomon, that after 1,200 years he had hopes to return unto the Seventh Throne. And his Seal is this, to be made and worn as a Lamen, etc. D26 GE = THE NUMMIFICATOR=SEVENTH THRONE RULING SHEM-HAMEPHORESH OF THE QUINARY: YChV - YECHAVIAH http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/mythology/marchosias.asp Serves to uncover plots and traiters, undoing their plans, dominates and influences just rulers. RULING ENOCHIAN ÆTHYR: #14 UTI The Vision of the City of the Pyramids. The Reception Of the Master of the Temple. WHITE ENOCHIAN SENIOR: ZERAH (Sunrise) TATTVA: WATER ATU: IXX SUN ASTEROID: ALASTOR [1998BU48] http://www.expreso.co.cr/centaurs/posts/notes/naming.html ENOCHIAN PARTS-40–TEDOOND : He who demands obedience 41–VIVIPOS : She of many repetitions 42–OOANAMB : He to whom truth is relative axisnorthanger: GATE #400 :: To use Magic, witchcraft KShP | Karnaim QRNYM | Erudiens, a title of Yesod MShKYL | Angels of Chesed of Briah ShYKKYM THE ORDER OF THE GOETIC DEMONS & THE HOST OF THE ANGELICA D26 BG = DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW (= 777AQ) 617

((((((((((20 TO THE 2ND POWER :: KETMAN, prudential concealment)))))))))) PISCES :: 15º–35–MARCO | 33–YECHO PISCES :: 20º+71–DANTÉ | 34–LEHACH PISCES :: 25º–36–STOLAS© | 35–KEVEQ PISCES :: 30º+72–ASTRO | 36–MENAD ARIES :: 5º+1–BAEL | 1–VEHU ARIES :: 10º–37–PHENEX | 2–YELI ARIES :: 15º+2–AGARES | 3–SIT ARIES :: 20º–38–HALPHAS | 4–AULEM ARIES :: 25º+3–VASSAGO | 5–MAHASH ARIES :: 30º–39–MALPHAS | 6–LELAH TAURUS :: 05º–4–GAMIGIN> | 61–VAMET TAURUS :: 10º+40–RÄUM | 62–YEHAH TAURUS :: 15º–5–MARBAS | 63–AUNU TAURUS :: 20º+41–FOCALOR | 64–MECHI TAURUS :: 25º–6–VALEFOR | 65–DAMEB TAURUS :: 30º+42–VEPÂR; | 66–MENAQ GEMINI :: 05º+7–AMÖN | 49–VAHO GEMINI :: 10º–43–SAVNÖK | 50–DONI GEMINI :: 15º+8–BARBÁTOS | 51–HACHASH GEMINI :: 20º–44–SHÅX | 52–AUMEM GEMINI :: 25º+9–PÂIMON | 53–NENA GEMINI :: 30º–45–VINÉ | 54–NEITH 618

CANCER :: 05º–10–BÛER | 19–LEVO CANCER :: 10º+46–BEAÜ | 20–PAH CANCER :: 15º–11–GÜSION | 21–NELAK CANCER :: 20º+47–VOVÂL | 22–YIAI CANCER :: 25º–12–SITRI | 23–MELAH CANCER :: 30º+48–HAAGENTI | 24–CHÅNJO LEO :: 05º+13–BILETH | 7–AKA LEO :: 10º–49–BRIË | 8–KAHATH LEO :: 15º+14–LERAJÉ | 9–HÉZI LEO :: 20º–50–FURCAS | 10–ELAD LEO :: 25º+15–ABIGOR | 11–LAVIAH LEO :: 30º–51–BÅLAM | 12–HAHAU VIRGO :: 05º–16–ZËPAR | 67–AIAU VIRGO :: 10º+52–ALLOCËS | 68–CHEBO VIRGO :: 15º–17–BÖTIS | 69–RAPHAEL VIRGO :: 20º+53–CAMIÖ | 70–YEBEM VIRGO :: 25º–18–BATHÏN | 71–HAÎAI VIRGO :: 30º+54–MÜRMUS | 72–MÖUM LIBRA :: 05º+19–SALLÔS | 37–ANI LIBRA :: 10º–55–ÔRÔBAS | 38–CHAUM LIBRA :: 15º+20–PRÔFLARË | 39–REHAU LIBRA :: 20º–56–GAMORÏ | 40–YEIZ LIBRA :: 25º+21–MARAX | 41–HAHAH 619

LIBRA :: 30º–57–OSÉ | 42–MIK SCORPIO :: 05º–22–IPSÔS< | 25–NETHAH SCORPIO :: 10º+58–AVNAS | 26–HAA SCORPIO :: 15º–23–AIM | 27–YERETH SCORPIO :: 20º+59–ORIAX | 28–SHAAH SCORPIO :: 25º–24–NABERIUS | 29–RIYI SCORPIO :: 30º+60–SPIKENARD | 30–AUM SAGITTARI :: 05º+25–GLÄSYA | 13–YEZEL SAGITTARI :: 10º–61–ZAGAN | 14–MEBAH SAGITTARI :: 15º+26–BUNÉ | 15–HERI SAGITTARI :: 20º–62–VALU | 16–HAQEM SAGITTARI :: 25º+27–RONOVÉ | 17–LAU SAGITTARI :: 30º–63–ANDRAS | 18–KELI CAPRICORN :: 05º–28–BOLFRY | 55–MABEH CAPRICORN :: 10º+64–HAURES | 56–POÏ CAPRICORN :: 15º–29–ASHERA | 57–NEMEM CAPRICORN :: 20º+65–ANDRÉ | 58–YEIL CAPRICORN :: 25º–30–FORNEUS | 59–HARACH CAPRICORN :: 30º+66–CIMEJES | 60–METZER AQUARIUS :: 05º+31–FORAS | 43–VEVAL AQUARIUS :: 10º–67–AMBER | 44–YELAH AQUARIUS :: 15º+32–ADONAI | 45–SAEL AQUARIUS :: 20º–68–BELIAL | 46–AURI 620

AQUARIUS :: 25º+33–GÂÂPt | 47–AUSHAL AQUARIUS :: 30º–69–DÉSE | 48–MIAH PISCES :: 05º–34–FURFUR | 31–LEKAB PISCES :: 10º+70–SEIR | 32–VESHER GATE #401 :: Cursing ARR; The Essence ATh ATZILUTH ~ GON1 53 = NUMOGRAMMIC KOLLECTIVE || ZN-0 [0000.00] SUN ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {0} GON2 54 = THE FIRST ENOCHIAN KEY = SHEMHAMEPHORESH = BABALON GATE #361–HAGONÆL-Graph-Ceph | Un-Don {UN-GISG} | Moon {Saturn} ^ Manipura (Navel) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE ZERO:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-0 is the first of two zones mutually composing the Plex-region of the Numogram. Its Syzygetic-twin is Zone-9. This 9+0 Syzygy is carried by the demon Uttunul (see Zone-9). Zone-0 provides the terminus for a single Plex-channel (the 0th ). Systematic consistency suggests that Zone-0 envelops the Zeroth-Phase of Pandemonium, but as this includes nothing beyond itself it constitutes a nominal or virtual multitude and an "absolute abstraction." Zone-0 has no separable power of initiation, and since it does not support imps (or impulse-entities) - even of the first degree - there is no zeroth door. The Zeroth Gate (Gt-00) seems to connect Zone-0 to itself, but its nature is peculiarly problematical, and within the Mu-Archive texts its ultimate reality is fundamentally disputed. Many versions of the Numogram delete it entirely. Horovitz says of this Gate that "between its existence and nonexistence there is no difference." 621

Mu Tantrism plots Zone-0 intensities onto the Coccygeal level of the spine, the vestigial remnant of a lost tail (and biotectonic link to the ancient lemur-people). Zone-0 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0000. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-0 with the dense void of the cosmic hypermatrix, upon which absolute desolation crosses infinity as flatline and loss of signal. Blind Humpty Johnson’s Channel-Zero ‘black snow’ cult communicate the influence of this zone in their call for the return of true Tohu Bohu or the subprimordial Earth. Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-0 onto the eclipsed side of the Fifth (or Root) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the dark aspect of Foundation (‘deep past’) it corresponds to the protocosmic abyss anticipating primal reality, fusing indissociably into the ultimate gulfs of chaotic unbeing. Stillwell links Zone-0 to the unvoiced Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘eiaoung,’ the ‘silent whisper of the ulterior depths.’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-0 LEMURS :: Phase-0 tolerates no populations of any kind ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-1 [0001.00] MERCURY BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-2 [0002.55] VENUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-3 [0004.15] EARTH BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-4 [0007.95] MARS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-5 [0049.24] JUPITER BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-6 [0122.32] SATURN BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE 622

BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE #402 :: Sought into, or after BQSh; Tested, purified BRR; Filia BTh; A spider a'aKBYSh; Paths ShBYLYN BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-1 [0001.00] MERCURY (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {1} OL SONF VORSG GOHO IAD BALT LANSH CALZ VONPHO. SOBRA ZOL ROR I TA NAZPSAD, OD GRAA TA MALPRG; DS HOLQ QAA NOTHOA ZIMZ, OD COMMAH TA NOBLOH ZIEN. SOBA THIL GNONP PRGE ALDI DS VRBS OBOLEH GRSAM; CASARM OHORELA TABA PIR, DS ZONRENSG CAB ERM IADNAH. PILAH FARZM OD ZNRZA ADNA OD GONO IADPIL DS HOM OD TOH, SOBA IAOD IPAM OD UL IPAMIS; DS LOHOLO VEP ZOMD POAMAL OD BOGPA AAI TA PIAP BALTOH OD VAOAN ZACAR CA OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD HOATH IAIDA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE ONE::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-1 is the first of the six Torque-region Zones of the Numogram, and TractorZone of the 5-4 (or 'Sink') Current. Its Syzygetic-twin is Zone-8. This 8+1 Syzygy is carried by the demon Murmur (see Zone-8). Zone-1 provides the terminus for three Torque-channels (the 1st, 4th, and 7th). Zone-1 both initiates and envelops the First-Phase of Pandemonium (including 2 impulse-entities). This phase consists of nothing beyond the Zone (1) and the Door (1::0), thus tending to a highly 'idealized' state. Zone-1 has a particularly powerful and manifest initiatory dimension. The First Door - or 'Door of Doors'- is attributed by Muvian sorcery to the amphidemon (and imp of the first degree) Lurgo (1::0) 'the Initiator,' and widely related to Legba (the first and last Loa to be invoked in any vudu ceremony). 623

The First Gate (Gt-01) connects Zone-1 to itself, and its corresponding channel provides a reduced microcosmic model of the Torque as a whole, in which Zone-1 provides both beginning and end. In this respect Horovitz describes Zone-1 'turning forever into itself.'The resulting metastability of this channel accounts for its strong associations with all known variants of the Bubble-Pod mythos. Mu Tantrism plots Zone-1 intensities onto the Dorsal (or Thoracic) level of the spine, which maps onto the domain of lunged creatures (and colonization of the land). Zone-1 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0001 (matching the primordial click of Tzikvik cipher-shamanism). Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-1 with (meta)static pod-deliria and technoimmortalism. It maintains relatively recent religious structures patterned on transcendent-oppressor ‘sky-god’ divinity, as well as harboring the more archaic gnosis of the shelled ‘old one’ who supports the world (turtle cults). Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-1 onto the palpable side of the First (or Center) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the light aspect of Anamnesis (‘memories and dreams’) it corresponds to enduring ideas, historical time and remembrance (recall). Stillwell links Zone-1 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘gl,’ emanating from the sublaryngeal region (the Horowitzean ‘collapsed gargle’ or ‘glottal spasm,’ a relic from lost gilled/gulping life-forms). Stillwell’s ethno-topography of the Nma allocates Zone-1 to the coral atolls of the Mu Nma, and through their hydrocycle mythos to shallow seas. Zone-1 totem animals are drawn from the spectrum of armored fish creatures (combining a basic icthyoid model with traits extracted from crustaceans, mollusks and gastropods). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-1 LEMUR :: [M#00] 1::0 Lurgo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-2 [0002.55] VENUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-3 [0004.15] EARTH 624

BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-4 [0007.95] MARS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-5 [0049.24] JUPITER BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-6 [0122.32] SATURN BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE #403 :: The Stone; Sapphire ABN SPYR BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-2 [0002.55] VENUS ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII)))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {2} ADGT VPAAH ZONG OM FAAIP SALD VIV L SOBAM IALPRG IZAZAS PIADPH CASARMA ABRAMG TA TALHO PARACLEDA Q TA LORSLQ TURBS OOGE BALTOH GIVI CHIS LUSD ORRI OD MICALP CHIS BIA OZONGON LAP NOAN TROF CORS TA GE OQ MANIN IAIDON TORZU GOHEL ZACAR CA CNOQOD ZAMRAN MICALZO OD OZAZM VRELP LAP ZIR IOIAD {2} The East Is A House Of Virgins Singing Praises Among The Flames Of First Glory: Wherein The Lord Hath Opened His Mouth, And They Are Become 28 Living Dwellings In Whom The Strength Of Men Rejoices. And They Are Appareled With Ornaments Of Brightness Such As Work Wonders On All Creatures. Whose Kingdoms And Continuance Are As The Third And Fourth, Strong Towers And Places Of Comfort, The Seats Of Mercy And Continuance. O You Servants Of Mercy, Move, Appear Singing Praises Of The Creator, And Be Mighty Among Us! For To This Remembrance Is Given Power, And Our Strength Waxes Strong In Our Comforter! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE TWO::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes 625

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-2 is the second of the six Torque-region Zones of the Numogram. Its Syzygetictwin is Zone-7. This 7+2 Syzygy is carried by the demon Oddubb (see Zone-7). Zone-2 both initiates and envelops the Second-Phase of Pandemonium (including 4 impulse-entities). With cryptic rigor Horovitz thus describes Zone-2 as "reduplicating its double-twinness though its multitude." As initiator it functions as the Second Door, invoked by K-goth cults as the "Main Lo-Way" into the Crypt. Muvian sorcery identifies this door with the amphidemon (and imp of the first degree) Duoddod (2::0). The Second Gate (Gt-3) connects Zone-2 to Zone-3, and its corresponding channel draws an intense line of escape from the Torque to the Warp. This passage is especially compelling, since it is multiply consolidated by cumulation, primeordination, and mesh-tagging. Tzikvik shamanism both honours and fears the Second Gate as the opening to the "way of the Storm-Worm." Zone-2 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0003. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-2 with crypt-navigation, occulted cyberspace and the spectral / liminal populations of hallucination and time fragmentation (greys, ghosts and zombies). Zone-2 mirrors Zone-5 and shares in its ‘Hyperborean’ themes of time-lapse and abduction. Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-2 onto the eclipsed side of the Second (or Right) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the dark aspect of Genesis (‘creative influences’) it corresponds to epidemic fertility (bacterial fission, clones, replicants, vampiric contagion). Stillwell links Zone-2 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘dt’ (the Horowitzean ‘imploded fricative/fractured plosive’). Stillwell’s ethno-topography of the Nma allocates Zone-2 to the interior marshlands of the Dib Nma, and through the Mu Nma hydrocycle mythos to mist, vaporization and hazing. Zone-2 totem animals are modelled on metamorphic insects, principally lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) but also dragonflies and dibboma flashbugs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------626

PHASE-2 LEMUR :: [M#01] 2::0 Duoddod ::::::: LOCK-----#32-ASMODAI Mesh-01: Duoddod. Duplicitous Redoubler. (Clicks Gt-01). Pitch Ana-2. Net-Span 2::0. Amphidemon of Abstract Addiction 2nd Door (The Crypt) [Venus], Cervical. Decadology. C/tp-#8, Mj+ [8C]. Rt-1:[271890] Pineal-regression (rear vision). Rt2:[27541890] Datacomb searches, digital exactitude (every second counts). [+1 subRt]. ...........GON2 32 = DUODDOD = MARITIMA = SOLIDARITY CAPTURED = THE MAGISTERIUM = TIDAL WAVE ...........AQ 125 = ASMODAI = DIGITAL = BACK-BONE = BUNKER ...........GON1 43 = BELIAL = AOE DISTRIBUTED POD NETWORK = CYBERSPACE = NUMOGRAM WITH A LIFE DUODDOD-TARGET: Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 7:58:53 AM Location 3.316°N, 95.855°E (Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia) Depth 30 km (18.6 miles) set by location program PHASE-2 LEMUR :: [M#02] 2::1 Doogu ::::::: LOCK-----#8-BARBÁTOS Mesh-02. Doogu (The Blob). Original-Schism. Pitch Ana-3. Net-Span 2::1 Cyclic Chronodemon of Splitting-Waters. Ciphers Gt-21. Shadows Surge-Current. 2nd Phase-limit. Decadology. C/tp-#1 Mn+ [1H]. Rt-1:[1872] Mn. Primordial breath (pneumatic practices). Rt-2:[271] Ambivalent capture, hooks (live-bait, traps, plottwists) Rt-3:[27541] Mj. Slow pull to stasis, protection from drowning. [+1 sub-Rt]. ...........GON1 8 (DR) = DOOGU = HYPERSTITION NECESSARILY INVOLVES AN OPENING UP OF / TO THE OUTSIDE ...........D26 CS = BARBATOS = ADDICTION = HYPHEN = MENNASK = OPEN;GEO ...........(*) GON1 60 = M + iridium + osmium + palladium + platinum + rhodium + ruthenium (or, M-IOPPRR) DOOGU-TARGET: 627

D26 GA = SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2004 AT 7:58:53 AM = V838 MONOCEROTIS GON1 44 = HYPERSTITION.ABSTRACTDYNAMICS.ORG = SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE GON1 8 (DR) = DOOGU = HYPERSTITION.ABSTRACTDYNAMICS.ORG REF::::::::::http://www.livejournal.com/~northanger/2004/08/09/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AEON OF ABRAHADABRA VENUS FORMULA:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Word: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------DUODDOD (32) + DOOGU (8) + M-IOPPRR(60*) = 100 GON1 11 = CATALYST = A JUST WEIGHT = EL = ORIEL = MAZE = PAN = PATH = IRAQ 100 + 11 = 111 ( [IDEA = MAN = ADAM = 55] X 2 ) + 1 = [WOMEN=111=OUTSIDE] = ( 1[=BEING] + DECIMAL ) = 111 GON1 111 = MANIFESTATION IS FORGED BY BELIEF = THE KINGS OF THE EARTH SHALL BE KINGS FOREVER = A FATAL ATTRACTION IS HOLDING ME FAST D26 BH (DR) = BELIEF = ABRAHADABRA; THE REWARD OF RA HOOR KHUT = GON = SHIA D26 KX = ABRAHADABRA; THE REWARD OF RA HOOR KHUT = SIX PLATINUM GROUP METALS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 628

BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-3 [0004.15] ABRAHADABRA BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-4 [0007.95] MARS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-5 [0049.24] JUPITER BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-6 [0122.32] SATURN BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE #404 :: Law, edict DTh; Almond; to watch, be awake; to hasten ShQD BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-3 [0004.15] ABRAHADABR (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {3} MICMA GOHO IAD ZIR COMSELH AZIEN BIAB OS LONDOH. NORZ CHIS OTHIL GIGIPAH UNDL CHIS TA PUIM Q MOSPLEH TELOCH QUIIN TOLTORG CHIS I CHISGE M OZIEN DS BRGDA OD TORZUL ILI EOL BALZARG OD OD AALA THILN OS NETAAB DLUGA VOMSARG LONSA CAPIMALI VORS CLA HOMIL COCASB FAFEN IZIZOP OD MIINOAG DE GNETAAB VAUN NANAEEL: PANPIR MALPIRGI PILD CAOSG. NOAN UNALAH BALT OD VOOAN. DOOIAP MAD GOHOLOR, GOHUS, AMIRAN! MICMA IEHUSOZ CACACOM OD DOOAIN NOAR MICAOLZ AAIOM CASARMG GOHIA ZACAR, UNIGLAG, OD IMUAMAR PUGO PLAPLI ANANAEL QAAN Behold, Says Your God, I Am A Circle On Whose Hands Stand 12 Kingdoms. Six Are The Seats Of Living Breath; The Rest Are As Sharp Sickles Or The Horns Of Death, Wherein The Creatures Of Earth Are And Are Not Except My Hands, Which Sleep And Shall Rise. In The Beginning I Made You Stewards And Placed You In Seats 12 Of Government, Giving Unto Every One Of You Power Successively Over 629

456, The True Ages Of Time, To The Intent That, From Your Highest Vessels And The Corners Of Your Governments You Might Work My Power: Pouring Down The Fires Of Life And Increase Continually Upon The Earth. Thus You Are Become The Skirts Of Justice And Truth. In The Name Of Your God, Lift Up, I Say, Yourselves! Behold His Mercies Flourish And His Name Become Mighty Among Us! In Whom We Say: Move, Descend, And Apply Yourselves To Us As Unto Partakers Of The Secret Wisdom Of Your Creation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE THREE::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-3 is the first of the two Warp-region Zones of the Numogram, and TractorZone of the 6-3 (or 'Warp') Current. Its Syzygetic-twin is Zone-6. This 6+3 Syzygy is carried by the demon Djynxx (see Zone-6). Zone-3 provides the terminus for two channels, one each from the Torque (the 2nd), and the Warp (the 6th). Zone-3 both initiates and envelops the Third-Phase of Pandemonium (including 8 impulse-entities). In the first of these aspects it functions as the Third Door, which opens onto the Swirl, and is attributed by Muvian sorcery to the chaotic xenodemon (and imp of the first degree) Ixix (3::0). The Third Gate (Gt-6) twists Zone-3 through Zone-6, with its corresponding channel vortically complementing that of the Sixth Gate (Gt-21), and also the Warp-Current itself, thus adding an increment of spin to the entire region. Horovitz invests Zone-3 with a particular potency of intrinsic coincidence, since its second cumular power (6) is also the number of its Syzygetic double (through which he accounts for the compact tension of the Warp system). Mu Tantrism plots Warp-region intensities onto the plane of the third-eye. Zone-3 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0007. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-3 with swirling nebulae (cosmic dust clouds) and alien pattern. The intensity of vortical involvement with Zone-6 problematizes distinct characterization. 630

Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-3 onto the active side of the Fourth (or Crown) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the light aspect of Fortune (‘far future’) it corresponds to extrinsic fatality, unexpected messages, and xenosignal. Stillwell links Zone-3 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘zx.’ It designates the ‘buzz-cutter’ sonics which Horowitz describes as a ‘swarming insectoid reversion within mammalian vocality.’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-3 LEMUR :: [M#-03] 3::0 AQ 102 = IXIX = HUMAN PHASE-3 LEMUR :: [M#-04] 3::1 AQ 154 = IXIGOOL = DECRYPT PHASE-3 LEMUR :: [M#-05] 3::2 AQ 119 = IXIDOD = CROSS = SWARM - - - - - - - - - PACKET- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ASSIAH ~ AQ 222 [WOMEN=OTHER] = GEO REQUEST = AMPHIBOLOGY = -------------------------------------------------(GEO REQUEST: [WOMEN=OTHER] + COMPASSION) = YETZIRAH ~ D26 (DR) BL = DELTA = ESP = GHANDI = IN THE NAME OF GOD, MOST GRACIOUS, MOST MERCIFUL BRIAH ~ GON2 22 = GREEN = KOM-LINE = LAUGHTER = MENNASK = RATIONAL = THE PILLARS ATZILUTH ~ GON1 28 = BELDOR = INTERTIDAL = NUMOGRAMMIC HUMANITY = OPEN SESAME = PANDEMONIUM MATRIX REF (BELDOR) ::::::::::http://www.livejournal.com/~northanger/2004/08/09/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-4 [0007.95] MARS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-5 [0049.24] JUPITER BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-6 [0122.32] SATURN 631

BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE #405 :: Fearful things, serpents of the dust [Job] ZChLY a'aPR; [Cf. no. 227, HB:ZKR] Phallus; urethra [Vide Deut. xxiii. 2] ShPKH BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-4 [0007.95] MARS (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII)))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {4} OTHIL LASDI BABAGE OD DORPHA GOHOL: GCHISGE AVAVAGO CORMP PD, DS SONF VIV DIU CASARMI OALI MAPM SOBAM AG CORMPO CRIP L; CASARMG CROODZI CHIS OD UGEG; DS T CAPIMALI CHIS CAPIMAON, OD LONSHIN CHIS TA LO CLA. TORZU NOR QUASAHI OD F CAOSGA! BAGLE ZIR ENAY IAD DS I OD APILA DOOAIP QAAL ZACAR OD ZAMRAN OBELISONG RESTEL AAI NOR MOLAP I Have Set My Feet In The South And Looked About Me Saying: Are Not The Thunders Of Increase Numbered 33 Which Reign In The Second Angle? Under Whom I Have Placed 9639 Whom None Have Numbered But One; In Whom The Second Beginning Of Things Are And Wax Strong; Which Also Successively Are The Numbers Of Time, And Their Powers Are As The First 456. Arise, You Sons Of Pleasure And Visit The Earth! For I Am The Lord Your God, Which Is And Liveth! In The Name Of The Creator, Move And Show Yourselves As Pleasant Deliverers That You May Praise Him Among The Sons Of Men. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE FOUR:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-4 is the third of the six Torque-region Zones of the Numogram. Its Syzygetictwin is Zone-5. The 5+4 Syzygy is carried by the demon Katak (see Zone-5). 632

Zone-4 both initiates and envelops the Fourth-Phase of Pandemonium (including 16 impulse-entities). This equation of phase-population with the square of the zonenumber establishes an exceptional solidarity between the two, although this rigidity has as its flip-side a tendency to cataclysmic instability. In its initiatory aspect Zone-4 functions as the Fourth Door (or 'Time-Delta,' familiar from variations of the Kurtzmythos as 'the worst place in the world'). Muvian sorcery attributes this door to the amphidemon (and imp of the first degree) Krako (4::0). The Fourth Gate (Gt-10) feeds Zone-4 forward to Zone-1. Its ancient (protoAtlantean) name the 'Gate of Submergence' hints at its interlocking associations with completion, catastrophe, subsidence, and decadence. The Channel corresponding to the Fourth Gate is one of three concluding in Zone-1, and the only pro-cyclic channel within the Torque. Its course reinforces the 5-4 (or 'Sink') Current in its rush towards termination, and augments the weight of destiny (it was under the influence of this line that Cecil Curtis departed upon his fatal journey into the land of the Tak Nma). Zone-4 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0015. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-4 with ‘delta-phase’ or terminal deliria (Kurtz/Curtis end-of-the-river disintegration into malarial nightmares), geoconvulsions, continental subsidence, and ‘red-out.’ Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-4 onto the passive side of the Third (or Left) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the dark aspect of Apocalypse (‘destructive influences’) it corresponds to random calamity. Stillwell links Zone-4 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘skr,’ which Horowitz identifies as an anthropo-reptiloid precursor to the qabbalistic ‘hard resh.’ Stillwell’s ethno-topography of the Nma allocates Zone-4 to the volcanic jungles of the Tak Nma, and through the Mu Nma hydrocycle mythos to riverine flow. Zone-4 totem animals are typified by cats and dogs, especially in their predatory mode. Among the Tak Nma rabid animals are given particular prominence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-4 LEMUR :: [M#06] 4::0 AQ 101 = KRAKO = SEMEN PHASE-4 LEMUR :: [M#07] 4::1 AQ 193 = SUKUGOOL = CAPITALISM 633

PHASE-4 LEMUR :: [M#08] 4::2 AQ 130 = SKOODU = FICTION = MATRIX = U-TURN PHASE-4 LEMUR :: [M#09] 4::3 AQ 156 SKARKIX = ABSTRACT = CTHULHU = THISTLE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-5 [0049.24] JUPITER BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-6 [0122.32] SATURN BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE # 406 :: SUM (1 - 28); THOU: a name of GOD AThH; Vulgar, common; plebeian a'aM HARTz; Leg ShVQ; Alterations ShNVYM; The letter Tau ThV BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-5 [0049.24] JUPITER (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {5} SA PAH ZIMII DU-I-V OD NOAS TA-QU-A-NIS ADROCH DORPHAL CA OSG OD FAONTS PERIPSOL TABLIOR CASARM AMIPZI NA ZARTH AF OD DLUGAR ZIZOP Z-LIDA CAOSAGI TOL TORG OD Z-CHIS E SI ASCH L TA VI U OD IAOD THILD DS PERAL HUBAR PE O AL SOBA CORMFA CHIS TA LA VIS OD Q-CO-CASB CA NILS OD DARBS Q A AS FETH-AR-ZI OD BLIORA IA-IAL ED NAS CICLES BAGLE GE IAD I L The Mighty Sounds Have Entered The Third Angle And Are Become As Olives In The Olive Mount: Looking With Gladness On The Earth, And Dwelling In The Brightness Of The Heavens As Continual Comforters. Unto Whom I Fastened Pillars Of Gladness 19 And Gave Them Vessels To Water The Earth With All Her Creatures. And They Are The Brothers Of The First And The Second, And The Beginning Of Their Own Seats, Which Are Garnished With Continual Burning 634

Lamps 69636 Whose Numbers Are As The First, The Ends, And The Contents Of Time! Therefore Come Ye, And Obey Your Creation! Visit Us In Peace And Comfort! Conclude Us As Receivers Of Your Mysteries. Why? Our Lord Is All One! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE FIVE::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-5 is the sixth of the six Torque-region Zones of the Numogram, and TractorZone of the 7-2 (or 'Hold') Current. Its Syzygetic-twin is Zone-4. This 5+4 Syzygy (carried by the demon Katak) draws the innermost curve of the Barker-spiral, with Zone-5 itself marking its central and terminal node (or 'inner-eye'). Zone-5 both initiates and envelops the Fifth-Phase of Pandemonium (including 32 impulse-entities). Horovitz remarks specifically upon the qabbalistic resonance of these values. In its initiatory aspect Zone-5 functions as the Fifth (or Hyperborean) Door, attributed by Muvian sorcery to the amphidemon (and imp of the first degree) Tokhatto (5::0). In the inner esoteric circles of the AOE this demon is reverenced as the Angel of the Decadence Pack, and even identified with the Archangel Meteka (associations reinforced by numerous qabbalistic peculiarities). The Fifth Gate (Gt-15) connects Zone-5 to Zone-6, and its corresponding channel tracks the path of abductions into the Warp. Zone-5 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0031. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-5 with Hyperborean or Wendigo mythology. Zone-5 mirrors Zone-2 and shares in its Crypt-linked themes of missing time and alien abduction. Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-5 onto the active side of the Third (or Left) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the light aspect of Apocalypse (‘destructive influences’) it corresponds to decision, judgement, and war. Stillwell links Zone-5 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘ktt’ (the Horowitzean ‘paravocal tic’). Stillwell’s ethno-topography of the Nma allocates Zone-5 to the upland rain forests of the Tak Nma, and through the Mu Nma hydrocycle mythos to the monsoon. 635

Zone-5 totem animals are predominantly hybrid bird-reptile forms (with the art of the Highland Tak described by Cecil Curtis as ‘a flapping howling chaos of flying worms, bat-monsters and barking snakes’). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-5 LEMUR :: [M#10] 5::0 AQ 182 = TOKHATTO = TOHU BOHU PHASE-5 LEMUR :: [M#11] 5::1 AQ 161 = TUKKAMU = BEELZEBUB = BLUE PILL PHASE-5 LEMUR :: [M#12] 5::2 AQ 162 = KUTTADID = AMPHIBOLE = QWERTY = SOLIDUS PHASE-5 LEMUR :: [M#13] 5::3 AQ 185 = TIKKITIX = JERUSALEM = SAUDI ARABIA = UNIVERSE = WAR MACHINE PHASE-5 LEMUR :: [M#14] 5::4 AQ 89 = KATAK = BRAIN = DILDO = DRUJ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-6 [0122.32] SATURN BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE # 407 :: Signum AVTh; The Precious Oil ShMN TVB BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-6 [0122.32] SATURN (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {6} GAH S DIV CHIS EM MICAOLZ PILZIN SOBAM EL HARG MIR BABALON OD OBLOC SAMVELG DLUGAR MALPRG AR CAOSGI OD ACAM CANAL SOBA ELZAP F BLIARD CAOSG OD CHIS ANETAB OD 636

MIAM TA VIV OD D DARSAR SOLPETH BIEN BRITA OD ZACAM GMICALZO SOBA HAATH TRIAN LUIAHE OD ECRIN MAD QAAON The Spirits Of The Fourth Angle Are Nine, Mighty In The Firmament Of Waters: Whom The First Hath Planted As A Torment To The Wicked And A Garland To The Righteous; Giving Unto Them Fiery Darts To Fan The Earth, And 7699 (ACAM) Continual Workmen Whose Courses Visit With Comfort The Earth, And Are In Government And Continuance As The Second And The Third. Wherefore, Hearken Unto My Voice: I Have Talked Of You And I Move You In Power And Presence, Whose Works Shall Be A Song Of Honor And The Praise Of God In Your Creation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE SIX::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\\\\\\\\\\\\\INCOMING SYSTEM-WIDE MESSAGE//////////// ZONE TWO LINKUP=========================={084IDJ2;DI} {VENUS} VERIFICATION# AQ 645 = LIGHT ECHO FROM STAR V838 MONOCEROTIS ----------- AQ 100 = AGJKZ(645) = ISO 7489-2 = ZERO AQ 15 DR = LIGHT ECHO FROM STAR V838 MONOCEROTIS = CODE CYALIS = DEEP EARTH SEISMIC TRIGGERING INITIATION [1] Tellurian Insurgency 2: Telluro-magnetic Conspiracy: The Core http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003951.html GON1 111 = DEEP EARTH SEISMIC TRIGGERING INITIATION = MANIFESTATION IS FORGED BY BELIEF = THE KINGS OF THE EARTH SHALL BE KINGS FOREVER = A FATAL ATTRACTION IS HOLDING ME FAST GON1 49 = EARTH'S MAGNETOSPHERE = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS = NUMOGRAMMICAL PROCESSES = SAHARASIA 637

GON1 28 = BELDOR = EARTH'S CORE NUMOGRAMMIC HUMANITY = OPEN SESAME = INTERTIDAL = REF::::::::::http://www.livejournal.com/~northanger/2004/08/09/ ANONYMOUS UNTIL NOW: TELLURIAN INSURGENCY - Led by Colonel Jackson ‘Hulugu’ West [location currently unknown]. CODE CYALIS: Decumenon, Unground, World War :::::::::: System-wide call for Lightworkers, Solidarity Captured, ONE-ONE-ONE-ONE, For God So Loved The World. [2] DECRYPT: (a) ---------- (b) ---------- (c) ---------- (d) ---------- (e) -------------------------------(a)---------------AQ 653 = 01-Jan-2005 :: Sethos at Galactic Center (26Sg54) @ 19:42:087952 UT AQ 68 = AGJN(Pi-653) = PAX (DR 14 = 01-Jan-2005 :: Sethos at Galactic Center (26Sg54) @ 19:42:087952 UT) AQ 512 = THE QWERTIAN BOOK OF NUMBERS = RADIONIC DEVICE TUNED TO 0123456789.98765432D10 REF: The Qwertian Book of Numbers http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004613.html - (b)--------------[AQ PAYLOAD]: D26 KX = ABRAHADABRA; THE REWARD OF RA HOOR KHUT = SIX PLATINUM GROUP METALS AQ DOWNLINK: CYBERAXIS | SEAL OF GOD'S TRUTH. See further instructions embedded in Atu XII Hanging Man (direct link to target) (c)--------------V838 MONOCEROTIS - outburst coordinates in Cancer 17º53 - Cancer 18º: INTO COMMON DUCT: Follow this line - August 11, 1999 Eclipse. See further instructions embedded in Hubble Images. -http://www.livejournal.com/~northanger/2004/08/09/ (d)--------------638

LOCAL STAR SYSTEM: SEVEN PLANETS | GLOBALIZATION (e)--------------YETZIRATIC FORM: Locked into Hidden Content of Egg (EARTH'S CORE) Off-World Signal (V838 MONOCEROTIS) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-6 is the second of the two Warp-region Zones of the Numogram. Its Warpcomplement and Syzygetic-twin is Zone-3. It is this 6+3 Syzygy (carried by the demon Djynxx) which draws the 'Ulterior Vortex' of Outer-Time. Zone-6 provides the terminus for two channels, one each from the Torque (the 5th), and the Warp (the 3rd). Zone-6 both initiates and envelops the Sixth-Phase of Pandemonium (including 64 impulse-entities). Chaim Horovitz qabbalistically relates this phase, multitude, or 'Tone' to the hexagrams of the I Ching and to the yantras of the Ur-Oriyan Yoginis. As initiator, Zone-6 corresponds to the Sixth Door. Muvian sorcery attributes this door - which it names Undu - to the terrible chaotic xenodemon (and imp of the first degree) Tchu (6::0), primordially associated with shocking disappearances. The Sixth Gate (Gt-21) twists Zone-6 through Zone-3, vortically recycling it into the Warp. Its corresponding channel tracks the course of the Warp-current, reinforcing the turbular-momentum of the entire region. Mu Tantrism plots Warp-region intensities onto the plane of the third-eye. Zone-6 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0063 (a fact of obvious importance to the culture of Tzikvik cipher-shamanism). Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-6 with the occulted dimensions of Undu, turbular erosion and the dead eye of the cyclone. The intensity of vortical involvement with Zone-3 problematizes distinct characterization. Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-6 onto the passive side of the Fourth (or Crown) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the dark aspect of Fortune (‘far future’) it corresponds to ‘gnostic death,’ event horizon, and the absolutely unexpected. 639

Stillwell links Zone-6 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘tch,’ approximating to the interphoneme ‘dzch/tj.’ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-6 LEMUR :: [M#-15] 6::0 D26 = BW = TCHU* = SHIAEL (Angel of Mercy: ShIA + AL (Shiael)—HƒHVI—Taurus (Earth—Fixed)) PHASE-6 LEMUR :: [M#-16] 6::1 GON2 13 = DJUNGO = BELIAL = NUMOGRAMMICAL TIME = ZOIGA = THE MARK OF GOD PHASE-6 LEMUR :: [M#-17] 6::2 GON2 51 = DJUDDHA = DIGITAL UNDERGROUND = NUMOGRAMMICAL PROCESSES = ODIC FORCE PHASE-6 LEMUR :: [M#-18] 6::3 AQ 155 = DJYNXX = CHRONOS PHASE-6 LEMUR :: [M#-19] 6::4 D26 CE = TCHAKKI = ELOHIM = FEATHER = STELE PHASE-6 LEMUR :: [M#-20] 6::5 D26 DS = TCHATTUK = EPHEMERIDES = FOURTEEN = HARLEQUIN = MERCURY = SUBTRACT (*) TCHU = 16 DR = AIWASS THE MINISTER OF HOOR-POOR-KRAAT - - - - - - - - - PACKET- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ASSIAH ~ AQ 222 [WOMEN=OTHER] = GEO REQUEST = AMPHIBOLOGY = -------------------------------------------------+ATZILUTH ~ GON1 43 = #68-BELIAL = AOE DISTRIBUTED POD NETWORK = CYBERSPACE = NUMOGRAM WITH A LIFE = TELLURIAN OMEGA = THE GREEN BOOK - - - - - - - - - RESPONSE- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AQ 351 = DISCUSS OPERATION = NUMOGRAM INSTALLED = DEAD EYE OF THE CYCLONE GON1 15 = CYALIS = GAS = GEMATRIX = RECTITUDO, AEQUITAS RECTA; RECTILINEUM 640

D26 CW = I'M ON IT -------------------------------------------------CRITICAL---------REVISED TARGET LOCATION Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 7:58:53 AM Location 95E20 5N34 (Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia) http://www.cyberaxis.net/assets/imgs/northanger/astro/charts/mag-nine.gif http://www.cyberaxis.net/assets/imgs/northanger/astro/charts/mag-nine.pdf GON1 51 = YILDUN-COMPASSION-SOLIDARITY-MAGNANIMITY GON1 15 = CYALIS* (AL=GEMATRIX=RECTITUDO, AEQUITAS RECTA, RECTILINEUM) GON1 29 = MARITIMA-PAX = (PANDEMONIUM=THELEMITE=TRIANGULATING=WHITEBODYPOLI TIC) GON1 80 = YILDUN-COMPASSION-SOLIDARITY-MAGNANIMITYMARITIMA-PAX GON1 80 = HYPERSTITION NECESSARILY INVOLVES AN OPENING UP OF / TO THE OUTSIDE = HYPERSTITION.ABSTRACTDYNAMICS.ORG ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 641

Nick Land: axisnorthanger - right now, a little speechless - assuming this took you quite a lot of time - (glad to see the job hunting is going well ,)) (eye recovering fast, but still leaking a greenish pus) assuming i need to spend several years studying the Goetian tablets to stand a chance of fully grasping what is going on here? axisnorthanger: assuming i need to spend several years studying the Goetian tablets to stand a chance of fully grasping what is going on here? naw, it's mostly hyperstitional Nick Land: axisnorthanger - you must find the Lemurian planet numbering almost unbearably vulgar. axisnorthanger: GATE #411 :: Elisha ALYSha'a; Briatic Palace of Tiphareth HYKL RTzVN; Fundamenta Terrae MVSDY ARTz; Habitaculum MShKNA; Ordo temporum SDR ZMNYM; Desolation, emptiness (Expresses first root of all good) ThHV YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . {10} CORAXO CHIS CORMP OD BLANS LUCAL AZIAZIOR PAEB SOBA LILONON CHIS VIRQ OP EOPHAN OD RACLIR MAASI BAGLE CAOSGI DS IALPON DOSIG OD BASGIM OD OXEX DAZIZ SIATRIS OD SALBROX CINXIR FABOAN UNAL CHIS CONST DS DAOX COCASB OL OANIO YOR EORS MICAOLI OL GIXYAX OD MATB COCASB PLOSI MOLUI DS PAGE LARAG OM DROLN MATORB OCASB EMNA L PATRALX YOLCI MATB NOMIG MONONS OLORA GNAY ANGELARD OHIO OHIO OHIO OHIO OHIO OHIO NOIB OHIO CAOSGON BAGLE MADRID I ZIROP CHISO DRILPA NIISO CRIP IP NIDALI The Thunders Of Judgment & Wrath Are Numbered, And Are Harbored In The North In The Likeness Of An Oak, Whose Branches Are Nests 22 Of Lamentation And Weeping Laid Up For The Earth. Which Burn Night And Day, And Vomit Out The Heads Of Scorpions And Live Sulphur Mingled With Poison. These Are The Thunders Which 5678 Times In The 24th Part Of A Moment Roar With An Hundred Mighty Earthquakes And A Thousand Times As Many Surges. Which Rest Not, Neither Know Any Echoing Time Here. One Rock Brings Forth A Thousand Even 642

As The Heart Of Man Does His Thoughts: Woe, Woe, Woe, Woe, Woe, Woe, Yea, Woe To The Earth! For Her Iniquity Is, Was, And Shall Be Great! Come Away! But Not Your Noises! BOOK OF PATHS http://www.ccru.net/occultures/bookofpaths.htm 1. Original Subtraction. 20. Alien Intervention. 2. Extreme Regression. 21. Supreme Comprehension. 3. Abysmal Comprehension. 22. Reverse Flight. 4. Primordial Breath. 23. Deepest Destiny. 5. Slipping Backwards. 24. Optimal Maturation. 6. Attaining Balance. 25. Certain Slide. 7. Progressive Levitation. 26. Preserving Stability. 8. Eternal Digression. 27. Cyclic Regeneration. 9. Sudden Flight. 28. Transcendent Comprehension. 10. Jagged Flight. 29. Celestial Abduction. 11. Abysmal Subsidence. 30. Coiled Fervour. 12. Slow Cataclysm. 31. Eternal Revolution. 13. Cyclic Perfection. 32. Vortical Escalation. 14. Tranquil Drowning. 33. Jagged Escalation. 15. Suspended Decline. 34. Celestial Capture. 16. Supreme Balance. 35. Erratic Flight. 17. Profound Renewal. 36. Vortical Coincidence. 18. Cyclic Elevation. 37. Indirect Escape. 19. Transcendent Resurgence. 38. Split Comprehension. 643

39. Eventual Comprehension. 62. Emergent Mirroring. 40. Climbing Reversal. 63. Tidal Evacuation. 41. Final Comprehension. 64. Tidal Vortex. 42. Abrupt Elevation. 65. Rapid Submergence. 43. Deep Regression. 66. Suspended Subduction. 44. Profound Comprehension. 67. Cyclic Succession. 45. Primal Awakening. 68. Sliding Subduction. 46. Basic Reversion. 69. Prolonged Emergence. 47. Attaining Imbalance. 70. Absolute Escalation. 48. Perpetual Bubbling. 71. Erratic Escalation. 49. Escape Velocity. 72. Larval Awakening. 50. Erratic Interference. 73. Larval Reversion. 51. Swift Revival. 74. Cyclic Submergence. 52. Slow Revival. 75. Seething Nullity. 53.Suspended Animation. 76. Continual Sinking. 54. Eventual Resurgence. 77. Chthonic Regression. 55. Upholding Stability. 78. Deep Comprehension. 56. Bubbling Anomalies. 79. Subterranean Slippage. 57. Jagged Abduction. 80. Subterranean Impulsion. 58. Terminal Undertow. 81. Buried Instinct. 59. Self-Swallowing Somnolence. 82. Plunging Backwards. 60. Submergent Mirroring. 83. Unending Comprehension. 61. Cyclic Dreaming. 84. Compressed Termination. 644

85. Crank a Hard Cutback As You Hit the Wall. GATE #410 :: Liberty; a swallow DRVR; Visions, imaginations.[Dan. iv. 2] HRHR; Metzareph MTzRP; The Tabernacle MShKN; Sacred; Saint QDVSh; Holy QVDSh; He heareth ShMa'a; Hod, 42-fold Name in Yetzirah ShQY BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {9} MICAOLI BRANSG PURGEL NAPTA IALPOR DS BRIN EFAFAFE P VONPHO OLANI OD OBZA SOBA UPAAH CHIS TATAN OD TRANAN BALYE ALAR LUSDA SOBOLN OD CHIS HOLQ CNOQUODI CIAI UNAL ALDON MOM CAOSGO TA LAS OLLOR GNAY LIMLAL AMMA CHIIS SOBA MADRID ZCHIS OOANOAN CHIS AVINY DRILPI CAOSGI OD BUTMONI PARM ZUMVI CNILA DAZIZ ETHAMZ A-CHILDAO OD MIRC OZOL CHIS PIDIAI COLLAL ULCININ A-SOBAM UCIM BAGLE IAD BALTOH CHIRLAN PAR NIISO OD IP EFAFAFE BAGLE COCASB I CORS TA UNIG BLIOR A Mighty Guard Of Fire With Two-edged Swords Flaming, Which Have Vials :8: Of Wrath For Two Times And A Half, Whose Wings Are Wormwood And The Marrow Of Salt, Have Settled Their Feet In The West And Are Measured With Their Ministers 9996. These Gather Up The Moss Of The Earth As The Rich Man Doth His Treasure. Cursed Are They Whose Iniquities They Are: In Their Eyes Are Millstones Greater Than The Earth, And From Their Mouths Run Seas Of Blood. Their Heads Are Covered With Diamond, And Upon Their Heads Are Marble Sleeves. Happy Is He On Whom They Frown Not: For Why? The God Of Righteousness Rejoices In Them! Come Away! And Not Your Viols: For The Time Is Such As Requires Comfort! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE NINE::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-9 is the second of the two zones mutually composing the Plex-region of the Numogram, and Tractor-Zone for the 9-0 (or 'Plex') current. Its Plex-complement and Syzygetic-twin is Zone-0. This 9+0 Syzygy (carried by the demon Uttunul) draws 645

the outermost curve of the Barker-spiral, which coincides with the limit ordinal-span in Barkerian arithmetic. Zone-9 provides the terminus for two channels, one each from the Torque (the 8th), and the Plex (the 9th). Zone-9 both initiates and envelops the Ninth-Phase of Pandemonium (including 512 impulse-entities, one half of the fully disorganized population). In the first of these aspects it functions as the Ninth (or Ultimate) Door, which degenerated Muvian sorceries identify with the syzygetic xenodemon (and imp of the first degree) Uttunul (9::0, see above). The Ninth Gate (Gt-45) connects Zone-9 to itself, transducing the third involutionary channel (see Zone-0, Zone-1). Nma sorcery refers to it as the Gate of Pandemonium (a fact Stillwell attributes to the coincidence of its number (45) with that of the Nma demonomy). The Tzikvik associate it with Tchukululok (fabled City of the Worms), and emphasize its numerical cross-match with the 5+4 Syzygy, whose demonic carrier they call Kattku (the Nma ‘Katak'). The Xxignal track Utterminus is dedicated to the Ninth Gate, linking it to K-goth synthanatonic fugues. In contrast, Polanski's film ‘The Ninth Gate' - despite its title - has only the most tenuous and allusive relation to the Numogram path of this name. Mu Tantrism plots Zone-9 intensities onto the Sacral level of the spine. The Sacrum (or ‘sacred bone') has been identified (by Goethe amongst others) as a degenerated second skull. Zone-9 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0511. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-9 with the Cthellloid metallic ocean of the earth’s iron core. Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-9 onto the active side of the Fifth (or Root) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the light aspect of Foundation (‘deep past’) it corresponds to the prehuman cultures of the Old Ones. Stillwell links Zone-9 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘tn,’ which Horowitz describes as ‘the ultimate unutterable mystery of vocal nullity.’ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#36] 9::0 GON1 -31 = UTTUNUL = ANONYMOUSLY = CHORONZON = UTC = YETZIRATIC SEX 646

PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#37] 9::1 GON1 -5 = TUTTAGOOL = ATZILUTH = FOUR WATCHTOWERS = HYPERSTITIONAL CONSULTANTS PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#38] 9::2 AQ 179 = UNNUNDDO = DELTA FORCE PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#39] 9::3 D26 FZ = UNUNUTTIX = DELTA TROOPERS = REVEALED BY AIWASS = SIGILLUM DEI AEMETH PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#40] 9::4 GON1 15 = UNNUNAKA = CYALIS = GEMATRIX PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#41] 9::5 GON1 -30 = TUKUTU = UNKNOWN STATUS PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#42] 9::6 D26 DY= UNNUTCHI = ABOMINATION = AEON OF ISIS = CHESTNUT = METAMASONIC PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#43] 9::7 AQ 173 = NUTTUBAB = HODOLOGY = LEVIATHAN = YULETIDE PHASE-9 LEMUR :: [M#44] 9::8 D26 CZ = UMMNU = ANALYTICA = CRYPT = SRI LANKA -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE # 409 :: Pi; Patriarchs ABHThA; Fathers ABVTh; One (fem.) AChTh; HaQadesh; Holy Ones HQDSh BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {8} BAZMELO I TA PI RIPSON OLN NA ZA VABH OX CASARMG VRAN CHIS VGEG DSA BRAMIG BAL TO HA GOHO I AD SOLAMIAN TRIAN TA LOL CIS A BA I UO NIN OD A ZI AGI ER RIOR IR GIL CHIS DA DS PA A OX BUFD CAOSGO DS CHIS ODI PURAN TELOAH CACRG ISALMAN LONCHO OD VOUINA CARBAF NIISO BAGLE AUAUAGA GOHON NIISO 647

BAGLE MOMAO SIAION OD MABZA IAD O I AS MO MAR POILP NIIS ZAMRAN CI A O FI CAOSGO OD BLIORS OD CORSI TA A BRA MIG The Midday, The First Is As The Third Heaven: Made Of Pillars Of Hiacynth 26, In Whom The Elders Are Become Strong. Which I Have Prepared For My Own Righteousness, Sayeth The Lord, Whose Long Continuance Shall Be As Bucklers To The Stooping Dragon, And Like Unto The Harvest Of A Widow. How Many Are There Which Remain In The Glory Of The Earth? Which Are, And Shall Not See Death Until This House Fall And The Dragon Sink? Come Away! For The Thunders Have Spoken! Come Away! For The Crowns Of The Temple And The Coats of Him That Was, Is, And Shall Be Crowned Are Divided. Come, Appear To The Terror Of The Earth, And To Our Comfort And Of Such As Are Prepared! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE EIGHT::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-8 is the fourth of the six Torque-region Zones of the Numogram. Its Syzygetictwin is Zone-1. The 8+1 Syzygy is carried by the demon Murmur (known to Muvian sorcerors as 'the nethermost denizen of time'). Zone-8 both initiates and envelops the Eighth-Phase of Pandemonium (including 256 impulse-entities). This association with the digital byte (eight bits) cements its importance within cybergothic cults. In its initiatory aspect - as the Eighth Door Zone-8 is problematically identifiable with the Muvian amphidemon (and imp of the first degree) Minommo (8::0). This demon figures prominently in the dream sorcery of the Mu Nma. The Eighth Gate (Gt-36) connects Zone-8 to Zone-9, and the corresponding Channel is the sole path of escape from the Torque - or 'Time-Circuit' - into the Plex. Due to its digital cross-match with the 6+3 Syzygy (occupying the Warp-region of the Numogram, and carried by the Xenodemon Djynxx (6::3)) the Eighth Gate seems to address what Stillwell has called the 'ultimate numogrammatic enigma' - that of the intercommunication between the Warp and Plex regions. This linkage is crucially emphasized in the culture of Tzikvik shamanism, and - under the name 'Gate of Charon'- is taken-up into Late-Atlantean apocalypticism (since its digital sum (36) itself cumulates to 666, and thus echoes the number of Seals to the Great Abyss (long associated with the thirty-six cards of the Decadence pack)). 648

Mu Tantrism plots Zone-8 intensities onto the Lumbar level of the spine, archaic fishregion of the mammalian nervous-system. Zone-8 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0255. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-8 with limbic drift, dreams, trance-states and foetal sentience. Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-8 onto the passive side of the First (or Centre) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the dark aspect of Anamnesis (‘memories and dreams’) it corresponds to submerged currents of fatality. Stillwell links Zone-8 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘mnm,’ the diffuse subvocal hum that Horowitz links to the ‘proto-originary enunciation’ Oumn. Stillwell’s ethno-topography of the Nma allocates Zone-8 to the fabled submarine cities of the ancient Mu Nma, and through the Mu Nma hydrocycle mythos to the deep sea. Zone-8 totem animals are typified by polytendrilled abominations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#28] 8::0 D26 DH = MINOMMO = KOHANGA REO = THEORY = TREASON PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#29] 8::1 D26 FF = MURRUMUR = EMERGENCY RELIEF = WWW.RAEL.ORG PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#30] 8::2 D26 CA = NAMMAMAD = GHIAMAT = LIBER AL = LYRA = UNICEF = TALIBAN PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#31] 8::3 GON1 -15 = MUMMUMIX = SHIT-STORM PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#32] 8::4 GON2 -5 = NUMKO = EARTH STRUCTURE = HOLY WAR = LOGIN=DJYNXX PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#33] 8::5 D26 DQ = MUNTUK = FIVE NINES = HYPERMEDIA = NUMOGRAM = XERODERM PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#34] 8::6 AQ 178 = MOMMOLJO = TIDAL WAVE PHASE-8 LEMUR :: [M#35] 8::7 AQ 114 = MOMBBO = 11-ZODIAC 649

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE # 408 :: Lapis sapphirinus ABN HSPYR; Haec ZATh; [Vide Deut. x. 10, 15] ChShQ BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-7 [0348.78] URANUS (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((OAMOSGRBMCONNNIIII))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) {7} R A AS ISALMAN PARA DI ZOD OE CRI NI AAO IAL PURGAH QUI IN ENAY BUTMON OD IN OAS NI PARA DIAL CASARMG VGEAR CHIRLAN OD ZONAC LU CIF TIAN CORS TO VAUL ZIRN TOL HA MI SOBA LONDOH OD MIAM CHIS TAD O DES VMADEA OD PIBLIAR OTHIL RIT OD MIAM C NO QUOL RIT ZACAR, ZAMRAN OECRIMI Q A DAH OD O MI CA OLZ AAIOM BAGLE PAP NOR ID LUGAM LONSHI OD VMPLIF VGEGI BIGLIAD The East Is A House Of Virgins Singing Praises Among The Flames Of First Glory: Wherein The Lord Hath Opened His Mouth, And They Are Become 28 Living Dwellings In Whom The Strength Of Men Rejoices. And They Are Appareled With Ornaments Of Brightness Such As Work Wonders On All Creatures. Whose Kingdoms And Continuance Are As The Third And Fourth, Strong Towers And Places Of Comfort, The Seats Of Mercy And Continuance. O You Servants Of Mercy, Move, Appear Singing Praises Of The Creator, And Be Mighty Among Us! For To This Remembrance Is Given Power, And Our Strength Waxes Strong In Our Comforter! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ZONE SEVEN:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::System Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Zone-7 is the fifth of the six Torque-region Zones of the Numogram, and TractorZone of the 8-1 (or 'Surge') Current. Its Syzygetic-twin is Zone-2. The 7+2 Syzygy is 650

carried by the demon Oddubb, whose associations with hyperstitious doublings reinforces its twin character. Zone-7 both initiates and envelops the Seventh-Phase of Pandemonium (including 128 impulse-entities). In its initiatory aspect - as the Seventh Door - Zone-7 opens onto the cosmic swamp-labyrinths or 'Tracts of Dobo.' Muvian sorcery attributes this door to the amphidemon (and imp of the first degree) Puppo (7::0). The Seventh Gate (Gt-28) feeds Zone-7 back to Zone-1, and this tendency to precipitate 'fold-type' time-anomalies accounts for its Black-Atlantean name 'Gate of Relapse.' The Channel corresponding to the Seventh Gate is one of three concluding in Zone-1, and the only counter-cyclic path within the Torque. The aquassasins of Hyper-C fetishize this gate in their bizarre mysteries of the Bubble Pod. Zone-7 is allotted the Sarkonian Mesh-Tag 0127. Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-7 with emergence from the depths (hyper-sea water-carriers and amphibious colonization). Centauri subdecadence maps Zone-7 onto the active side of the Second (or Right) Pylon on the Atlantean Cross. As the light aspect of Genesis (‘creative influences’) it corresponds to genealogy, ancestor worship and inherited wealth. Stillwell links Zone-7 to the Munumese quasiphonic particle ‘pb’ (the Horowitzean ‘compounded plosive’). Her ethno-topography of the Nma allocates Zone-4 to the coastal swamps of the Dib Nma, and through the Mu Nma hydrocycle mythos to salt-water marshes. Zone-7 totem animals are predominantly of the chubby batrachian (burping toad) type. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHASE-7 LEMUR :: [M#21] 7::0 D26 DB = PUPPO = AMALANTRAH = DELTA FORCE = INFO-WAR = YILDUN PHASE-7 LEMUR :: [M#22] 7::1 AQ 125 = BUBBAMU = ASMODAI = BACKBONE = BUNKER = DESERT = DIGITAL PHASE-7 LEMUR :: [M#23] 7::2 GON1 36 = ODDUBB = BOLESKINE HOUSE = OEDIPAL 651

PHASE-7 LEMUR :: [M#24] 7::3 AQ 51 = PABBAKIS = BABALON = MECHANOMICS = WAHHABISTIC PHASE-7 LEMUR :: [M#25] 7::4 D26 BU = ABABBATOK = BADIOU = ELITE = (726=6X11^2=33X22) PHASE-7 LEMUR :: [M#26] 7::5 D26 DJ = PAPATAKOO = ASIA TIMES = APOLLO-PHA = RHIZOME = UNICORN PHASE-7 LEMUR :: [M#27] 7::6 AQ 51 = BOBOBJA = BABALON = MECHANOMICS = WAHHABISTIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-8 [0684.27] NEPTUNE BRIAH ~ GON2 55 = GAME WITH NINE LEVELS || ZN-9 [1028.48] PLUTO -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GATE #412 :: The letter Beth BYTh; New (Ch.) ChDTh; Jesus GOD YHShVH ALHYM; White whorl TzMR LBN; Celsitudo superna RVM a'aLYVN; A longing for ThAVH YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM {11} OXIAYAL HOLDO OD ZIROM O CORAXO DS ZILDAR RAASY OD VABZIR CAMLIAX OD BAHAL NIISO OD ALDON SALMAN TELOCH CASARMAN HOLQ OD T I TA ZCHIS SOBA CORMF I GA NIISO BAGLE ABRAMG NONCP ZACAR CA OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD HOATH IAIDA The Mighty Seat Groaned And They Were :5: Thunders Which Flew Into The East: And The Eagle spake And Cried With A Loud Voice: Come Away! And They Gathered Them Together In The House Of Death, Of Whom It Is Measured And It Is As They Are Whose Number Is 31. Come Away! For I Have Prepared For You! Move, Therefore And Appear! Open The Mysteries Of Your Creation! Be Friendly To Me, For I Am The Servant Of God, The True Worshiper Of The Highest! GATE #413 :: D26 CL = AFGHJLZ(413) = CYALIS = HURT = WEST 652

YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM {13} NAPEAI BABAGEN DS BRIN VX OOAONA LRING VONPHO DOALIM EOLIS OLLOG ORSBA DS CHIS AFFA MICMA ISRO MAD OD LONSHI TOX DS IVMD AAI GROSB ZACAR OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD HOATH IAIDA O Ye Swords Of The South, Which Have 42 Eyes To Stir Up Wrath Of Sin, Making Men Drunken Which Are Empty: Behold The Promise Of God, And The Power Of Him Which Is Called Among You A Bitter Sting! Move And Appear! Open The Mysteries Of Your Creation! Be Friendly To Me, For I Am The Minister Of God The True Worshiper Of The Highest! GATE #414 :: Azoth, "the" fluid. A + Z (Lat.) + Omega (Grk.) + Th (Heb.). Initial and final in 3 tongues AZVTh; The Limitless Light AYN SVP AVR; Meditation [Ps. xlv. 4] HGVTh; Going forth [Vide no. 770] MShVTTYM ASSIAH AQ M = HOW MANY BORGS DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB? {19} MADRIAX DS PRAF {LIL :: PALLADIUM} CHIS MICAOLZ SAANIR CAOSGO OD FISIS BAL ZIZRAS IAIDA NONCA GOHULIM MICMA ADOIAN MAD I A OD BLIORB SA BA OOAONA CHIS LUCIFTIAS PERIPSOL DS ABRAASSA NONCF NETAA IB CAOSGI OD TILB ADPHAHT DAM PLOZ TOOAT NONCF GMI CALZOMA L RASD TOFGLO MARB YARRY I DOI GO OD TOR ZULP IA O DAF GOHOL CAOSGA TA BA ORD SAANIR OD CHRISTEOS YR POIL TI OB L BUS DIR TILB NOALN PA ID ORSBA OD DODRMNI ZYLNA EL ZAP TILB PARM GI PE RIP SAX OD TA QURLST BO O A PI S L NIB M OV CHO SYMP OD CHRISTEOS AG TOL TORN MIRC Q TI OB L LEL, TOM PAOMBD DILZMO ASPIAN, OD CHRISTEOS AG L TOR TORN PARACH A SYMP, CORD ZIZ DOD PAL OD FIFALZ L S MNAD OD FARGT BAMS OMAOAS CONISBRA OD AUAUOX TONUG ORS CAT BL NOASMI TAB GES LEUITH MONG VNCHI OMP TILB ORS. BAGLE MO O O AH OL CORD ZIZ L CA PI MA O IX O MAXIP OD CA CO CASB GSAA BAGLEN PI I TIANTA A BA BA LOND OD FAORGT TELOC VO V IM MA DRI IAX TIRZU O ADRIAX ORO CHA ABOAPRI TABAORI PRIAZ AR TA BAS. A DR PAN COR STA DOBIX YOL CAM PRI A ZI AR COAZIOR. OD QUASB Q TING RIPIR PA A OXT SA GA COR. VM L OD PRD ZAR CA CRG A OI VE A E CORMPT TORZV ZACAR OD ZAMRAN 653

ASPT SIBSI BUT MONA DS SURZAS TIA BALTAN ODO CICLE QAA OD OZAMA PLAPLI IAD NA MAD GATE #415 :: RHODIUM YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM {14} NOROMI BAGIE PASBS OIAD DS TRINT MIRC OL THIL DODS TOL HAMI CAOSGO HOMIN DS BRIN OROCH QUAR MICMA BIAL OIAD AISRO TOX DS IVMD AAI BALTIM ZACAR OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD HOATH IAIDA GATE #415 :: PLATINUM YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM {15} ILS TABAAM L IALPRT CASARMAN VPAAH CHIS DARG DS OADO CAOSGI ORSCOR DS OMAX MONASCI BAEOVIB OD EMETGIS IAIADIX ZACAR OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD HOATH IAIDA GATE #416 :: RUTHENIUM YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM {16} ILS VIV IALPRT SALMAN BALT DS BRIN ACROODZI BUSD OD BLIORAX BALIT DS INSI CAOSG LUSDAN EMOD DS OM OD TLIOB HAMI DRILPA GEH ILS MADZILODARP ZACAR OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD HOATH IAIDA GATE #416 :: IRIDIUM YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM {17} ILS D IALPRT SOBA VPAAH CHIS NANBA ZIXLAY DODSIH OD BRIN FAXS HUBARO TUSTAX YLSI SOBA IAD I VONPOVNPH ALDON DAXIL OD TOATAR ZACAR OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD HOATH IAIDA GATE #417 :: OSMIUM YETZIRAH ~ D26 GZ = TRIANGULAR PRISM 654

{18} ILS MICAIL-Z OLPRIT IAL PRG BLIORS DS ODO CUSDIR OIAD O UO ARS CAOSGO CA SAR MG LA IAD ERAN BRINTS CAFAFAM DS IUMD A Q LO A DO HI MOZ OD MA OF FAS BOLP COMOBLIORT PAMBT ZACAR OD ZAMRAN ODO CICLE QAA ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD, HOATH IAIDA bye basement, had a great time ::closing door:: GATE #419 :: Pi; Serpent: the letter Teth TVTh; Sodom and Gomorrah SDM + a'aMRH SODOM AND GOMORRAH = 44 GON1 44 = HYPERSTITION NECESSARILY INVOLVES AN OPENING UP OF / TO THE OUTSIDE GON1 44 = HYPERSTITION.ABSTRACTDYNAMICS.ORG GON1 44 = NUMOGRAM AS KOLLECTIVE GON1 44 = SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE SODOM AND GOMORRAH = 44 GON2 44 = ANGELIC HOST GON2 44 = COLLAUDATIO GON2 44 = GHIAMAT GON2 44 = GOD'S GREAT PLAN GON2 44 = LIMBIC KEY GON2 44 = NUMOGRAMMIC HUMAN MULTIPLY (4 X 19) = 76 GATE #76 :: Secret, put away; a hiding-place ChBYVN; Rest, peace NYChCh; Slave, servant a'aBD 655

GON1 23 = NYCHCH [REST, PEACE] = ALGORITHM = ARTCHART = AXISNORTHANGER = CTHULHU CLUB = DREXCIYA = EVERYTHING EQUALS EVERYTHING = FOUR FREEDOMS 76TH COMMENT-------------------------------------------COLDRATIONALISM = 300 -> 3 using HeX divide it in two to get CHECKMATE = 150 -> 6 (rules of the game : it doubles by splitting) undercurrent at December 20, 2004 08:46 PM ---------------------------------------------------------------AQ 252 = SEVENTY-SIX = NEW DIMENSION ---------------------------------------------------------------AQ 275 NYCHCH ... TSUNAMI = SOUTH EAST ASIA ---------------------------------------------------------------+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ D26-[AAAAAA*] = GON2-[XAPHANIA, THE ANGEL] = AQ-[LIL = CRAB] = GON1-[RECTITUDO, AEQUITAS RECTA; RECTILINEUM] AQ 146 = XAPHANIA = GEMATRIA = HORROR D26 CO = XAPHANIA = AIWASS = CALIPHATE = QURAN = THE KOM = THOTH = WWW = UNBELIEF GON2 40 = XAPHANIA = AS ABOVE SO BELOW = LINEA VIRIDIS GYRAT UNIVERSA = MECHONOMICS = TO INFINITY AND BEYOND! GON1 38 = XAPHANIA = DEFINITION OF SUPPLIER = HACKER = NUMOGRAMMICAL ERROR 656

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ It is interesting, though not particularly useful to you, to point out that there are two other classes of healers who are sometimes found. They work quite differently to either of the methods mentioned above. They are: {1} Certain healers - few and far between - who have set up a relation with the spirit of the earth, the Ruler of all the lunar lords. Under certain formulas and given a certain amount of practice, these healers can invoke his aid and - in fact - command it. I do not advise any interested student to ponder overmuch along this line or to endeavor to set up a contact or to invoke his aid. Only initiates of high degree can deal safely with this powerful involutionary Elemental; they do so [647] only in connection with epidemics and international catastrophes such as the world war, in which thousands and thousands of bodies were involved. An individual not highly developed who endeavored to establish rapport would probably only succeed in stimulating the lunar lords of his own little system to such an extent that his lower nature would be unduly energized - sometimes even to the point of death. {2} Other healers, not as few as in the above group but relatively few, work in cooperation with a healing deva. Such devas exist and have the power of bestowing life. They are to the involutionary lunar lords what the great Lives at Shamballa are to us. They are not a menace to humanity but are not readily reached, except at a certain stage upon the Path where, symbolically speaking, a door or point of contact exists between the two evolutions, for the devas are not upon the involutionary arc. Relations are established through affinity, but this can be brought about only by the deva, and not by the healer. If the healer is very advanced, his Master may instruct one of the serving devas to aid him. Only healers of great purity and of completely selfless motive can attract these angels, and when they do, the potency of their healing is much greater; they make fewer mistakes. They do not, for instance, attempt to heal patients for whom there is no healing possibility. The Angel of Death (and this time I am not speaking symbolically but am referring to an existing deva) will not permit a healing deva to collaborate; they are only permitted to approach where healing is indicated. THE BOOK OF THE SENIORS----------------------------------------------The invoking names of the Seniors are derived from the Great Central Cross of the Tablet by reading outwards horizontally and vertically from the two centermost 657

squares of the Tablet. In the theory of the Enochian system, they represent the forces of the planets within the element, and are considered to be Briatic in nature. With the Elemental King, who represents the Sun and is a link between the Briatic and the Yetziratic levels of the Tablet, they bind together all the forces within the Tablet. Additionally, the Seniors are said to provide knowledge specifically concerning "human affairs", and the present record confirms that in a broad sense. {Aczinor} Since this disaster took place within the aura of Sol's work, it must therefore be remedied within the limits of his kingdom. He could not simply eject the ruined matter from the system, any more than a man can cure a cold by giving it to someone else. Nor could he allow this involutionary flow to remain free in the system, for then it would continue to increase, eventually ruining the plan which Sol's quick action had so far saved. There was much discussion among Sol and the senior planets of the system, and deep meditation by all, lasting many millennia, on how this problem could be solved. Many plans were proposed, but none of the senior planets felt confident enough of his solution to propose it as a definite course of action. So the discussion continued. GATE #420 :: PACIFICA (peace) || GON2 70 = PACIFICA = ASIAN PEACE Belial: From Hebrew, BLIOL, = a Wicked One Some saie that the king Beliall was created immediatlie after Lucifer, and therefore they thinke that he was father and seducer of them which fell being of the orders. For he fell first among the worthier and wiser sort, which went before Michael and other heavenlie angels, which were lacking. Although Beliall went before all them that were throwne downe to the earth, yet he went not before them that tarried in heaven. This Beliall is constrained by divine venue, when he taketh sacrifices, gifts, and offerings, that he againe may give unto the offerers true answers. But he tarrieth not one houre in the truth, except he be constrained by the divine power, as is said. He taketh the forme of a beautifull angell, sitting in a firie chariot; he speaketh faire, he distributeth preferments of senatorship, and the favour of friends, and excellent familiars: he hath rule over eightie legions, partlie of the order of vertues, partlie of angels; he is found in the forme of an exorcist in the bonds of spirits. The exorcist must consider, that this Beliall doth in everie thing assist his subjects. If he will not submit himselfe, let the bond of spirits be read: the spirits chaine is sent for him, wherewith wise Salomon gathered them togither with their legions in a brasen vessell, where were inclosed among all the legions seventie two kings, of whome the cheefe was Bileth, the second was Beliall, the third Asmoday, and above a thousand thousand legions. Without 658

doubt (I must confesse) I learned this of my maister Salomon; but he told me not why he gathered them together, and shut them up so: but I beleeve it was for the pride of this Beliall. Certeine nigromancers doo saie, that Salomon, being on a certeine daie seduced by the craft of a certeine woman, inclined himselfe to praie before the same idoll, Beliall by name: which is not credible. And therefore we must rather thinke (as it is said) that they were gathered together in that great brasen vessell for pride and arrogancie, and throwne into a deepe lake or hole in Babylon. For wise Salomon did accomplish his workes by the divine power, which never forsooke him. And therefore we must thinke he worshipped not the image Beliall; for then he could not have constrained the spirits by divine vertue: for this Beliall, with three kings were in the lake. But the Babylonians woondering at the matter, supposed that they should find therein a great quantitie of treasure, and therefore with one consent went downe into the lake, and uncovered and brake the vessell, out of the which immediatlie flew the capteine divels, and were delivered to their former and proper places. But this Beliall entred into a certeine image, and there gave answer to them that offered and sacrificed unto him: as TOCZ. in his sentences reporteth, and the Babylonians did worship and sacrifice thereunto. AQ 100 = TOCZ = ZERO = SATAN = ZION = DUST = NO GOD = NUIT GON2 20 = FINI = GIVE IT A REST 659

Numogram Q&A Nick Land (December 17, 2004) Hyperstition contributor Tachi has submitted a large number of thoughtful questions about numogrammatic hyperstition which will hopefully stimulate some vigorous discussion of basic principles and methods. The responses given here are meant to be uncontroversial and preliminary, based on a mish-mash of Cthulhu Club insights and suggestions, so if other members of the Hyperstition crew have any problems with them I hope they'll make corrective remarks. I've taken the liberty of renumbering Tachi's original questions. Q.1. "I am particularly intrigued and perplexed by the decimal numogram? What is its function?? I don't just mean as a tool, I mean what is it actually doing. Sure, I am keen to know to what extent you think it is an instrument and what you are using it for? How can it not have a purpose, as well as a function? But is it off the leash yet?? You cannot simply ignore the conscious aspect of its creation; after all it has been constructed carefully with a lot of conscious thought regarding its internal consistency and relation to externally resonant mapping systems. But separate from that, Is it really doing anything, and if not, why not?" A.1. The Numogram is unfolded out of decimal numeracy, which it inhabits as an implex. It is therefore discovered more than 'created', its virtual existence being coincident with decimal numeracy itself. If it has a radically immanent function, independent of apprehension, it is probably best conceived on the abstract model of virus - sheer spreading. However, it is more practical to attribute functionalizations of the Numogram to particular hyperstitional lineages, in which it is put to work in accordance with determinate programmes. The most elaborated lineage (partially) unearthed to date is that of Cthulhu Club research and techno-sorcerous practice (associated with such names as Echidna Stillwell, Peter Vysparov, Daniel C Barker and Mme Centauri). Within all the variegated off-shoots of the Cthulhu Club lineage, the Numogram is functionalized as a time map. Conceiving the Numogram as a time map has a number of implications: 660

(a) Rather than representing any concrete empirical reality it operates 'schematically' in a crypto-kantian sense ('diagrammatically' or 'figuratively'). Applications of the Numogram to concrete fields are mediated by time-systems, time cultures and (most typically) time politics or time wars. (b) The Kantian association of arithmetic and time is also pertinent, with the Numogram inhering in elementary decimal notation and procedures, rather than in advanced number theory. It is crucial to the propagation and resilience of Numogrammatics that it is affined with popular numeracy rather than professional /technical mathematics. (c) The Numogram 'takes up' the time-mapping functions of the Chinese I Ching, the Hebrew Tree of Life, and other chrono-numeric systems (such as that of the Dogon). Its 'resonances' or partial isomorphies with these perhaps best capture its virtualabstract and hyperchronic reality. Because the Numogram charts an intense involvement in fate it provokes oracular appropriations akin to those found in most occult traditions (such usages are, of course, hyperstitionally sedimented and in no way transcendently authoritative). (d) The widely hyped description of the Numogram as a 'time-travelling device' remain subject to explication and confirmation by rigorous procedural formulation and experiment. Nevertheless, it is plausible to maintain that all hyperstitional lineages intersect with time-travel programmes of some kind. Q.2. "How much is the Numogram useful as a tool to understand events, and how much is it functioning in the creation of events?" A.2. Hyperstitional-occultural sub-historicism seeks a region of convergence between these options, where the Numogram 'clicks' onto itself coincidentally as supreme method and ultimate object. By marking-over all cultural / political programmes as actually degenerated concretions of virtual numogrammatic impulses, hyperstition lines them up for savage decoding. This is why the role of the AOE meta-conspiracy is so decisive, since the diagrammatic directives guiding this vast covert movement are pre-eminently described by the Atlantean Cross, a manifestly decayed version of the Lemurian Numogram. Q.3. "It must have been fun to synthesise the Numogram from other stratic, discarded and lost material. But if we are not to believe in the Numogram, how are 661

we to use it in a state of not-believing? I am still coming to terms with the notion of not 'believing' but not 'not believing'." A.3. The Numogram is auto-synthesized out of elementary decimal operations (including one - 9-twinning or 'zygonovism' - that is neither arithmetically nor occulturally traditional). It's relation to "stratic, discarded and lost material" occurs through subsequent applications, relayed through hyperstitional lineages which relativize them. These applications are radically non-authoritative and incredible, typically motivated to engender a maximum of 'unbelief' and thus lateral proliferation through alternative applications / lineages. The Numogram itself has no thetic content, only procedural consistency. It thus entirely eludes the problematic of belief. Tachi also raises various technical questions about Numogrammatics. Perhaps thew most important thing to note here is that these issues are basically terminological, referring to the ways preliminary explorations of the Numogram have tagged various aspects of its cartography. There is nothing remotely 'sacred' about any of this, different carriers might adopt quite different terms and emphasize different relations. Basic responses: Q.4.1. "What is an impulse entity, and what is its significance in the context of the Numogram (don't mean anything to do with signifier)?" A.4.1. An imp(ulse entity) is a term coined by Peter Vysparov for any condensation within the Numogram that seems to designate a 'thing' - of whatever scale - to which strategic purpose, communicative potentiality or intelligence can be attributed. The term 'Imp' is colloquially used to denote Numogrammatic coagulations below the level of Lemurs/demons. Q.4.2. "What is the functional difference between a gate and a channel? It seems that they could be the same thing, though we are accustomed to thinking of both channel and gate as a physical things, when both could be considered as switches." A.4.2. The terms 'gate' and 'channel' - as used numogrammtically, also seem to have been originally coined by Vysparov, although this cannot be confidently confirmed. A channel is opened by unlocking a gate, but the difference in vocabulary is again basically conceptual / terminological ('justified' by its use value within particular 662

research programmes or practices). It seems quite productive to envisage gates/channels as time-switches (anomalies or disturbances). Q.4.3. "What is a Sarkonian mesh-tag?? How does it function?" A.4.3. Oskar Sarkon's techno-mathematical overcoding of the Pandemonium array (consisting of all entities defined by non-repeating descending decimal clusters) employed 'mesh-tags' as reference markers. Relatively little follow-up work has been undertaken in this area - in large part because Sarkon's own investigations have without exception resulted in intelligence-catastrophies and escalating Anthropol involvement - so the functional potential of mesh-tagging remains uncertain. There's a lot more, but too much at once could be bad for digestion. Comments: Numogram Q&A Tachi: Nick, quick response for now, since your answers will take a while to filter in: thanks for sharing my questions and your answers; I hope others will join in this thread, and overload it with such stimulating discussion that we are forced to open up new threads and channels to cope with the influx! I have to pause for thought, since I can feel more questions coming out without necessarily understanding what is going on. It may be an overload issue, but I don't want to rush in; interested actually in what you think are the more pertinent questions above and the lines most worth pursuing. More soon. Nick Land: Tachi - Main thing for now, I think, is to ensure a convergence of productive lines with carrier production in order to comply with hyperstitional method. Ultimately I hope to draw out more from Reza about Middle Eastern chronopolitics, but think a staged approach probably required to attain convergence (between topic and rigorous hyperstitional principles). Obviously, let us all know what you're most interested in pursuing here. Tachi: Nick, don't have the time to make a full response, but would like an elaboration, if poss, on this: 663

the Numogram 'clicks' onto itself coincidentally as supreme method and ultimate object. By markingover all cultural / political programmes as actually degenerated concretions of virtual numogrammatic impulses, hyperstition lines them up for savage decoding. Especially the latter part. I am still struggling to get to grips with this. It seems you are saying there is no possible distinction between Numogram as tool to understand events and as immanent diagram in the generation of events. Correct? I accept the Numogram is not a representation, but what is it doing A) as an instrument? and B) as an abstract machine? Some unpacking of your previous response would be appreciated (the more along the lines of the Economist style-guide perhaps the better). Another thing is that it seems that words you and others are qabbalizing into numeric code are still being considered as significantly related by virtue of their semantic meaning - lining up pairs of words, or more, as sharing number values are supposed to be interesting for what reason? ... More soon, and thanks for your time ... Nick Land: Tachi - apologies for jargoplexing. Basic sense of the sentence you cite is: The Numogram is both used to analyse events and also projected into the origin events, with the AOE as an example (an Atlantean conspiracy based on a technomagical culture derived from a degenerated Lemurian 'source'). By referring the cultural mega-objects of its attention back to a lost Numogrammatic origin, hyperstition transfers them onto a terrain upon which they can be ruthlessly dissected. The success of this strategy requires real coincidence (it is not mere PoMo relativism) and thus can be considered an overall strategic 'gambit' - which could fail - based on the assumption that an infrastructural decimalism has in fact pre-processed the terrain of engagement. If this is still too jargoplexed I'll try again later - I'm shutting down for the night over here. 664

To be pedantic on the Q. of "possible difference" between the Numogram as method and historical generator (I suspect I've displaced your question a little) - I'd say such a difference is certainly logical possibility, but its absence in fact is the 'lucky' coincidence feeding hyperstitional impetus. If the Numogram provides a (/the?) site of convergence between method and event, it seals hyperstition's cryptic alliance with fate. Can feel lucidity receding, in part because this discussion is really about time-travel ... so I won't try to push this further just now. Realize it has only scratched the surface (at best), hopefully we can dig down a lot further in a collective zig-zag. Once Reza's jargoplexing gets moving that's also something to see ;) Also won't get started on qabbalism here - there's a lot of explosive momentum in that discussion from all sides right now, so sure there'll be plenty of opportunities to pursue those questions coherently later. Good to see you back It's so nice and roomy up here - guess I'll just hang out on my lonesome until the frothing mob surge up from the pit ... Tachi: Roomy for sure. It's getting sweaty in the problems and mysteries pit. And the fact that the nummificator was spawned in there and infected everyone with numbermulchitus hasn't helped. Maybe we can offer free needles in here or something? Nick Land: Tachi - the blog's evidently undergoing a bizarre metamorphosis - if it can sustain anything like this level of nummutational libido we'll need to encourage some self-organization by specializing threads (hence your needles?)- but for now I expect sheer Tohu Bohu. You thinking Pinhead-type needles? [NUMBER = NEDDLES, oops ... twitch, twitch] Of course that should be NUMBER = NEEDLES, blame the numbo-junky twitching Nick Land: LOL, Nick, twitch, twitch, spasm, convulse .. was actually thinking syringe, maybe we need acupunture and moxibustion. Tachi: BUT maybe we need acupunture and moxibustion ... 665

to channel, spasm, twitch .. PS which gematrix you using? (you see my post on other thread?) Nick Land: Tachi - "which gematrix [option] you using?" - treating the AQ as standard (like a good Barrow boy, or WAR = YOB as northanger might say, but I prefer CUR) northanger: i'm pouting Nick Land: northanger - what are you pouting about? northanger: this mean barking spinozian hound dog, kinda smelly and evil looking, chased me in here. TOPIC? Tool vs. Abstract Machine (immanent diagram) || Understanding Events vs Generating Events VIRAL STAGE? RULES OF THE GAME? Le Numogrammé (The Numogram) discovered vs. created existence = numeracy abstract vs. function function = timemap || TIMEMAP : are there differences in style, approach, method in Stillwell / Vysparov / Barker / Centauri? empirical reality vs. {virtual reality?} -- as this relates to function (TIMEMAP) virtual reality = schematically / diagrammatically / figuratively <> in a crypto-kantian sense || CRYPTO-KANTIAN SENSE: stuck 666

Tachi: Nicholas [;)]: "treating the AQ as standard (like a good Barrow boy, or WAR = YOB as northanger might say, but I prefer CUR)" AQ? CUR? Are you using GoN, HeX or what?? Northanger: Anglossic Qabbala = AQ CUR aka "dog", (nick as mean smelly dog) nicholas has renamed "HeX" as "AQ" by fiat on The Nummificator (thereby, rampant chaos insues) i think that's how it goes Tachi: Northanger: Le Numogrammé = LOL ... Le Matricule de la matraquer! northanger: or, he's calling AQ - Alphanumerica Qabbalah (let me run back downstairs and check!) ah man! LOL Le Matricule de la matraquer! you translate that and i'll go sort out AQ, okie dokie? Tachi: Northanger - cheers. "Anglossic Qabbala = AQ CUR aka "dog", (nick as mean smelly dog)" Sorry - so the AQ is the same as Nummificator's HeX? Need to get Undercurrant to rename that then. (Undercurrant = 4; Robin = 4) northanger: so the AQ is the same as Nummificator's HeX? 667

yes, but i think nicholas keeps changing the "A" part: it's either ALPHANUMERIC or ANGLOSSIC. i was going to check in the sweaty basement. Tachi: UNDERCURRANT+ROBIN=UNDERCURRENT Nick Land: northanger - "are there differences in style, approach, method in Stillwell / Vysparov / Barker / Centauri?" - absolutely. While all loosely allied by the Cthulhu Club, they have widely diverging fields of research, methods and intellectual personalities. [] Stillwell. 'Discovers' the Numogram among the Nma tribes of Sumatra. Dedicates her life to the excavation of a Muvian (very late Lemurian) ur-culture, which in her estimation seems to have had a predominantly Sino-Indian tonality. Life-long student of the I Ching. Has been described (not unreasonably) as a Palaeo-ethnographer. [] Vysparov. Betrays secrets of the AOE (Atlantean Metatronic Magic) but remains attached to Atlantean Black Magic, definitely a dodgy occultist. Systematizes Numogrammatic material as the Pandemonium System of 'Lemurian demonism and time-sorcery' (sometimes accused of giving it an unnecessarily dark cast). Highly qabbalistic in approach (intellectually indebted to 'the divine' August Barrow). [] Barker. Part of a younger generation, but entered into relation with Cthulhu Club after Stillwell assisted him in recovery from serious psychotic episode. Rigorously mathematical and cryptographic, when not scraping insectoid tic-clusters from his writhing tentacles in hyperspace. [] Centauri. Half-Haitian, vudu adept, cartomancer, astrologer, spiritualist, decadologist, Black Atlantean magician. Mixes taste for baroque systematic elaboration (based on quasi-stable resolutions of incoherent hybridity) with the occasional headless goat hanging from the ceiling. Should also mention Chain Horowitz, grandson of the Mad Rabbi of Kiev, Torah scholar (orthodox to the point of howling blasphemy), guided 'by the Nephilim' to the Mu archive in Tibet. Obscure linguistic researches into lost decimal alphabet of BABAL. "in a crypto-kantian sense" - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is basically a book about time. It argues that the relationship between thought and sensation is only possible because time 'already' provides an infrastructure supporting both sides). A 'schema' is required to connect an intellectual category with the 'pure intuition' (time and space) 668

hosting appearances, thus enabling the emergence of an 'object' (a component of intelligible experience). This is why I thought the referencre especially relevant to Tachi's Q.s, which seemed in part to be asking whether the Numogram belonged to thought or to the world (sorry Tachi, know I'm paraphrasing and simplifying). A Kantian schema is situated in the 'between' ... and it's quite (hence 'crypto-') like a time-map. northanger: All Tachi's sixes have reminded me that I've got to try and mobilize a glossary shift - Stillwell uses HEX (= 64) as a term of Numogram cartography, for the inner wheel of the Numogram (Vysparov's "Time Circuit") - perfect combination of I Ching (numerical) and occult allusions plus qabbalistic exactitude. Hyperhex/Anglossic/Barrow gematria has a far less compelling call on 'Hex' IM(in this case not very)HO ... so unless people start calling it something else I'll start stamping my foot and pouting [I'll use AQ, for Alphanumeric Qabbalism, until one of you guys comes up with something better] PS. Of course, since AQ = 36, maybe no one will. there you go. I recall some French papers (that's where "Le Numogrammé" comes from Tachi) part of Stillwell's late diaries. Since she discovered the Numogram this could help me understand things a little better. Can you shed some light on that? Is there a translation available? Doesn't "crypto" mean secret, hidden? Are you saying "hidden-Kant" then? I've heard about some of these philo guys having some gnostic (hidden) stuff in there work -- is Kant one of those? Sorry for all the dense questions! Tachi: Nick: This is why I thought the referencre especially relevant to Tachi's Q.s, which seemed in part to be asking whether the Numogram belonged to thought or to the world (sorry Tachi, know I'm paraphrasing and simplifying). A Kantian schema is situated in the 'between' Fair enough to simplify in this way. I was in part asking if the Numogram is a product or a producer of events, in part if it is a tool or a machine, ... but more than simply is it X 'or' Y, I was trying to get at exactly HOW it can be BOTH. I guess being 'in between' is a straddling, implying it is both. And as such, how do these different aspects connect? What is their relation and what guides it? 669

Maybe this is too abstract, I am hoping to come back down to gritty shitty reality ... northanger: nick, then there's Kant's analytic / synthetic thingy -- what's the deal with that? does that have any bearing here? and i certainly understand NO QABBALAH IN HERE, but if Kant is discussing arithmetic, then ... surely a (minute) digression on this topic might be helpful. i mean, there *are* NUMBERS on the N.U.M.O.g.r.a.m, aren't there? northanger = kantian cluelessness Nick Land: Tachi - found your last qabbalistic equation completely unintelligible [unless its in GoN and at least one of the results is 0] northanger: UNDERCURRANT+ROBIN=UNDERCURRENT this equation? {even more confused!} Nick Land: northanger - 'crypto-' really referring to fact that all kinds of subsequent terms, 'the figural', 'diagrammatics' etc. are secretly kantian ... but also Kant is secretly something else ("is Kant one of those" yup (not yap) - for instance, some evidence he had concealed fins) ... "there you go" - There I go where? "analytic/synthetic thingy" entirely relevant - if i start on this now my boss will disembowel me in the centre of the office Very crude (but basically right) for Kant: Time = Synthesis = Arithmetic So what do you make of his '7 + 5 = 12' obsession? Haven't yet come across an interesting take on that. Tachi - actually think my original response to your Q.s was better than the codphilosopher kantian v1.2. 670

Reason I constantly sneak away from this question though is that it is grotesquely abhyperstitional to attempt to settle this at a single authoritative level ... the hyperstitional method of getting "back down to gritty shitty reality" is to adopt/construct an appropriate carrier - otherwise, multiplicity and experimentation gets processed out of the investigation ... So we have to make somebody up who'll pursue the things you want pursued (unless an already available carrier-shell is already broadly on the 'right track') - ++ willing to co-operate with you on that ... northanger: I know I'm scrambling this nick, but the reason i brought up Stillwell's french papers was because of that "Limbic Key" Cecil Curtis goes on about (my french & memory are horrible, but think Stillwell found a paper by Cristall somebody in Tunisia called +clé limbique+ and i'm positive she even studied that 19 miracle in the Quran--go figure). Isn't this limbic key where your [virus - sheer spreading] hooks in? (IMHO, Nungkyyii Prophecy is a complete fabrication; however, i'm getting an inkling that this is exactly [x marks the spot] where Stillwell.....hold on a sec, i'll go check, i think it's in the Vault of Murmurs). sorry, i know i'm being a total exo-pest! i know every "problem" can be remedied of course. Nick Land: northanger, Tachi - Undercurrant/current equation - told you I was blind AQ stands for 36 northanger: nick - did you get email on that 36? i think it may illuminate your blind as a bat issue. Since we're being honest, let me admit i tend toward projection. Blindness + Projection = Oil + Water. This also refers to freud and jung i think. Nick Land: northanger - "did you get email on that 36?" - probably there, just can't see it ;) "Blindness + Projection = Oil + Water" - I'd kind of imagined (blurrily) that projection caused blindness - (take latest example, couldn't see 'Undercurrant' because I 'knew' it was going to be 'Undercurrent' - seems to me quite typical, too much expectation). Pomoid hypertrophy of degenerated Kantian subjectivism same phenomenon on a bigger scale - it's why I'm reluctant to rush the Tachi question any chance to slow-down perception might help actually spotting something - Don Juan's 'stopping the world' - (whole issue kind of ironic being a copy-editor and all) - 671

heavy-duty psychiatric tranquillizers would probably help - but assuming for you projection means something different? northanger: nick - thanks for being honest. usually, i find, in team situations, that we're all suffering from the same problem. however, being hyperstitions we can use this.... brain fart: i meet so many people that think MATH = HORROR. they run away from it. and if you say numogram is unfolded by decimal numeracy (and that's just counting 0,1,2,3...) that this FEAR negates openness by its very nature. IE, even if you're "counting" it fails to "register". numogram as implex (whoa, too difficult for me to digest, can't afford you!) cannot transform into fractal unfoldment. [reza's viraluncoating may suggest something here]. ARITHMETIC as VIRUS. (can't catch that, let me get innoculated). de-cycling (whatever) immediately freezes. numogram is not "discovered" when chemical FEAR present. no way to force it or create it. And I think this is the limbic key. if perception perceives numogrammic immanency as PROBLEM to solve in spite of -- what do you have? flipside is TRANSFERENCE suggesting strategy for viral sheer-spreading. (stupid simplicities, refer to hardcore freudy|jungys). but whadda i know? didn't collective consciousness come about from a dream jung had of house with all of these levels. at the basement it was older and as he went up each flight the rooms got lighter and more modern? something like that? what the heck did i bring up from the basement? {scratching head} Nick Land: northanger - due to severe time-faulting missed your 8:30 comment on this thread first time around - much there very intriguing [highly recommended to others] northanger: it was the best i could come with on the fly. (as it were) Nick Land: northanger - were you deliberately trying to leave this thread at the unmentionable number your last comment was at? 672

Tachi: Nick: "So we have to make somebody up who'll pursue the things you want pursued (unless an already available carrier-shell is already broadly on the 'right track') - ++ willing to co-operate with you on that ..." I have a lot of reading to catch up on first re. currant carriers ;) .. is this part of rendering tranaparent carrier production?? Stupid question, but how do you 'make up' a carrier? Of course I relish the idea of cooperating with you on that. Where to start? First I need to drag myself away from the Nummificator .. northanger: nick LOL make somebody up who'll pursue the things you want pursued if you made a person up, what would you want to pursue? ah never mind Tachi: WOMAN=111=OTHER northanger: Manifestation is forged by belief --Aggedy Ran Tachi: make somebody up who'll pursue the things you want pursued if you made a person up, what would you want to pursue? I'd pursue China's desire for energy and natural resource, oil and gas in Central Asia, links with islam in China, and WoT. northanger: and what is WoT? Nick Land: Tachi - probably lots of interesting experimental approaches to carrier production - Ccru tended to build them around singular lines of investigation, typically with a distinctive Numogrammatic curve. It may be your topics are so concrete and geopolitical that they should be simultaneously pursued from 'the other side' - theoretically - with the objective of identifying and tagging hyperstitionally suggestive traits and features (which could later be targeted as carrier emergence areas) 673

Sure Reza will have plenty of useful practical tips on this Tachi: Nick - sure, I am interested in these concrete areas from a theorectical perspective, but not for the sake of developing theory. Yes, the development of theory is important from my point of view in order, mainly, not to be duped or deluded about the world in which I live. But the theory I would be interested in would be have to be at once active (pragmatic, better -programmatic [can hear a voice saying numogramatic]). The challenge for the development of any theory to grasp (or apprehend/anticipate) real events whilst simultaneously generating hyperstitional lines is to maintain an accurate take on unfolding reality. Would the generation of fictions, however enmeshed with 'fact', not risk compromising this? Call me a realist, but it doesnt matter to me how the shit becomes real - that is a separate issue from whether it is or not - what unfolds around us may be the product of machinically unconscious hyperstitional propagation; the shit still stinks. What is important for me is that hyperstition theory may help us, vile primates that we are, to appreciate the unconscious, hyperstitious quality of reality production. Yet this is different from a group of us collectively and consciously generating a hybrid of fiction and fact through a mob of made-up characters. And when I think of the shit hitting the fan out here I begin to doubt what impact we can have altogether. Its not that I yearn for impossible peace, but rather am sliding back to what I see as a rift between how unconscious hyperstition operates - like market hype - and how we can be catalystic for hyperstitional propagation. Perhaps I am just way off. I cant seem to bring the Numogram into this either. Your feedback welcome. Undercurrent - the nummificator only displays 16 'base' level entries, so those further down the alphabetical list wont display. Sorry, but anything we can do to display all entries for a given numeric value? This is going to haunt you now ...! Nick Land: Tachi - "The challenge for the development of any theory to grasp (or apprehend/anticipate) real events whilst simultaneously generating hyperstitional lines is to maintain an accurate take on unfolding reality. Would the generation of fictions, however enmeshed with 'fact', not risk compromising this?" 674

IMHO this question is spot on - but it is not the events that are being 'fictionalized' think the 'artificial' of artificial intelligence - carriers are cogntive prostheses, allowing lines of thought to be constructed without the interference of quotidian social being and its inevitable compromises ... promise i won't use 'quotidian' again for at least a week northanger: massive amounts of coffee (a quotidial amount methinks) helps follow this thread of thinking. and maybe breadcrumbs too. undercurrent: tachi - not sure what you mean here...don't think this is true (there's no limit on the glosso entries) Immanual Kant: Hmmmm, sounds suspiciously to me like Nick just read Heidegger's KPM to save himself time when revising for his undergraduate exams ... just as Heidegger didn't have time to read beyond the schematism chapter before his debate at Davos. So, KrV is "basically a book about time"? Well that's perhaps true in this sense: that almost no-one seems to have found the time TO READ IT PROPERLY! I mean, do you really think I, the greatest of them all, the one who Mendelsohn called the All-Destroyer, would have spent ten years writing a 1000-page book (and by the way, only *8* of those pages are devoted to the schematism, and I'm done with that by page 150!) in order to reach *that* conclusion -- i.e. that transcendental imagination qua originary time schematizes the categories?! Come off it! Heidegger doesn't seem to have even noticed that I make a (rather crucial) distinction between understanding and REASON ... Really, if you think *that* book is "basically about" human temporality and finitude, or about explaining how intuitions and concepts get together to produce empirical objects ... well, you may as well have not bothered picking it up in the first place. I must go and make some more mustard ... Curious thing, that I can't spell my own name though, eh? Immanual = Immanuel ... and now you've got me misusing mathematical notation too! (Roger Trigg taught me symbolic logic, and I'm sure he said that the 'equals' sign is transitive ... no wait, that was Gregg Hunt -- Trigg taught me how to lure small Moroccan boys ...) Here's the missing 's' from Mandelssohn by the way: s undercurrent: tachi - there is no limit on how many it shows....give me an example and I will check it out tho'. 675

Maimonides: TRANSENDENTAL SCHEMATISM OF THE IMAGINATION = participating amphibiously in both domains = CONCEPTS AND INTUITIONS = Zeitlichkeit (woher Temporalität?) = connectivity without rule-governedness is blind; rule-governedness without connectivity is empty = AMPLIATIVE or EXPLICATIVE = 5 + 7 = 12 is (not?) synthetic apriori = the rigorization of arithmetic = nor can Allah change it ("even for God") = the most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way = persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic = true radicalness is arithmetical = *callous* rationalism? = quotidian BS northanger: Mr Maimonides, is there a guide for the perplexed on 5 + 7 = 12? thank you! Immanuel Kant: Here's the missing 's' from Mandelssohn by the way: s And here's the 'e' in exchange for the 'a': e "More than anyone before him, Mendelssohn deserves criedit for bringing the Jew out of the ghetto and into the mainstream of modern culture." Who, today, reads Moses Mendelssohn? northanger: {{MUTTERING: nor can Allah change it ("even for God") = mundane existence = FUCK THAT SHIT = EXCUSE MY FRENCH}} that nummy thing has a bug in it, doesn't like ampersands undercurrent: yeah, that'd be right. &'s will fuck it up. I never bother to put checks in the code for that sort of thing. That's why I hate doing that shit for a living - it's not enough to bolt together something that works, you have to securitise idiotproof it to the nth degree too. Programming utterly useless leaky viral monstrosities for no financial gain is far better, that's why I'm an anticapitalist... Alain Badiou: So what do you make of his '7 + 5 = 12' obsession? Haven't yet come across an interesting take on that. Kant set a very bad example by encouraging generations of philosophers to believe that they could grasp the essence of mathematical judgement through a single example like 7 + 5 = 12. This is a bit like someone saying that one can grasp the relation between philosophy and poetry by reciting Humpty Dumpty. After all, this is just a bunch of verses, just like 7 + 5 = 12 is just a bunch of numbers. 676

It is striking that, whether one considers a philosophical text written in the little style or one written in the grand style, no justification whatsoever seems to be required for quoting poetry, but no-one would ever dream of quoting a piece of mathematical reasoning. No-one seems to consider it acceptable to dispense with Hölderlin or Rimbaud or Pessoa in favour of Humpty-Dumpty, or to ditch Wagner for Julio Iglesias. But as soon as it is a question of mathematics, either the reader simply loses interest, or immediately associates it with the little style, which is to say, with epistemology, the history of science, specialization. northanger: [1] What is "mathematical judgement"? [2] And if this (WOMAN=111=OTHER) does not grasp the essence of mathematical judgement -- how SHOULD it be expressed? [3] Totally understand: without decoding FIRST [7], [+], [5], [=], [12] you cannot begin to grasp this expression. [4] Cos frankly, WOMAN=111=OTHER -- have no idea what this means. Without understanding, there's no action, agreement, or purpose. It just is. yeah, that'd be right. &'s will fuck it up. undercurrent, you need to delete "NUMOGRAM Q" from the GoN I list. It should be NUMOGRAM QA. (which sounds like a division of microsoft or something (numogram quality assurance)) Nick Land: Immanual Kant - isn't the book called CRITIQUE of Pure Reason (= junk all that atemporalized dogmatic-dialectic bullshit) Alain Badiou - recalled you saying all that ('nothing very much to Kant's incessant 7 + 5 = 12') of course, but hard to believe it's the end of the matter Sheer Tohu Bohu: So what do you make of his '7 + 5 = 12' obsession? Haven't yet come across an interesting take on that. "Denn ich nehme zuerst die Zahl 7, und, indem ich fuer den Begriff der 5 die Finger meiner Hand als Anschauung zu Hilfe nehme, so tue ich die Einheiten, die ich voher zusammennahm, um die Zahl 5 auszumachen, nun an jenem meinem Bilde nach und nach zure Zahl 7, und sehr so die Zahl 12 entspringen." (B15-16) 677

Could it be simply that Kant had five fingers on one hand, seven on the other, and that he thought that all arithmetic depended upon 'intuitive' (anschauunglich) aids (e.g. fingers) and was thus synthetic a priori because he had never in fact ever counted beyond 12? To be fair to Manny, though, it's easy to look back on his notion of mathematics (Euclidean geometry, arithmetic) 200+ years on as hopelessly naive, but given the state of mathematics circa 1781, one could hardly have reached any other conclusion. To fault Kant for not having anticipated the arithmeticization of the calculus -- which development had to wait for the likes of Bolzano, Cauchy, Weierstrass, Vantro, Dedekind (or whatever radically impersonal 'cold rational' forces were taking charge of these passive carriers [sorry: couldn't resist]) -- is as churlish as the analogous claim that Kant's entire Copernican revolution foundered upon his inability to anticipate the advent of non-euclidean geometries (which latter claim is, in any case, strictly speaking inaccurate). Alain has a point I suppose, but then again I'd take Lewis Carroll over Hölderlin or Trakl any day ;) Nick: "Who said Trakl?" Nick Land: Sheer Tohu Bohu - "given the state of mathematics circa 1781" - don't really buy this, after all Euclid discovered the infinitude of the prime number series in the third century BC ... Badiou might be after something more, but we're just contextualizing the apparent poverty of '7 + 5 = 12' against the grandeur of elementary arithmetic Sheer Tohu Bohu: which latter claim is, in any case, strictly speaking inaccurate i.e. Kant *did* in fact anticipate/countenance the notion of non-euclidean geometries ... arguably (though this is controversial) even required them ... Vantro (?) = Cantor isn't the book called CRITIQUE of Pure Reason -- yes, but Reason (in both its speculative and practical employments) remain far and away more central to Kant's concerns than the imagination or temporality (surely this is uncontroversial?). Arguably, Kant's greatest achievement in KrV was to have produced a radically new notion of 'Vernuft' in terms of which it is radically distinguished from all cognitive/psychological operations (though obviously, this isn't 678

the place to try and convince you of that now!)-- but all this is worked out at great length in the *Dialetic*, which readers such as Heidegger (and, to be fair, nearly everyone else [Hermann Cohen being the most important exception IMHO]) mistakenly regard as merely supplementary to the 'real, positive' doctine of the Aesthetic/Analytic. all that atemporalized dogmatic-dialectic bullshit Do you mean to suggest that the rigorization / arithmeticization of the calculus (e.g. Bolzano's radical, painstaking elimination of all spatiotemporal, 'dynamic' and psychological notions from calculus) was a mistake and that Kant was right all along? Sorry -- if you don't want to pursue all this, btw, I'm happy to drop it like a heavy bag of shopping after a long walk in the cold during which my fingers have started to develop gangrene. Nick Land: Arithmetic/time versus pseudo-simultaneity (/atemporality) of logical judgement Sheer Tohu Bohu: Sorry -- promise I won't use 'radical' or cognates again for at least a century. Nick Land: Sheer Tohu Bohu - [last comment time-faulted] - suspect I'm too hostile to Kant's 'real' project (establishing an empirically invulnerable, self-consistent and authoritative tribunal of rationality that would reign in the practical realm without risk of technocapitalist contamination) to evaluate his work in a way that has any scholarly plausibility - not interested enough in philosophy to be honest (unless he's got fins he can stay on the bookshelf) will check out Bolzano - but surely you're not assimilating the 'detemporalization' at stake in "rigorization / arithmetization of the calculus" to the 'timelessness' of dogmatic reason? Sheer Tohu Bohu: but surely you're not assimilating the 'detemporalization' at stake in "rigorization / arithmetization of the calculus" to the 'timelessness' of dogmatic reason? Well, that depends on what your imputation of a critique of 'dogmatic reason = timeless reason' to Kant amounts to, but I doubt we'd have too many bones of contention here to fight over if we could be bothered to explain ourselves to each other, which we (quite understandably) can't in any case ;) Bed beckons ... 679

not interested enough in philosophy to be honest Hmm, never believe people when they use the word 'honest' in that way (e.g., 'look, I really don't give two shits about all this anyway, *to be honest*'-- always rsounds a little disingenuously to me, as if they're trying to convince *themselves* of what they say. But oh well, have it your way -- far be it from me to suggest that if you think you're not doing philosophy (even: *any more*) you're probably just doing it badly ;) Nighty night all. northanger: Okay, someone says WOMAN=111=OTHER. How can it be evaluated? Here's one way: AQ WOMAN = 111 GoN I WOMAN = 4 GoN II WOMAN = 3 111 = 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 AQ OTHER = 111 GoN I OTHER = 4 GoN II OTHER = 3 anyway you dice this phrase it's gonna point to COLD RATIONALISM. AQ COLD RATIONALISM = 300 GoN I COLD RATIONALISM = 45 GoN II COLD RATIONALISM = 48 3+0+0=3 4+5=9 (4 + 8) = 12 = (1 + 2) = 3 using decimal reduction, it can be clearly shown that for two of the number systems 3 = 3 = 3; however, what about 9? 680

we need to expand the definition of "decimal reduction" to include addition, subtraction, and division. therefore, 9 / 3 = 3 can be shown to indicate that 9/3 = 3 = 3, and by this express some special property. we can also restate WOMAN=111=OTHER to WOMAN=COLD RATIONALISM=OTHER, and prove (based on the rules we are using) they are both equal. Question: is this mathematics or arithmetic or both? (honestly don't know myself -because all I see myself doing is simple arithmetic while all these other posts are talking about mathematics). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic mathematics would have to deal with this, i think: [if you made a person up, what would you want to pursue?] WOMAN=111=OTHER -- [WOMAN=111=OTHER] -- mumbo jumbo [WOMAN=111=OTHER RATIONALISM=OTHER] +equals+ WOMAN=COLD far be it from me to suggest that if you think you're not doing philosophy (even: *any more*) you're probably just doing it badly ;) most of us are doing it badly, including me Nick Land: SHEER TOHU BOHU = UNITED NATIONS "if you think you're not doing philosophy ... you're probably just doing it badly" Why do philosphers think its all about them? It's not as if they've ever actually achieved anything. northanger: no proof here, but i think philosophy has done quite a lot 681

Nick Land: northanger - "but i think philosophy has done quite a lot" - ahhh! northanger, you're so sweeeeet! Hey, philosophers, northanger says you're not really a bunch of ineffectual totalitarian parasites! or even ... of ineffectual totalitarian parasites INEFFECTUAL TOTALITARIAN PARASITES = nothing very interesting (so that seems right) northanger: i'm not sure whether WOMAN=111=OTHER was a direct response to my question. Tachi: Nick, Northanger - you two got some special libidinal thang going on! The heat between you is, er, making me all sweaty. war on terror = nummification = sexual energy = 264 Northanger: "i'm not sure whether WOMAN=111=OTHER was a direct response to my question." Which q. was that? Nick Land: Tachi - "The heat between you is, er, making me all sweaty" - don't you start! WOMAN = ABYSS = OTHER - is AQ cool or what? northanger: Which q. was that? [if you made a person up, what would you want to pursue?] ------------nick: So we have to make somebody up who'll pursue the things you want pursued (unless an already available carrier-shell is already broadly on the 'right track') - ++ willing to co-operate with you on that ... tachi: I have a lot of reading to catch up on first re. currant carriers ;) .. is this part of rendering tranaparent carrier production?? Stupid question, but how do you 'make up' 682

a carrier? Of course I relish the idea of cooperating with you on that. Where to start? First I need to drag myself away from the Nummificator .. northanger: if you made a person up, what would you want to pursue? tachi: WOMAN=111=OTHER tachi {directly responding to my queston}: if you made a person up, what would you want to pursue? I'd pursue China's desire for energy and natural resource, oil and gas in Central Asia, links with islam in China, and WoT. northanger: and what is WoT? tachi: {no response} ahhh! northanger, you're so sweeeeet! nicholas, i'm going to have to find another name for you. okay, what do you call this room if "downstairs" is the basement? i like to know why this room and that room are both SWEATY. nick- ah, found a name for you, you INEFFECTUAL TOTALITARIAN PARASITES! actually, i can use it singularly, then Reza is laughing, haha! hey nick! you INEFFECTUAL TOTALITARIAN PARASITE! Nick Land: "hey nick! you INEFFECTUAL TOTALITARIAN PARASITE!" Tachi - are you feeling less sweaty yet? northanger: LOL Tachi: Northanger - WoT is WAR ON TERROR And er, I'm not just sweaty, I'm STICKY. This ain't the basement, LOVE, this is the BUNKER! the BUNKER is a DESERT. USE ME, I'm in CHAINS. LUST. 683

but if this is the CRYPT it must be DUST. Posted by: Tachi at December 23, 2004 10:33 AM Immanuel Kant: *Ineffectual*, moi? Are you quite sure about that? ("... we're both ineffectual nobodies, barking into the void ...") Socrates+Plato+Aristotle: Ineffectual? northanger: Greetings My Lord Azhi Dahaka. I could never ignore you in the void. Nick Land: Immanuel Kant - Chill, no one said you were ineffectual - northanger said you weren't ineffectual (it's obvious she really respects you) Socrates+Plato+Aristotle - but you have to admit you're a kind of losers club imagine the nightmare if Plato (for definite instance) hadn't been ineffectual Roger Trigg: Ineffectual, moi?! Don't you know that I recently lectured at Princeton about nothing less than 9/11? northanger: Roger! Nick Land: Anyone care to suggest that Socrates+Plato+Aristotle = even 10% of a Euclid? Bloot: Socrates+Plato+Aristotle - but you have to admit you're a kind of losers club Anyone care to suggest that Socrates+Plato+Aristotle = even 10% of a Euclid? Now you're just being very silly Nicholas ... lol northanger: oh, gosh, i've never even read a single one of them, Nicholas. can't figure that angle out any which way. Nick Land circe 1994: Ineffectual, moi? Must love you and leave you. (Oooo -- Nick and Northanger sitting in a tree, K. I. S. ....) northanger: well, i've read a little of The Republic alain badiou: but you have to admit you're a kind of losers club 684

daddy, can I join? northanger: oh shit, not again ... can i just take the turing test and get this all over with? Bloot=Sheer Tohu Bohu = Immanuel Kant: imagine the nightmare if Plato (for definite instance) hadn't been ineffectual Plato *wasn't* ineffectual -- in fact, that's one of the most absurd claims I've ever heard Re the Republic: Plato is clear that it could never ultimately be *realised* (which is why Kant uses it as exemplar of a [regulative] idea of reason in KrV). As for "nightmare" -- I never stop *dreaming* about it! (last point not *entirely* sincere) PHILOSOPHIE IN EFFEKT MUTHAFUCKA! Ciao x northanger: Bloot! hello Mr Badiou, glad to see you made it out of the basement. Tachi: WoT=WANK! Bloot: but you have to admit you're a kind of losers club daddy, can I join? Hahahahahahaha! Tachi: Nick: "Tachi - 'The challenge for the development of any theory to grasp (or apprehend/anticipate) real events whilst simultaneously generating hyperstitional lines is to maintain an accurate take on unfolding reality. Would the generation of fictions, however enmeshed with 'fact', not risk compromising this?' IMHO this question is spot on - but it is not the events that are being 'fictionalized' think the 'artificial' of artificial intelligence - carriers are cogntive prostheses, allowing lines of thought to be constructed without the interference of quotidian social being and its inevitable compromises ... " 685

Thanks, so are you saying then that it is only the carriers that are being fictionalized, or that nothing is ficitonalized? If so is this because our grip on reality may be as artificial as reality itself is? Then what we have is a more sophisticated scenario than just a real/fiction polarity to play with; this raises more complex issues as to the 'nature' (for want of a better, less organic word) of reality. So we are doing philosophy are we not? Nick Land: Bloot and associates - "PHILOSOPHIE IN EFFEKT MUTHAFUCKA" - is that a GoN1 message, gangsta rap, street-level philosophy or some combination? C'mon, you know Plato's a fascist freak Tachi - can't get (pseudo-)philosophical right now, blootie-pie will be on my case H.P. Lovecraft: I don't think any of you have the last word on myseries or problems. You haven't even begun to conceive of the inconceivable horrors that lurk on the inside of immanent otherness. You'll be larking and flirting about when the horror spirals into this miserably mundane dimension of pitiless existence, and won't even realize that Hyperstition was just some sick joke to keep you all occupied with silly number games and juvenile food slinging. Bloot: I don't think any of you have the last word on myseries or problems ... myseries = miseries? Freudian slippage? You haven't even begun to conceive of the inconceivable ... Hmm, funny that. I wonder why? You'll be larking and flirting about when the horror spirals into this miserably mundane dimension of pitiless existence ... *Pity* Is *that* what you value? Weariness, which wants to reach the ultimate with a single leap, with a death-leap, a poor ignorant weariness, which no longer wants even to want: that created all gods and afterworlds. There are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom departure from life must be preached. 686

Let them preach departure from life and depart themselves! They would like to be dead, and we should approve of their wish! Also Sprach Zarathustra. and won't even realize that Hyperstition was just some sick joke to keep you all occupied with silly number games and juvenile food slinging You're shitting me? And I thought I'd finally returned to the Bosom of the Lord via this site! Oh well, not to worry. I'll just lob some more pastry about and have a wank. Nick Land: Is Bloot everybody except H.P.Lovecraft? northanger: BLOOT = ADAM = BEING LOVECRAFT + BLOOT = ANONYMOUS UNTIL NOW not any more Nick Land: "I thought I'd finally returned to the Bosom of the Lord via this site!" an easy mistake to make northanger: since 136 = The Avenging Angel decided to bump it up a notch 137 = A receiving; the Qabalah Nick Land: 137 = ALPHABET gwendolyn: =============PREVIOUS #138 The Son of GOD - AQ 138 = BN ALHYM============= [#139] AQ 555 = Hiddekel, the eastern river of Eden HDQL (=77 OTO) AQ 130 = HIDDEKEL=HYPHEN D26 IH = HOMOGENOUS CATALYST=LA, A NOTE TO FOLLOW SEW=SOUNDS INTERESTING=THE EASTERN RIVER OF EDEN 687

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Genius/ Lunatic/ Oedipus mark k-p (December 17, 2004) Interview with John Nash, New Scientist, this week Recovered Schizo as Oedipus? 'This is dreaming, this is not communication.....' Hmmmmmmm 'An obvious question to kick off with: is there a connection between madness and genius?' There's certainly a connection between mental illness and 'thinking out of the box'. If you're going to be anything like a genius you have to think out of the box. In that sense genius is something other than perfect normality, but I wouldn't say there is a strong connection. Mathematicians are comparatively sane as a group; it's the people who study logic that are not so sane. Logical scholars like Kurt Godel are certainly not a good example of sanity. ... Do you still hear voices? I was a long way into mental illness before I heard any voices. Ultimately I realised I am generating these voices in my own mind: this is dreaming, this is not communication. This is coming from an internal source, not from the cosmos. And simply to understand that is is to escape form the thing in principle. After understanding that, the voices died out. My son hears voices, but I haven't heard any for a long time. So there was an elment of rational decision-making involved in dealing with your symptoms? There's a lot of choice in this, I think. I know this is not the standard point of view. The standard diocrine is that we are suppposed to be non-stigmatic in terms of these people: they are constitutionally, necessarily, schizophrenic. But I think there is an element of choice. A person doesn't pass into insanity when their situations are good. If their personal life is successful, people don't become insane. When they're not so happy, when things aren't so good, then they may become clinically depressed, and 689

then maybe schizophrenic. Wealthy people are less likely to become schizophrenic than people who are not wealthy. Are you saing that some people simply choose to opt out of a difficult reality? It provides an escape. In another way, a person might choose a monistic life; become a monk or a nun. There are various forms of escape in human societies, leading to another life where you do not face the same challenges, the same burdens. So is it a rational choice to come back? Being sane is like being a computer that is properly programmed to do useful things. Being insane is like being a computer that is not programmed to do anything useful. Yu have to come back to where you are expected to work. I can see that in my son. He does not appreciate work. We can't get him to do anything around the house. If he could be given small chores and do them, he would be more ready to come out of it. I don't know whether he'll come out of schizophrenia or not now. Qabbala 101 Part 2. Popular Numeracy Nick Land (December 23, 2005) [Warning: hyperstitionally unprocessed and qabbalistically naïve pretentious metadiscourse] The ocean in which qabbalism swims is not mathematics, but popular numerical culture. From a mathematical perspective it remains undeveloped, even ineducable, since it cannot advance beyond the Natural number line even to the level of the Rationals, let alone to the ‘higher’ numbers or set-theoretical post-numerical spaces. Where counting ceases, qabbalism becomes impracticable. Socially, qabbala makes an implicit decision against specialization, in order to remain virtually coincidental with the entire economy of digitizable signs. It is essentially ‘democratic’ (in the most inclusive sense of this word), even when apparently lost in its own trappings of hermeticism. It is bound to the ‘blind’ undirected contingencies of pre-reflective mass social phenomena, with all the inarticulate provocation this entails in respect to professional intellectuals. Wherever exact semiotic exchange occurs, a latent qabbalism lurks (even within the enclaves of intellectual 690

professionalism themselves). Deleuze & Guattari’s ‘Nomad War Machine’, within which number is socially subjectivized, captures crucial aspects of this qabbalistic fatality. Historically, qabbala arises through epic accident, as a side-product of the transition between distinct modes of decimal notation. Its historical presupposition is the shift from alphabetical numerals (of the Hebrew or Greek type) to modular notation, with its resulting unlocalizable (and theoretically indeterminable) confusion. This transition provided the opportunity for a systematic calculative ‘error’ - the mistaken application of elementary techniques appropriate to alphabetical numerals – simple addition of notated values - to the new modular signs. This mistake automatically resulted in digital reduction, by accident, and thus as a (theoretically scandalous) gift of fate. Arising historically during the European Renaissance - when zero, place value and technocapitalism finally breached the ramparts of Western monotheism – qabbalism (born in a semiotic glitch and thus lacking the authority of tradition or even purpose) was compelled to hyperstitionally generate an extreme antiquity for itself, in a process that is still ongoing. Technically, qabbala is inextricable from digital processing. Emerging from calculative practicality within the context of blind mass-cultural metamorphosis, it antedates it own theoretical legitimation, making sense of itself only derivatively, sporadically and contentiously. Its situation is analogous – and perhaps more than analogous – to that of a spontaneous artificial intelligence, achieving partial lucidity only as a consequence of tidal pragmatic trends that ensure an integral default of self-mastery. Practical systematization of technique precedes any conceivable theoretical motivation. Dialectical interrogation of qabbalism at the level of explicit motivation thus proves superficial and inconsequential, essentially misrecognizing the nature of the beast. (It is equally misleading to ask: What is a computer really for?) Politically, qabbalism repels ideology. As a self-regenerating mass-cultural glitch, it mimics the senseless exuberance of virus, profoundly indifferent to all partisan considerations. Indifferent even to the corroded solemnity of nihilism, it sustains no deliberated agendas. It stubbornly adheres to a single absurd criterion, its intrinsic ‘condition of existence’ – continual unconscious promotion of numerical decimalism. Qabbala destines each and every ‘strategic appropriation’ to self-parody and derision, beginning with the agenda of theocratic resoration that attended its (ludicrously robed) baptismal rites. Even God was unable to make sense of it. It has no party, only popularity. 691

[So let’s party?] Comments: Qabbala 101 Part 2. Popular Numeracy Tachi: So the party's going move into here now? Not read the post yet Nick, but looking forward to getting sunk in. Will look out for the naive and pretentious ;) Northanger: nick, ;bout time dude. :oÞ ok, what pretentious team am i on ::cracking knuckles:: unprocessed or umlaut? Nick Land: Population pressure will drive you all up here eventually, just wait and see ... attic today becomes basement tomorrow - that's blogotheology in a nut's hell ... H.P. Lovecraft: Nick, I get the SNEAKY feeling that everyone's popping nummobites and going hypermental. Not sure if - fuck, 'F' just flew out of my keyboard - your more considered, and IMHO more interesting, contribution above has much purchase on rapid-fire jaw-gurning blog rhythm. Nick Land: SNEAKY = ??? northanger: since you like food fights AND you're a chaos mage we can justifiably say SNEAKY NICK. where do we post bug reports for The Nummificator? Nick Land: "where do we post bug reports for The Nummificator?" - sure Undercurrent would love to hear about them over at his place - or on the Cryptogliberal thread undercurrent: you'll find my maintenance charges are reasonable (allowing for the fact that I'm the only nummificator-repair-man on the planet) I noticed something interesting on the nummificator : if you take any word and add 'ography' to it, the result (after decimal reduction) is always identical : demon=(96 -> 15 -> 6) demonography=(249 -> 15 -> 6) gematrix=(169 -> 16 -> 7) 692

gematrixography=(322 -> 7) it was a while until I realised (doh) that this is because ography =153=9 and no matter how many 9s you add onto any given phrase, you'll always end up with the same result, any 9-valued modifier are transparent (so, therefore, are Is and Rs or any multiple of 9) in regard of the final result, but modify the path. Nick Land: Undercurrent - there are other similar cases - obvious eg (negative prefix) DE- = 27 = 9 and its anagram (tense suffix) -ED. Suspect there are more. Not trying to deduct from the interest of this observation, on the contrary ... undercurrent: obviously I'm asking this out of sheer personal laziness, but does decimal reduction equate arithmetically to modulus base 10? northanger: hex: decimal reduction = cold rationalism = 3 gon1: decimal reduction = decimal labyrinth = 5 gon2: decimal reduction = the unthought-out idealism of cold rationalism = 2 2+3=5 decimal reduction Base 9 Number Reduction http://www.sollog.com/base9numberreduction.shtml (sounds suspicously fictitious of course) "Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-0 with the dense void of the cosmic hypermatrix, upon which absolute desolation crosses infinity as flatline and loss of signal. Blind Humpty Johnson’s Channel-Zero ‘black snow’ cult communicate the influence of this zone in their call for the return of true Tohu Bohu or the subprimordial Earth." 693

Nick Land: Undercurrent - "does decimal reduction equate arithmetically to modulus base 10?" - don't think i'm quite getting your question. (shouldn't "modulus base" be "modulus / base" - not trying to be irritatingly pedantic, just want to get your drift) PS. your 'banding' pic getting really fascinating to gaze at hypnotically northanger - link you posted (on DR)looks incredibly interesting (need more neurons firing before seriously beginning to process it properly) - also sure it's definite Undercurrent material On Undercurrent's suffix (/prefix) topic - systematic exploration of this surely basic to rigorous analysis of the qabbalo-lexical interface northanger: On Undercurrent's suffix (/prefix) topic - systematic exploration of this surely basic to rigorous analysis of the qabbalo-lexical interface On Undercurrent's suffix (/prefix) topic - systematic exploration of this surely basic to rigorous analysis of the qabbalo-lexical interface << Nick Land: More Undercurrent 'subtle modulators' (DR-9 lexical modifiers) - hyper, ultra-, trans-, plexo-, numo-, qwer-, para-, mini-, -tech. -sys underslept: - don't think i'm quite getting your question. (shouldn't "modulus base" be "modulus / base" yes, it was in relation to 9-transparency: how exactly does decimal reduction procedure relate to modulo-10 (ie 15 mod 10 = 5, 15 red 10 = 6). Sure there is a stupidly simple answer to this, but was/am a bit tired and emotional due to excess nummification... Nick Land: Undercurrent - understand (very well) the 'tiredness and emotionality' problem - but still haven't got the foggiest idea what you're asking undercurrent: let's pretend it never happened northhanger: and no matter how many 9s you add onto any given phrase, you'll always end up with the same result 694

re: TSUNAMI check: The Cry of the 11th Aethyr http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/l418/aetyr11.html By three and by three and by three hath He made firm the foundation against the earthquake that is three. For in the number nine is the changefulness of the numbers brought to naught. For with whatsoever number thou wilt cover it, it appeareth unchanged [8]. [8] e.g 9 x 7 = 63. 6 plus 3 = 9. 9 x 127 = 1143. 1 plus 1 plus 4 plus 3 = 9. eg (negative prefix) DE- = 27 = 9 and its anagram (tense suffix) -ED. AQ 37 = ENGON1 19 = DEGON1 19 = THE LINK D26 CZ = ANALYTICA = CRYPT = SRI LANKA = UPLINK AQ 64 = EDEN (=D26 Y = 850 DOLLARS = AXIS = SHE THUS AWAKENS THE ELD OF THE ORIGINAL OLD KING = UNDERCURRENT = YETZIRATIC FORM) Intro to Qwernomics Nick Land (December 23, 2004) [While foaming bubbling numbo-jumbo reigns, this post is based upon the abstract for an as-yet virtual essay that would be part of a Ccru collection. Obviously interested in any feedback.] Qwernomic subcultures result from the legacy of the typewriter and its computational simulation, based upon the shift-locked code systems implicitly produced by the Sholes or Universal (‘Qwerty’) Keyboard. Sketching the emergence and diffusion of the ‘secret/secretarial’ qwernomic subculture within global technocapitalism isolates 695

a field of diagonal communication between anthropomorphic signs and the molecular traffic signals of the mutating ‘machinic unconscious,’ outlining an antipolitical semiotic pragmatism and Godless qabbalism consistent with what Ccru calls “coincidence engineering.” The emergence of technologically supported typewriting practices in the final decades of the 19th Century coincided with a profound reconstruction of the global economic order, associated with an equally radical re-arrangement of the concrete composition of the terrestrial machinic unconscious (at least in its anthropomorphic shallows). The interconnected explosions of modern corporate organization and endo-corporate bureaucracy, (gendered) office work, typographic information deposits, psychoanalysis, literary modernism, anglophone qabbalism, cryptographic machinery and mechanized computation all tracked the mass installation of typing skills into the human nervous system, in accordance with the Qwerty arrangement of the Sholes Keyboard. The keyboard effected a twin digitization of language, both sealing its abstraction from the oral-pneumatic apparatus (into manual-digital motor-processes) and decomposing it into discrete elements coded onto the keys of a finger-activated mechanism. In parallel, it redistributed the ‘arbitrariness’ of the phonological sign into the key sequence of the new device, according to principles that remain obscure, contested, and shrouded in myth. Once the Sholes distribution had technofrozen and socially shift-locked into a resilient standard, a generalized assumption that Qwerty was predominantly arbitrary (quasi-randomly allocated) functioned to pre-emptively dissipate pattern-hunting semiotic inquiry. Challenges from alternative ‘scientific’ keyboards were undermined by skepticism about the very idea of a rational arrangement of the keys. In this respect, Qwerty conformed to a typical trend among oecumenic sign systems, with the sheer inertia of mass-acceptance marginalizing analytical or reformist tendencies to a fringe of philosophical eccentricity or even psychotic delusion. Qwerty thus exploited the mask of accident to construct a positive unconscious tropism or uninvestigated massive transmutation - the subliminal instantiation of a new cultural system. Of course, there may be nothing behind the mask. Conventional wisdom would accept no other conclusion. Yet even in this case a large set of investigable Qwernomic ‘phenomena’ remain, consisting of Qwerty-induced coding patterns and potential surplus values, virtual sciences, subcultures, undercurrents, cryptographic methods and partially coherent deliria. Such Qwenomena may be nothing other than 696

the qabbalistic materials of Azathoth, the blind idiot God, whose meaningless pipings lead all semiotic disciplines into the bubbling abyss of futile insanity. A true and dispassionate science, however, has no right or reason to be intimidated by such consequences. Only false - ideological - science, serving as the fawning guardian of securocratic humanism, can justify a prejudice in favour of anthropomorphically acceptable outcomes. Qwerty has in any case long been accepted. The rest is destiny. Whilst the two dimensional array of the standard (Anglospherean) keyboard opens the potential for a variety of linear unfoldings – from the left/right, top/bottom, spirals … and equally diverging approaches to the inclusion of the number line, punctuation marks, function keys … - the conventions of Neoroman textual organization (top-bottom, left-right) provide the key to a preliminary Qwertian alphabet: QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM. If, at least provisionally, this linearization and selection is accepted, each letter is recoded as the difference between two ordinal values. Pattern can be extracted from these twin orderings in a huge variety of ways. One approach involves the adoption of a qabbalistic procedure belonging conceptually to combinatorial arithmetic. Consider the typical problem: given an alphabet of length n, how many non-repeating two-letter combinations are possible? The arithmetical formula for resolving this problem is (n x n-1) /2, coinciding with the operation of ‘digital (or triangular) cumulation’ of n-1. Digital cumulation is second only to digital reduction as a qabbalistic tool (explicitly esteemed at least since Pythagoras). (Pascal’s triangle can be used to expand this combinatorial analysis to higher levels). As an illustration, take only the first four letters of the Neoroman alphabet. To produce a matrix of binary combinations, order is employed as a procedural criterion, automatically excluding redundant combinations. Thus, ‘A’ combines with ‘B, C, and D’, ‘B’ combines with ‘C and D’, ‘C’ combines with ‘D’. Arithmetical confirmation is, of course, easily obtained: 3 + 2 + 1 = 6, equivalent to the digital cumulation of (4 -1 =) 3, and to (4 x 3)/2. 697

If non-repeating combinations of any length are permitted from an alphabet of length n, the formula for the number of combination is (2 to the nth power) -1 (Mersenne numbers, including an intriguing set of primes). The entire virtual vocabulary of nonrepeating (non-anagrammatic) Neoroman ‘words’ is thus (2 to the 26th) -1 (or M-26). As a consequence of this procedure, all the terms making up a well-formed combinatorial ‘vocabulary’ will be internally structured by an ordering principle drawn directly from the ‘alphabet’ in question. Returning to the qabbalistic analysis of Qwertian, and applying these procedures restrictively (yet again, there are quite obvious alternatives, ignored here) leads to the virtual – or even actual (sadly, I’ve done this many times) – compilation of an AlphaQwernomic ‘language’ consisting of those combinations consistent with parallel applications of the previously elaborated criteria. For instance, ‘AE’ – permitted in Neoroman – is now excluded, due to the inverse ordering found in the Qwertian sequence. (It might be noted at this point that the familiarity of the Qwertian ‘middle row’ letter-sequence A…DFGHJKL immediately ensures a prominent region of resonance – while the bottom row hints stongly at a reverse folding, however, such qwernotectonic issues exceed the scope of this introduction). Resulting from an intricate interference pattern, the scope of the Alpha-Qwertian vocabulary is radically ‘empirical’ (in the sense that it derives from the fact of the Sholes Keyboard, the ‘logic’ of which – if such a thing exists at all – remains utterly obscure). It would be exceedingly surprising if an arithmetical formula of manageable complexity were able to usefully contribute to its estimation. The Alpha-Qwertian dictionary has both alphabetical and Qwertian versions, with identical content but alternative ordering arrangements. Prioritizing the alphabet (out of courtesy to our gracious oecumenical hosts), gives the initial entries: A, Ab, Abm, Abn, Ac, Acm, Acn, Acv … It is procedurally productive to understand this vocabulary as a system of envelopments, as if each term was involuting into itself, in accordance with a nonmetric ordinal sequence appropriate to intensities. One tool facilitating this approach requires the articulation of the two series, with the second inverted: 698

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZMNBVCXZLKJHGFDSAPOIUYTREWQ (or its mirror-image: QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNMZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA, pragmatically appropriate to the Qwertian version of the Alpha-Qwertian dictionary). If the twin instances of the same letter are treated as marking the perimeter of a circle, the overall pattern of envelopments is exactly charted. One can see immediately, for instance, that both instances of the letter ‘B’ fall within the circle described by ‘A’ in its twin instantiations. ‘B’ is thus enveloped by ‘A’ – making ‘AB’ a consistent combination. Systems of concentric circles correspond to tolerated Alpha-Qwertian constructions. A complete Alpha-Qwertian dictionary is actually quite short, but as to its potential usage … Comments: Intro to Qwernomics undercurrent: talk about a cliffhanger.... >(sadly, I’ve done this many times) LOL! Nick Land: Undercurrent - wow, that was fast. undercurrent: yeah, but I'm not addicted, I can stop any time I want. Nick Land: "talk about a cliffhanger...." - they don't call me 'the Barbara Cartland of Qweroplexion' for nothing ... Undercurrent - last time i saw a case that bad, it was northanger - so watch out northanger: oh fuck you all, lol NICHOLAS yeah, but I'm not addicted, I can stop any time I want. addicted = northanger gosh, you cured me from ever wanting to be on a computer ever again. 699

Nicholas, it was a pleasure playing. Thanks. undercurrent: you know, there's something interesting here that goes to the heart of the big philosophical problem, that is the apparently irrevocable fissure between phenomenology (naive tracking of matter from apparent bedrock of subjectconditioned-position) and let's say 'scientific rationalism as materialism' (attempt to objectively systematise matter independent of any reference to said position) and a diagonal between the two. Because if you ask the question 'why choose qwernomics' it's obvious that the empirical task is proceeding quite naively by anthropo-instinct, by starting with the things close to hand (ahem) (this is basically the same question as the amphibious line that arises from 'admit it, you're searching for significance'). And yet by introducing callous automatism the phenomenological process is stripped of its usual prejudices; meaning that ideally you end up with a practice that is neither disingenuous w/regard to its contingent situatedness nor narcissistically caged by it. Now one further speculative step : "The programme will proceed in its own way" Interested in how this connects with artistic/aesthetic automatism (ley lines, photographic/painterly channelling of event) with its still-insufficiently-dismantled relation to a personal unconscious/expression. Could programmatic occultism, the plumbing of the numerical-noumenal, also be a defusing of the apparent polarity between 'CR' position of scientific evacuation of sense (total analytic transparency and apparent imperviousness to interpretation or sense, blocked by imperious 'noumenal' metaphysical perspective) and 'Nietzsche' position of multiplicitous perspectivized narratives (questions of consistence blocked by 'phenomenal' relation to personalised body-states/emotions) - this rupture being a result of Kant's posing all questions in terms of access/conditioning, which the totally irrational-but-consistent automatism of the Kabbala-process takes us beyond (towards the machinic unconscious, which it would be entirely possible [ie a problem not a mystery] to define numerically). The only question would be how long it takes you to find your way 'out' of the labyrinth; it may be futile in terms of human life span - but that doesn't affect the rigour of the method ;) Realise that this is all quick and needs colouring-in if not substantial reworking. undercurrent: oh WTF, here are my other questions: 700

1.Empirical hypothesis of attempted outside contact: (a)what sort of proposition is this ('something is trying to tell us something') (b)why is numerics the most likely place to come across the signal (Reza's question) 2.On what grounds is the Kabbalistic programme said to be less 'plausible' than (eg) particle physics (question of techinicy/applicability?) (relates to stuff above on anthroprobing) 3.Programmatic as opposed to doctrinal occultism : is this the same distinction in religions (ie vudu/catholocism)? 4.Calculator/Glossary distinction - results are interpretable, method is not (whereas philosophy is characterised by the interminable interpretability of method, perhaps?) one more provocative Q: isn't this where Derida/Derrida (even more than D&G;) should have ended up (another case of blockage)? Nick Land: Undercurrent - you're clearly getting this jargoplex thing ;) How have you managed to get all this together in 10 minutes? - i need a digestion break northanger: ok, i'll calm down and read this thing. well, aren't you guys OTHER? Nick Land: northanger - phew! thought you were pouting there for a minute northanger: well, i had to reboot anyway ... nicholas, interesting proposition. that's all 231 gates stuff. okay, map 22-Heb to qwerty and see what you get. Nick Land: PS. get past the 'coherent' part and its all your qabbalistic gate thingies undercurrent: in 10 minutes? it's the fallout from 6 months of trying to formulate a phd proposal thx for the emetic. Nick Land: northanger - time-slippage! Northanger: time slippage, what! 701

Nick Land: Undercurrent - [still on digesion break but] should be harder to acknowledge this - totally agree with Der(r)ida point - have to remember though that among all the Anglo/Gallic aggravations is a different keyboard arrangement (had to do some editing for a French co. here and it almost drove me out of my mind - hard to imagine i'm sure - trying to use their goddamn keyboards) Being cruel, think all pomological discourses avoid anything that might entail quantifiable criteria of evaluation (look at Der(r)ida's number stuff in Glas - no way you could bring numerical tools to bear on it) Hope [viz Phd comments] you're not pouting as well ;) Northanger: Could programmatic occultism ... be a defusing of the apparent polarity between 'CR' position of scientific evacuation of sense + multiplicitous perspectivized narratives ... which the totally irrational-but-consistent automatism of the Kabbala-process takes us beyond [machinic unconscious] <> [ie a problem not a mystery] + DEFINE IT NUMERICALLY. The only question would be how long it takes you to find your way 'out' of the labyrinth; it may be futile in terms of human life span - but that doesn't affect the rigour of the method ;) yes. northanger: 1.Empirical hypothesis of attempted outside contact: (a)what sort of proposition is this ('something is trying to tell us something') (b)why is numerics the most likely place to come across the signal (Reza's question) i can't tell you rationally. but one day, before all this crazy counting started, someone was talking to me and i realized: we speak in numbers. (eg, computer programming ASSEMBLER/MACHINE language vs. HIGH LEVEL language). you're closer to the "machine" 2.On what grounds is the Kabbalistic programme said to be less 'plausible' than (eg) particle physics (question of techinicy/applicability?) (relates to stuff above on anthroprobing) confusion/prejudice about "scientific method" (physicists just as likely to be mystics as kabbalists) ++ misunderstanding (hidden|secret) of kabbalistic method (they can throw down an axiom just as well as a mathematician -- just looks different) 702

3.Programmatic as opposed to doctrinal occultism : is this the same distinction in religions (ie vudu/catholocism)? yes..... PROGRAM = abstraction? = VUDU DOCTRINE = don't/do = CATHOLIC surprising how many "catholics" one finds in occultism when you tell them you "play" with demons. also, some kabbalists may cringe: 484 pairs?! 4.Calculator/Glossary distinction - results are interpretable, method is not (whereas philosophy is characterised by the interminable interpretability of method, perhaps?) From my experience, there is no distinction between the calculator, the glossary, the results, the method, and the programmer. I can formulate an equation -- but it may take me an hour. Which gets to the heart of question #2 -- kabbalists never wanted their methods known openly. okay, that calmed me down. undercurrent: I'm sure that northanger's experience is pretty close to the nearpsychosis that all programmers occasionally lapse into (everything becomes raw information). Thing about speech as assembly-language is intriguing though...say more...should be able to excavate other consigned-to-mental-dustbin techie knowledge here too (operating system stacks as crypts, blocked APIs). Being cruel, think all pomological discourses avoid anything that might entail quantifiable criteria of evaluation agreed, but it's often hard to see things sliding (ie analysis of tic-cultures can drift into cult-studs interpretationism, qwernomics into cultural-history). Problem here with rigorous definition of 'cultures', perhaps? IMHO even a vulgar lab-research approach approach (eg mapping hyperhex genome) is better to start with, or to keep feet on ground whilst dabbling in metadiscourses. Hope [viz Phd comments] you're not pouting as well ;) ?? 703

Had a feeling that TfA gave D(r)Da the bad write-up (as state-employed incontinent phenomenocrony) that only his 'followers' justly deserved. He's also conscientious on this matter of situatedness/amphibiousness. But I suppose it's a matter of 'where did it start to go wrong'. northanger: nicholas, what does any of this have to do with hyperstition? I'm sure that northanger's experience is pretty close to the near-psychosis that all programmers occasionally lapse into (everything becomes raw information). Thing about speech as assembly-language is intriguing though...say more... someone called on phone, topic: money. hey, guess what i just realized something (yeah?) we talk in numbers. i explain fibonnaci, yadda. loan money. and then make first number chart. later accelerated by 9/11 with mindboggling feats of obsessivecompulsive activity (whoa, a nested IF statement w/o looking in the help file!) while singing kumbayah. undercurrent - didn't think the questions were directed to me, but it helped, glad to do it. great questions. undercurrent: what does any of this have to do with hyperstition? defluffing it ! northanger: nicholas, what does any of this have to do with hyperstition? undercurrent - defluffing? programming term? undercurrent: strip it of all remaining encumbrances of hammer-horror metanarrative schlock. I don't speak for hyperstition, though...I'm not even sure whether it's possible to define it in any interesting way ('things that make themselves real'?), just seems to work well as a disorganizational marker. northanger: speaking abstractly, the problem with WoT is that "enemy" isn't defined. we're so rich with possibilities! internal - physical - national - universal - and way outside. everyone's an enemy and there's no trust anywhere. it's difficult to collapse all these meanings since they occur on all these levels. strip it of all remaining encumbrances of hammer-horror metanarrative schlock. 704

well, if you mean "remove all the shit the creator put it" -- i see the fluff. put IN H.P. Lovecraft: Undercurrent: "I don't speak for hyperstition, though...I'm not even sure whether it's possible to define it in any interesting way ('things that make themselves real'?), just seems to work well as a disorganizational marker." Hmm. what is a 'disorganizational marker'? Hyperstition as clever marketing for a product/service that doesn't yet exist. overcurrent: Undercurrent - great questions by the way. How do they relate to your PhD? Can we go over what you think as the more pertinent re. Hyperstition? overground: Hyperstition: Reality Comes out of the Closet of the Fictional northanger: Hyperstition: Reality Comes out of the Closet of the Fictional ROTFLMAO, that is so so right on. Reality in the Closet. LOL. perfection. Hyperstition as clever marketing for a product/service that doesn't yet exist. well, i finally figued out today that the numogram = home page. Nick Land: Undercurrent, northanger - you're both overloading the circuits what does any of this have to do with hyperstition? defluffing it ! - not sure about that, but i can see where you're (Uc) coming from, there's a problem with absolutizing the investigative lineage (through ego-identification, which doesn't arise with the strict formulae, but with the topic definitions and methodological decisions (forks)) - can see only way to make this persuasive is to arithmetize hyperstitional procedures, but then ... Reza's Q. (via northanger - damn! can't find it now ... glossed) 'why numbers' - which in weird way meets Badiou and hypermathematical/ supranumeric abstraction ('forget numbers'?) ... that's why i tried to raise 'subrational' numeracy issue on previous post phenomenology / mathematics opposition (fluff / antifluff) can miss a lot (not trying to be a pathetic gliberal here) ... [now i'm just gibbering] 705

northanger: nalvage oh, that worked only ever deleted two posts. first one i got so mad i tore a hole through every angel in (i'm sure) a fifty mile radius: HOW DO WE IDENTIFY EACH OTHER?! nalvage appeared gon1 speaks, i hit POST now i'm going to bed fuck is this what all the LETS HIT DELETE stuff was about? undercurrent: Hmm. what is a 'disorganizational marker'? helps to hold together a lot of things that otherwise would seem like totally disconnected issues, without being precisely definable 'in itself'... Phd question is way too personalist, and the person in question is too confused to answer anyway. Nick, the devil is in the lacunae (...) underground overground: _ellipses_, I meant. northanger: that's why there are keys and gates and zones and stuff --so this doesn't happen: i know peter, who are you? HYPERSTITION NECESSARILY INVOLVES AN OPENING UP OF/TO THE OUTSIDE Nick Land: Undercurrent - abject apologies for personalism ... "starting with the things close to hand (ahem)" - think this is spot on, immanence really is right beneath your fingers ... (relates back to Derrida topic too - escaping the phenomenological model in the direction of the practical) 706

keep going back to your 12:52 comment, but think those points constitute more of a long term guide than an immediately response-stim northanger: LOL Had a feeling that TfA gave D(r)Da the bad write-up (as state-employed incontinent phenomenocrony) that only his 'followers' justly deserved. He's also conscientious on this matter of situatedness/amphibiousness. But I suppose it's a matter of 'where did it start to go wrong'. Nick Land: ... immediate ... [i should crash too] northanger: {the fallen angel} hyperstitionally speaking of course undercurrent: are you laughing at my jargoplex, northanger? Nick Land: Only point worth making about TfA - "mistah Kurtz, he dead" northanger: ah, nicholas, you never disappoint undercurrent: I've got to get away from this f*cking machine, too. I posted something new, btw, as a gift to Prince of Persia RN , if he's out there watching somewhere... northanger: hehe - jargoplex (excellent) good night Nick Land: Below 100 is so nothing these days northanger: mistah Kurtz, he dead OHWOW, excellent! Nick Land: Not that northanger's got anything to do with it Northanger:naw, but i think i do undercurrent: I just hope for the sake of your eyesight that you're not reading this on an Amstrad greenscreen. 707

northhanger: undercurrent, where is it? undercurrent: right here, next one along >>> northanger: keep going back to your 12:52 comment yeah, constant in my mind was, why do people go crazy when this happens (for me it was worse) Amstrad greenscreen. no ah, Reza {if you want to catch an angel, call a Persian} now, if you want somebody to kick a hole through something, call nicholas if you want to catch a liar, call undercurrent Nick Land: "He's also conscientious on this matter of situatedness/amphibiousness" (still being cruel) - amphibiousness isn't just flapping pathetically on the water line still less revelling in the fact northanger: arh stop saying "conscientious" you're evil, nicholas situatedness/amphibiousness human/whatever? yes, but some people can recognize you instantly where is Reza's post? ANNAEL 708

THE WORD HAS BEEN SPOKEN {smart! --angels can be kinda dumb some time with all that flapping around| Nick Land: "arh" ?? northanger: MICHAEL, (Tasoheter | Aldebaran) Who is as God; Military Commander of the Heavenly Host - Watcher of the East Nick Land: "THE WORD HAS BEEN SPOKEN" - confused about how something can be GoN1/2 consistent - but then it's getting late and i'm too lazy to work it out GoN1/2 can't even agree on GOD - is that a problem? northanger: GABRIEL, (Hastorang | Fomalhaut) Mighty Power of God - Watcher of the South ARIEL (Satevis | Antares) - Mighty Flame of God - Watcher of the West RAPHAEL (Venant | Regulus) - Healer of God - Watcher of the West (shut up nicholai} Nick Land: northanger - is there anyone other than you who takes both GoN1 and GoN2 seriously? don't close neighbours normally hate each other? are you in danger of being a bit of a gliberal on this issue? northanger: GoN1/2 can't even agree on GOD - is that a problem? tell me the name of god, nicholas Nick Land: am i interrupting something deeply meaningful and spiritual? I went to bed an hour ago northanger: nicholas, you can be so irritating am i interrupting something deeply meaningful and spiritual? no everybody go to bed insomniacs = angels 709

Nick Land: IHVH: Aries (Fire—Cardinal) Angel of Mercy: QThH + AL (Kethahel)—IHVH Angel of Severity: HThQ + IH (Hatakiah)—IHVH IHHV: Sagittarius (Fire—Mutable) Angel of Mercy: QTzH + AL (Kazahel)—IHHV Angel of Severity: HTzQ + IH (Hazekiah)—IHHV IVHH: Leo (Fire—Fixed) Angel of Mercy: QLI + AL (Keliel)—IVHH Angel of Severity: ILQ + IH (Yelekiah)—IVHH HVHI: Cancer (Water—Cardinal) Angel of Mercy: DVI + AL (Daviel)—HVHI Angel of Severity: IVD + IH (Yodiah)—HVHI HVIH: Pisces (Water—Mutable) Angel of Mercy: DMV + AL (Demuel)—HVIH Angel of Severity: VMD + IH (Vamediah)—HVIH HHIV: Scorpio (Water—Fixed) Angel of Mercy: DAB + AL (Dabael)—HHIV Angel of Severity: BAD + IH (Badiah)—HHIV VHIH: Libra (Air—Cardinal) Angel of Mercy: VAH + AL (Vahael)—VHIH Angel of Severity: HAV + IH (Haviah)—VHIH VHHI: Gemini (Air—Mutable) 710

Angel of Mercy: VIH + AL (Vihael)—VHHI Angel of Severity: HIV + IH (Hiviah)—VHHI VIHH: Aquarius (Air—Mutable) Angel of Mercy: VIV + AL (Vivael)—VIHH Angel of Severity: VIV + IH (Viviah)—VIHH HIHV: Capricorn (Earth—Cardinal) Angel of Mercy: ShBV + AL (Shabuel)—HIHV Angel of Severity: VBSh + IH (Vabashiah)—HIHV HIVH: Virgo (Earth—Mutable) Angel of Mercy: ShHV + AL (Shahavel)—HIVH Angel of Severity: VHSh + IH (Vaheshiah)—HIVH HHVI: Taurus (Earth—Fixed) Angel of Mercy: ShIA + AL (Shiael)—HHVI Angel of Severity: AISh + IH (Aishiah)—HHVI Posted by: northanger at December 23, 2004 04:57 PM GOD = (::::) - the holy Tetramacallit "I can stop any time I want" northanger: LE MATRICULE DE LA MATRAQUER Rilke: insomniacs = angels Aber Lebendige machen alle den Fehler, dass sie zu stark unterschieden. Engel (sagt man) wuessten off nicht, on sie unter Legenden gehn oder Toten. [Yet the living are wrong to distinguish so clearly. Angels (it's said) are often unsure whether they pass among the living or the dead.] Bloot = Rilke = Az-za: 711

tell me the name of god, nicholas Genius. If I ever write a novel (I won't), that line will be in it. Just for that, it'd been worth it. Thanks. Nick Land: Got to get 'Qwertypography' in somehow also QWYZ = CRYPT. 'Qwyz' is an Alpha-Qwertian word (tagged with an '*' from now on - as in *qryz) H.P.Lovecraft - "Hyperstition as clever marketing for a product/service that doesn't yet exist" - like this formulation, but also think the 'product' is the Numogram. Hyperstition as the ‘sticky’ coating for a core of qabbalistic-replication machinery … Bloot - "Just for that, it'd been worth it." - Stoical as always - know you've been through a lot recently, but we share your pain ;) northanger: correction: RAPHAEL = watcher of the NORTH (need to work on my stage directions) "arh" ?? what? just wondering. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Questions ... [1] Is this Universal Law and therefore Eternal? [2] Is this Global Law and therefore Political? [3] Is this the Law of Nations and therefore Unity? [4] Is this the Law of the Kollective and We'll Figure it Out as We Go? 712

[5] Is this Individual Law and therefore Anarchy? As you choose, you shall be governed. As you choose a green line makes witness: Here and No Further for this is LAW (called a declaration thingy, i think) is there a law above+below? of course there is. Nick Land: [First Part of the A-QD. It's not necessarily the most exciting chapter, but it gives an idea. (Part 2 is a lot shorter)]. Liber Qwyz. Qryz of the Qwerm, or The Qwertian Book of Numbers. A Complete and Ordinated Alpha-Qwertian Dictionary (Oecumenic Version). Part 1. A(0), Ab(1), Abm(2), Abn(3), Ac(4), Acm(5), Acn(6), Acv(7), Ad(8), Adf(9), Adfg(10), Adfgh(11), Adfghj(12), Adfghjk(13), Adfghjkl(14), Adfghjklm(15), Adfghjkln(16), Adfghjklv(17), Adfghjklx(18), Adfghjklz(19), Adfghjkm(20), Adfghjkn(21), Adfghjkv(22), Adfghjkx(23), Adfghjkz(24), Adfghjl(25), Adfghjlm(26), Adfghjln(27), Adfghjlv(28), Adfghjlx(29), Adfghjlz(30), Adfghjm(31), Adfghjn(32), Adfghjv(33), Adfghjx(34), Adfghjz(35), Adfghk(36), Adfghkl(37), Adfghklm(38), Adfghkln(39), Adfghklv(40), Adfghklx(41), Adfghklz(42), Adfghkm(43), Adfghkn(44), Adfghkv(45), Adfghkx(46), Adfghkz(47), Adfghl(48), Adfghlm(49), Adfghln(50), Adfghlv(51), Adfghlx(52), Adfghlz(53), Adfghm(54), Adfghn(55), Adfghv(56), Adfghx(57), Adfghz(58), Adfgj(59), Adfgjk(60), Adfgjkl(61), Adfgjklm(62), Adfgjkln(63), Adfgjklv(64), Adfgjklx(65), Adfgjklz(66), Adfgjkm(67), Adfgjkn(68), Adfgjkv(69), Adfgjkx(70), Adfgjkz(71), Adfgjl(72), Adfgjlm(73), Adfgjln(74), Adfgjlv(75), Adfgjlx(76), Adfgjlz(77), Adfgjm(78), Adfgjn(79), Adfgjv(80), Adfgjx(81), Adfgjz(82), Adfgk(83), Adfgkl(84), Adfgklm(85), Adfgkln(86), Adfgklv(87), Adfgklx(88), Adfgklz(89), Adfgkm(90), Adfgkn(91), Adfgkv(92), Adfgkx(93), Adfgkz(94), Adfgl(95), Adfglm(96), Adfgln(97), Adfglv(98), Adfglx(99), Adfglz(100), Adfgm(101), Adfgn(102), Adfgv(103), Adfgx(104), Adfgz(105), Adfh(106), Adfhj(107), Adfhjk(108), Adfhjkl(109), Adfhjklm(110), Adfhjkln(111), Adfhjklv(112), Adfhjklx(113), Adfhjklz(114), Adfhjkm(115), Adfhjkn(116), Adfhjkv(117), Adfhjkx(118), Adfhjkz(119), Adfhjl(120), Adfhjlm(121), Adfhjln(122), Adfhjlv(123), Adfhjlx(124), Adfhjlz(125), Adfhjm(126), Adfhjn(127), Adfhjv(128), Adfhjx(129), 713

Adfhjz(130), Adfhk(131), Adfhkl(132), Adfhklm(133), Adfhkln(134), Adfhklv(135), Adfhklx(136), Adfhklz(137), Adfhkm(138), Adfhkn(139), Adfhkv(140), Adfhkx(141), Adfhkz(142), Adfhl(143), Adfhlm(144), Adfhln(145), Adfhlv(146), Adfhlx(147), Adfhlz(148), Adfhm(149), Adfhn(150), Adfhv(151), Adfhx(152), Adfhz(153), Adfj(154), Adfjk(155), Adfjkl(156), Adfjklm(157), Adfjkln(158), Adfjklv(159), Adfjklx(160), Adfjklz(161), Adfjkm(162), Adfjkn(163), Adfjkv(164), Adfjkx(165), Adfjkz(166), Adfjl(167), Adfjlm(168), Adfjln(169), Adfjlv(170), Adfjlx(171), Adfjlz(172), Adfjm(173), Adfjn(174), Adfjv(175), Adfjx(176), Adfjz(177), Adfk(178), Adfkl(179), Adfklm(180), Adfkln(181), Adfklv(182), Adfklx(183), Adfklz(184), Adfkm(185), Adfkn(186), Adfkv(187), Adfkx(188), Adfkz(189), Adfl(190), Adflm(191), Adfln(192), Adflv(193), Adflx(194), Adflz(195), Adfm(196), Adfn(197), Adfv(198), Adfx(199), Adfz(200), Adg(201), Adgh(202), Adghj(203), Adghjk(204), Adghjkl(205), Adghjklm(206), Adghjkln(207), Adghjklv(208), Adghjklx(209), Adghjklz(210), Adghjkm(211), Adghjkn(212), Adghjkv(213), Adghjkx(214), Adghjkz(215), Adghjl(216), Adghjlm(217), Adghjln(218), Adghjlv(219), Adghjlx(220), Adghjlz(221), Adghjm(222), Adghjn(223), Adghjv(224), Adghjx(225), Adghjz(226), Adghk(227), Adghkl(228), Adghklm(229), Adghkln(230), Adghklv(231), Adghklx(232), Adghklz(233), Adghkm(234), Adghkn(235), Adghkv(236), Adghkx(237), Adghkz(238), Adghl(239), Adghlm(240), Adghln(241), Adghlv(242), Adghlx(243), Adghlz(244), Adghm(245), Adghn(246), Adghv(247), Adghx(248), Adghz(249), Adgj(250), Adgjk(251), Adgjkl(252), Adgjklm(253), Adgjkln(254), Adgjklv(255), Adgjklx(256), Adgjklz(257), Adgjkm(258), Adgjkn(259), Adgjkv(260), Adgjkx(261), Adgjkz(262), Adgjl(263), Adgjlm(264), Adgjln(265), Adgjlv(266), Adgjlx(267), Adgjlz(268), Adgjm(269), Adgjn(270), Adgjv(271), Adgjx(272), Adgjz(273), Adgk(274), Adgkl(275), Adgklm(276), Adgkln(277), Adgklv(278), Adgklx(279), Adgklz(280), Adgkm(281), Adgkn(282), Adgkv(283), Adgkx(284), Adgkz(285), Adgl(286), Adglm(287), Adgln(288), Adglv(289), Adglx(290), Adglz(291), Adgm(292), Adgn(293), Adgv(294), Adgx(295), Adgz(296), Adh(297), Adhj(298), Adhjk(299), Adhjkl(300), Adhjklm(301), Adhjkln(302), Adhjklv(303), Adhjklx(304), Adhjklz(305), Adhjkm(306), Adhjkn(307), Adhjkv(308), Adhjkx(309), Adhjkz(310), Adhjl(311), Adhjlm(312), Adhjln(313), Adhjlv(314), Adhjlx(315), Adhjlz(316), Adhjm(317), Adhjn(318), Adhjv(319), Adhjx(320), Adhjz(321), Adhk(322), Adhkl(323), Adhklm(324), Adhkln(325), Adhklv(326), Adhklx(327), Adhklz(328), Adhkm(329), Adhkn(330), Adhkv(331), Adhkx(332), Adhkz(333), Adhl(334), Adhlm(335), Adhln(336), Adhlv(337), Adhlx(338), Adhlz(339), Adhm(340), Adhn(341), Adhv(342), Adhx(343), Adhz(344), Adj(345), Adjk(346), Adjkl(347), Adjklm(348), Adjkln(349), Adjklv(350), Adjklx(351), Adjklz(352), 714

Adjkm(353), Adjkn(354), Adjkv(355), Adjkx(356), Adjkz(357), Adjl(358), Adjlm(359), Adjln(360), Adjlv(361), Adjlx(362), Adjlz(363), Adjm(364), Adjn(365), Adjv(366), Adjx(367), Adjz(368), Adk(369), Adkl(370), Adklm(371), Adkln(372), Adklv(373), Adklx(374), Adklz(375), Adkm(376), Adkn(377), Adkv(378), Adkx(379), Adkz(380), Adl(381), Adlm(382), Adln(383), Adlv(384), Adlx(385), Adlz(386), Adm(387), Adn(388), Adv(389), Adx(390), Adz(391), Af(392), Afg(393), Afgh(394), Afghj(395), Afghjk(396), Afghjkl(397), Afghjklm(398), Afghjkln(399), Afghjklv(400), Afghjklx(401), Afghjklz(402), Afghjkm(403), Afghjkn(404), Afghjkv(405), Afghjkx(406), Afghjkz(407), Afghjl(408), Afghjlm(409), Afghjln(410), Afghjlv(411), Afghjlx(412), Afghjlz(413), Afghjm(414), Afghjn(415), Afghjv(416), Afghjx(417), Afghjz(418), Afghk(419), Afghkl(420), Afghklm(421), Afghkln(422), Afghklv(423), Afghklx(424), Afghklz(425), Afghkm(426), Afghkn(427), Afghkv(428), Afghkx(429), Afghkz(430), Afghl(431), Afghlm(432), Afghln(433), Afghlv(434), Afghlx(435), Afghlz(436), Afghm(437), Afghn(438), Afghv(439), Afghx(440), Afghz(441), Afgj(442), Afgjk(443), Afgjkl(444), Afgjklm(445), Afgjkln(446), Afgjklv(447), Afgjklx(448), Afgjklz(449), Afgjkm(450), Afgjkn(451), Afgjkv(452), Afgjkx(453), Afgjkz(454), Afgjl(455), Afgjlm(456), Afgjln(457), Afgjlv(458), Afgjlx(459), Afgjlz(460), Afgjm(461), Afgjn(462), Afgjv(463), Afgjx(464), Afgjz(465), Afgk(466), Afgkl(467), Afgklm(468), Afgkln(469), Afgklv(470), Afgklx(471), Afgklz(472), Afgkm(473), Afgkn(474), Afgkv(475), Afgkx(476), Afgkz(477), Afgl(478), Afglm(479), Afgln(480), Afglv(481), Afglx(482), Afglz(483), Afgm(484), Afgn(485), Afgv(486), Afgx(487), Afgz(488). Afh(489), Afhj(490), Afhjk(491), Afhjkl(492), Afhjklm(493), Afhjkln(494), Afhjklv(495), Afhjklx(496), Afhjklz(497), Afhjkm(498), Afhjkn(499), Afhjkv(500), Afhjkx(501), Afhjkz(502), Afhjl(503), Afhjlm(504), Afhjln(505), Afhjlv(506), Afhjlx(507), Afhjlz(508), Afhjm(509), Afhjn(510), Afhjv(511), Afhjx(512), Afhjz(513), Afhk(514), Afhkl(515), Afhklm(516), Afhkln(517), Afhklv(518), Afhklx(519), Afhklz(520), Afhkm(521), Afhkn(522), Afhkv(523), Afhkx(524), Afhkz(525), Afhl(526), Afhlm(527), Afhln(528), Afhlv(529), Afhlx(530), Afhlz(531), Afhm(532), Afhn(533), Afhv(534), Afhx(535), Afhz(536), Afj(537), Afjk(538), Afjkl(539), Afjklm(540), Afjkln(541), Afjklv(542), Afjklx(543), Afjklz(544), Afjkm(545), Afjkn(546), Afjkv(547), Afjkx(548), Afjkz(549), Afjl(550), Afjlm(551), Afjln(552), Afjlv(553), Afjlx(554), Afjlz(555), Afjm(556), Afjn(557), Afjv(558), Afjx(559), Afjz(560). Afk(561), Afkl(562), Afklm(563), Afkln(564), Afklv(565), Afklx(566), Afklz(567), Afkm(568), Afkn(569), Afkv(570), Afkx(571), Afkz(572), Afl(573), Aflm(574), 715

Afln(575), Aflv(576), Aflx(577), Aflz(578), Afm(579), Afn(580), Afv(581), Afx(582), Afz(583). Ag(584), Agh(585), Aghj(586), Aghjk(587), Aghjkl(588), Aghjklm(589), Aghjkln(590), Aghjklv(591), Aghjklx(592), Aghjklz(593), Aghjkm(594), Aghjkn(595), Aghjkv(596), Aghjkx(597), Aghjkz(598), Aghjl(599), Aghjlm(600), Aghjln(601), Aghjlv(602), Aghjlx(603), Aghjlz(604), Aghjm(605), Aghjn(606), Aghjv(607), Aghjx(608), Aghjz(609), Aghk(610), Aghkl(611), Aghklm(612), Aghkln(613), Aghklv(614), Aghklx(615), Aghklz(616), Aghkm(617), Aghkn(618), Aghkv(619), Aghkx(620), Aghkz(621), Aghl(622), Aghlm(623), Aghln(624), Aghlv(625), Aghlx(626), Aghlz(627), Aghm(628), Aghn(629), Aghv(630), Aghx(631), Aghz(632), Agj(633), Agjk(634), Agjkl(635), Agjklm(636), Agjkln(637), Agjklv(638), Agjklx(639), Agjklz(640), Agjkm(641), Agjkn(642), Agjkv(643), Agjkx(644), Agjkz(645), Agjl(646), Agjlm(647), Agjln(648), Agjlv(649), Agjlx(650), Agjlz(651), Agjm(652), Agjn(653), Agjv(654), Agjx(655), Agjz(656), Agk(657), Agkl(658), Agklm(659), Agkln(660), Agklv(661), Agklx(662), Agklz(663), Agkm(664), Agkn(665), Agkv(666), Agkx(667), Agkz(668), Agl(669), Aglm(670), Agln(671), Aglv(672), Aglx(673), Aglz(674). Agm(675), Agn(676), Agv(677), Agx(678), Agz(679), Ah(680), Ahj(681), Ahjk(682), Ahjkl(683), Ahjklm(684), Ahjkln(685), Ahjklv(686), Ahjklx(687), Ahjklz(688), Ahjkm(689), Ahjkn(690), Ahjkv(691), Ahjkx(692), Ahjkz(693), Ahjl(694), Ahjlm(695), Ahjln(696), Ahjlv(697), Ahjlx(698), Ahjlz(699), Ahjm(700), Ahjn(701), Ahjv(702), Ahjx(703), Ahjz(704), Ahk(705), Ahkl(706), Ahklm(707), Ahkln(708), Ahklv(709), Ahklx(710), Ahklz(711), Ahkm(712), Ahkn(713), Ahkv(714), Ahkx(715), Ahkz(716), Ahl(717), Ahlm(718), Ahln(719), Ahlv(720), Ahlx(721), Ahlz(722), Ahm(723), Ahn(724), Ahv(725), Ahx(726), Ahz(727). Aj(728), Ajk(729), Ajkl(730), Ajklm(731), Ajkln(732), Ajklv(733), Ajklx(734), Ajklz(735), Ajkm(736), Ajkn(737), Ajkv(738), Ajkx(739), Ajkz(740), Ajl(741), Ajlm(742), Ajln(743), Ajlv(744), Ajlx(745), Ajlz(746), Ajm(747), Ajn(748), Ajv(749), Ajx(750), Ajz(751), Ak(752), Akl(753), Aklm(754), Akln(755), Aklv(756), Aklx(757), Aklz(758), Akm(759), Akn(760), Akv(761), Akx(762), Akz(763), Al(764), Alm(765), Aln(766), Alv(767), Alx(768), Alz(769), Am(770), An(771), As(772), Asv(773), Asx(774), Asz(775). Av(776), Ax(777), Az(778). Ignore the random punctuation - it doesn't have any significance (don't let it spoil your enjoyment). 716

northanger: god & the devil are in the numbers nick. 777, hmm. Liber Qwyz? Quiz what? another type of nummificator? hey, do you know what the hieroglyphics on Liber 777 mean? (should i expect an answer...nope!) undercurrent: amphibiousness isn't just flapping pathetically on the water line - still less revelling in the fact yeah this is the problem with that particular frenchman now in the early stages of decomposition. Is there a 101 on tic notation here somewhere too? northanger: ticnic, i mean nick, do you have a delimited txt file of Liber Qwyz in 1777 order? be good to see this in single column, 7x111 array, and 21x37 array. also, letter count would be good so the entire series can be sorted by that number. 777 numbers in 7 x 111 array || difference between row values = 49 (or,colnum x colnum = 7 x 7 = 49) | difference between column values = rownum (111). 777 numbers in 21 x 37 array || difference between row values = 441 (or, colnum x colnum = 21 x 21 = 441) | difference between column values = rownum (37). BTW, first row 1 to 21 = 231. interesting: arrays maintain these row|col differences even if you change the starting number. me_i_a: alright, you've finally broken my brain. ...got to thinking though. have any of you considered keyboard shortcuts as a truncated form of sigilization? (too many comments to digest at once, sorry). in the use of audio software, particularly environments like max/msp, the ability to code certain sequences of qwerty utterances can control the generative outcomes of a bit of audio/video. start with a seed, talk to it a bit, germinate/generate. are we talking the new speak and spell here? Nick Land: Too plastered to respond to rash of interesting Q.s here until (my) morning 717

Undercurrent - yes, there's a Tic Xenotation intro. (on this blog) - this system is so utterly rigorous and uncommitted to weird shit of any kind that anyone with a genuine interest in number will get into it (Barker rigorized it while on a NASA project, before any evidence of pyschosis or occult interest) - it's just Euclid's Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic consistently notationalized - will give ref. tomorrow *Az(778) - trying to tell me something (which had kind of bubbled up from the past and been ignored) - as the D&Gons; say (from memory so might not be exactly right) 'subtract the unique from the multiplicity to be constituted' - single letters should be expunged from the dictionary, because they have not undergone any relevant selction process, and thus impose themselves as dogmatic presuppositions of the complete system - think all the ordinates should be n-1, with 'A' deducted (If anyone thinks this is blatant retro-engineering of preconceived qabbalistic outcomes, please say so (though unless your case is extraordinarily persuasive it will probably be overridden, since the procedural grounds for this revision are so strong IMHO)) PS. this problem (retro-engineering) is an intriguing qabbalistic topic in itself, usually encountered in cases where a definite numerical result is artificially built into a semiotic array constructively, rather than being discovered analytically (attesting to an unconscious synthetic 'producer' from outside deliberated human communication) of course in such cases nothing is 'discovered' at all, except perhaps constraints on lexotectonic artifice. How to differentiate the depravity of such 'synthetic qabbalism' from productive responses to qabbalistically-detected signal? Northanger: take 484 letter-pair array, create 22 x 22 decimal-array (numbers 1-22) http://www.cyberaxis.net/assets/imgs/northanger/220/484-array.gif since these are letter-pairs, add number-pairs together (FIRST ROW: 1+1, 1+2, 1+3 ... SECOND ROW 2+1, 2+2, 2+3 ...). [01] there is no number 1 [02] all numbers, starting from first row, first column (1 + 1 = 2) increase by ONE lr|t-b [03] number range in array is 2 to 44 (sequential) 718

[04] first number (1 +1 = 2) divided by last number (22 + 22 = 44) = 22 [05] values for each column + each row = 22 [06] column values = 275-297-319-341-363-385-407-429-451-473-495-517-539-561583-605-627-649-671-693-715-737 [07] row values = 275-297-319-341-363-385-407-429-451-473-495-517-539-561-583605-627-649-671-693-715-737 [08] note: these values increase by 22 [09] col + row values / 11 = 25-27-29-31-33-35-37-39-41-43-45-47-49-51-53-55-5759-61-63-65-67 [10] note: check 5, 9, 55 and other divisors for interesting patterns [11] left diagonal: 02-04-06-08-10-12-14-16-18-20-22-24-26-28-30-32-34-36-38-4042-44 [12] right diagonal: 23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-23-2323-23 [13] diag difference: 21-19-17-15-13-11-9-7-5-3-1-1-3-5-7-9-11-13-15-17-19-21 interesting: while this (1-22) array does not begin with one, it seems to express an abundance of the number 23 analysis74 of 484 letter-pairs using Kabbalistic Method of 231 gates creates a *pattern distinction* between masculine (odd) + feminine (even) numbers. above findings suggests something different going on underneath alphabets. doesn't badiou say numbers are more ontological than words? btw, nicholas, would never have looked at 484 letter pairs from decimal pov, Liber Qwyz proving to be quite revealing fallen in addicted afflicted assumptive dimensions ... forgot to mention: remove gentle LURGO from pandemonium in order to ... 74 http://www.livejournal.com/~northanger/2004/12/11/ 719

484 / 44 = 11 ni table eventually morphed into hypercube (let's subtract all numbers & make everything zero, shall we) --chaoslite theory : create from nothing. no top | no bottom; however, internally, row of zeros crossing rows of ... and dammit, now i can't find that excel spreadsheet! Nick Land: northanger - messing with Lurgo now! maybe you've got some advice on winding up Khattak too ;) - seriously, will take some time to check out your results (they're presented in a pretty dense format) "it seems to express an abundance of the number 23" - always decidedly ominous, of course Undercurrent - Tic Xenotation: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003538.html [or just search: Tic Xenotation - it's the only result for some reason] Also, begging you abjectly to change HEX key to AQ on the Gematrix, otherwise Vauung's going to end up killing northanger Me-i-a - "have any of you considered keyboard shortcuts as a truncated form of sigilization?" - this is wonderfully technosorcerously 'irreverant' - be interesting to hear a spelled-out version "are we talking the new speak and spell here?" - apologies for ignorance, but what's 'speak and spell'? Just to make sure everyone's on the same Alpha-Qwertian plam-leaf: Ab(0) - Az(777) If stubborn holdouts want to pass the obviously deeply corrupted version pasted here previously over to a deviant carrier, almost certainly triggering a qabbalo-sorcerous war, don't let last night's high-handed whisky-fueled fighting-talk - with its description of resistors "probably be[ing] overridden" - get in your way ... [A-Q] *Abm = 1 (Skynet?) northanger: maybe you've got some advice on winding up Khattak too ;) 720

yeah, he already wound up, but i can handle him like a T. pretty dense format i'm not the Dense One, nicholas. seems to express an abundance of the number 23" - always decidedly ominous, of course 23 thought of as *the strange attractor* [insert eerie music here please] in GON research Nick Land: Like the 777 arrays suggestions - I'm crap at diagrams but maybe i'll try to put Reza on it once we've got some clearer sense of 'content' (= what goes in the boxes, assuming that A-Q 'vocabulary has had quite enough exposure just recently) Undercurrent, despite technical genius, is also falling to something approaching my abject level on the diagrams front - from graphic design PoV, presentation of the new Dread mod-26 alphabetic qabbala was [interject epithet of choice] ... northanger: CLARIFY: Dread mod-26 alphabetic qabbala was [CTRL ALT DLT] ... you don't like this idea? Nick Land: "you don't like this idea?" - just commenting at the marketing level (lining-up the cipher etc.) Northanger: i realized something. you {1} use an indirect approach in your communication, {2} you seem to be a deconstructionist (ala, Derrida) i know little about 1 and 2, but i would like to have a direct inquiry with you about time travel, how it relates to qwernomics, and how it directly relates to my kabbalistic studies & discoveries how can we proceed with this? Nick Land: northanger {1} You saying we're Kierkegaardians? ;) (But maybe some strategic overlaps, via 'fictionalized' discursive relays) {2} Definitely not deconstructionists! (Sure Reza would confirm in most decisive terms.) 721

Deconstruction ('the fuzz') = flapping complacently on the shore-line forever. Programme for a self-perpetuating intellectual bureaucracy. Totally collapses in respect to number. As for time-travel - now we're getting somewhere ... [need some posts ASAP on this, think there's one coming from Reza any time now (so to speak)] northanger: {1} yeah, and you're making me just as schizzy as you are -- [i'm going to stop and go watch TV!] {2} Definitely not deconstructionists! :Oþ Deconstruction ('the fuzz') = flapping complacently on the shore-line forever. Programme for a selfperpetuating intellectual bureaucracy. Totally collapses in respect to number. got that As for time-travel - now we're getting somewhere ... [need some posts ASAP on this, think there's one coming from Reza any time now (so to speak)] ::tapping foot:: where is it? (funny -in gon2-speak-[funny works in aq2] how religion creates belief question: do you think DWTWSBTWOTL works like the numogram? Nick Land: "do you think DWTWSBTWOTL works like the numogram?" - need this questions massively unpacking, but sure it won't get lost in the Tohu Bohu As for Reza - he's back in his 'man of mystery' mode - hope to see him back here soon (he promised a post on the time-structure of Islamic apocalypticsm) northanger: nick, before The Qwertian Book of Numbers disappears into the abyss, can we get a link on the home page for easy access? Nick Land: northanger - going to post a complete and 'accurate' Liber Qwyz in the fullness of time (which is reducible by frequent hassling) northanger: don't want to rush you, but you should put a link to the 'accurate' Liber Qwyz on the home page. until then, we'll just continue to work with the 'inaccurate' version of Liber Qwyz 722

nicky - did you ever post Liber Qwyz part deux? Seasonal announcement Nick Land (December 25, 2004) HAPPY YULE (= 111 + 99 = 210 = COUNTDOWN) Comments: Seasonal announcements Nick Land: HAPPY = WOMAN, isn't that what Tiresias said? (Thought there was a 9:1 (decimal) ratio aspect to this, but maybe I've just read too many flaky French femininists) northanger: In AQ! (brilliant job nicholas, hope this is right) ( [IDEA = MAN = ADAM = 55] X 2 ) + 1 = [WOMEN=111=OUTSIDE] = ( 1[=BEING] + DECIMAL ) = 111 Nick Land: northanger - so what do you make of those +1s? Been thinking about your Pythagorean gendering of the natural numbers - 0 seems especially interesting: both 'even' by expectation (odd number (1) -1) but also neither odd nor even (not divisible by two or of the form 'even number + or -1') - something like the pre-gendered embryo (by default female), pre-sexual life-forms (bacteria, mitochondria), or even more cosmically abstracted 'things' ... northanger: northanger - so what do you make of those +1s? undercurrent may be heart of matter (quite the multitask master). undercurrent's Q on the baseline is making me read (cos i think it's base9) master crowley's 9th travelogue. but, clue to 111111111 series may ungrund in 10th travelogue. Been thinking about your Pythagorean gendering of the natural numbers - 0 seems especially interesting: both 'even' by expectation (odd number (1) -1) but also neither odd nor even (not divisible by two or of the form 'even number + or -1') 723

good observation. similarities (1 | -1) lead straight, um, to zero. kept muttering to self: why be this kept in closet so dam long? Zero is neither positive or negative (correct?). Create there best seems, as Master Yoda always told me. help me out with this Q: Liber AL I:25. Divide, add, multiply, and understand. [1] DIVIDE: any number / 0 = 0 [2] ADD: any number by its opposite = 0 [3] MULTIPLY: any number x 0 = 0 is this true? something like the pre-gendered embryo (by default female), pre-sexual life-forms (bacteria, mitochondria), or even more cosmically abstracted 'things' ... IUNKNOWN (-9) + ABSTRACTED THINGS (9) = 0 (and for some reason gon equivalence lists 0=ANNULUS) HAPPY = WOMAN, isn't that what Tiresias said? (Thought there was a 9:1 (decimal) ratio aspect to this, but maybe I've just read too many flaky French femininists) just call us gals FFF all you want to nicholas! but be nice, it's xmas today. yup, i see 9:1. 9:1 (decimal) ratio aspect i was going to say, i see 9:1 too, but that sounded weird. just checked, Asteroid #912 Maritima (Latin : maritime; of/near/by the sea; costal; relating/used to the sea; seafaring, naval) will check her position and post that up later undercurrent: check out my suggestion over at Dread - do away with numbers, use base-26. Nick Land: northanger "DIVIDE: any number / 0" = infinity 724

(Some ancient Indian mathematicians seem to have been committed to formula '0/0 = 0' but this is considered erroneous by (all?) contemporary mathematicians.) Is FFF a colour space [or are they 6 figures]? Undercurrent - heading there now northanger: infinity = qwerty so is it this? DIVIDE: any number / 0 = infinity ADD: any number by its opposite = 0 MULTIPLY: any number x 0 = 0 Is FFF a colour space [or are they 6 figures]? in CSS, FFF is shortcut for FFFFFF undercurrent: Pythagorean gendering another sideline from the brotherhood - ever looked into which words are excessive, perfect or defective? northhanger: another sideline from the brotherhood - ever looked into which words are excessive, perfect or defective? who me? yeah, garbage in / garbage out Nick Land: "ever looked into which words are excessive, perfect or defective?" moving into richer zones of analysis than sheer DR mulch-down (not to dis DR mulch down) northanger: argh DR MULCH DOWN = TRANSFINITE "ever looked into which words are excessive, perfect or defective?" 725

no, but you got me thinking. EXCESSIVE-PERFECT-DEFECTIVE is a 111 or 3 pattern. that's been coming up a lot lately. anything up with that? from nummificator angle could express different ciphers|words. or, how do you encrypt|decrypt? undercurrent: clarification: 'perfect' numbers=those numbers whose factors sum to themselves (ie 6=(1+2+3)) (triangular numbers) - you can work excessive and defective out for yourselves ;) northanger: clarification: 'perfect' numbers=those numbers whose factors sum to themselves (ie 6=(1+2+3)) (triangular numbers) - you can work excessive and defective out for yourselves ;) .?. o-o .O. oh Nick Land: northanger - Pythagoras certainly due for a Hyperstition re-run northanger: have to run undercover and get chow, brb where's uc, where's the nummy? Nick Land: where's uc, where's the nummy? think it's undergoing another upgrade undercurrent: it's back, no need to chew your arm off Nick Land: too late - but i've got a spare gwendolyn: hello, my name is gwendolyn and i'm addicted to the nummy thingy. i love its exquisite ability to make me laugh & see connections to things never realized before. must be as bad as television ... 726

GON1 82 = FICTIONS THAT MAKE THEMSELVES REAL = INFALLIBLE DOCTRINE {Nalvage on 48 Angelic Keys} 727

Holy War from the Other Side Nick Land (December 26, 2004) It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way ... War is the ultimate game … War is god... - Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (1985). [As an introduction to the controversial ‘metastrategic’ doctrines of Colonel Jackson ‘Hulugu’ West, to be discussed in follow-up posts, a rousing seasonal wake-up call is provided by some passages from West's nontechnical writings, selected from those originally found in his private journals and used at his 2003 court martial hearings (anonymously sourced to Hyperstition).] “Only the perfect conceptual identification of Allah with Jihad would suffice to place the enemy war effort on a competitive footing. A God that is other than the wars he inspires betrays his people to destruction in the burning pit. By supporting the global Islamic insurgency in this transition, precipitating the ultimate sense of its revelation, we can –in turn – ensure its assistance in respect to our own disabling inhibitions. Enemies train each other. They ‘synergize.’ Unless our foe becomes truly serious about pursuing victory in this conflict, total victory, victory at any cost and by any means, the Free World will not be able to fully exploit the singular opportunity it presents.’’ “Our understanding of ‘the laws of war’ will change. The War has its own laws – supreme laws. War is God, and religions are only wars conducted by other means.” 728

“‘The Axis of Escalation’ – the intensive gradient of the conflict – belongs to the War itself, rather than to either of the adversarial parties that participate in it. Through escalation in all its aspects, social, technological, logistical and ethical, we are assimilated to the War and its implacable truthfulness, drawn into its core, adapted to the rhythms of its smoke-shrouded heart.” “Deep Escalation requires of us that we cease trying to ‘get it over with’ – allowing it, instead, to get over us, to change us. Change us at the core. At its core.” “There was a ‘Kurtz’ - Coppola’s ‘Kurtz’ more than Conrad’s - I have spoken to him and he did not disappoint me. He understood that there is no judgement higher than the War, no tribunal higher than the battlefield, that the War is judgement and the end of judgement, our final destination, ‘the End of the River,’ where we must learn absolutely and unconditionally, or perish screaming in defeat. He had passed through the War, passed through it essentially, rather than being merely brushed or broken or swatted aside by it. This ‘Kurtz’ was the only true monster I have ever encountered, a wondrous thing. There was nothing broken about him, nothing seeking pity or even understanding, no resentment or regret. He was humorous, ironical, cultured – but he was no longer a man. The War had entirely re-forged his soul, tempering it, grinding it, hardening and sharpening it beyond cruelty and compassion, it was vast and alien and it would never leave the jungle. He had become what we might all have become, as warriors, as people, he was what Vietnam might have made of us, had it not been for a single, simple, despicable, absurd fact: he had fought in a war that we could afford to lose. If we were each entitled to a single prayer, this would be mine: Let us never again be insulted by such a war, by a war we are permitted to flee.” “They have called me a murderer, a facist criminal, a butcher, a psychotic, it means nothing. I have come to recognize the morally-vacuous babble of civilians, with their soft-hands and soft-souls, the senseless chatter of weak people, of lazy people and spiritual cowards, of people who have been lied to and of the professional liars who rule them, slaves to coventional ideas, slaves of every kind, even so called ‘soldiers’ who have no understanding of their calling, no hunger for the test of the battlefield. What are their words to me? But when they acuse me of ‘abusing’ the enemy – that demands a response, at least a question: Where did these ‘accusers’ attain the right to speak of ‘our’ enemy, an enemy they encounter only on TV shows and in the pages of glossy magazines? I say to them: You have never attained such a right. Such rights are earned in the vortex of combat, and only there. If you have never inhaled the fearstink of your enemy as he inhales yours, sought to take his life from him as he seeks 729

yours, pursued his ruin and pain as he seeks yours, then you know nothing about him. Of course, we must kill him, traumatize him, trick and deceive him, sometimes we must torture him or hurt him in other ways, ways incomprehensible to those who cannot – or will not – register and learn from the sovereign necessity of war. We must do all of these things, and more, and we will do them. We will do them out of respect. Because our enemies, the enemies who will come for us one day, they are not our victims but rather soldiers – warriors – and to treat them as pitiable children would be the ultimate ‘abuse.’” “We fail in our relationship to the War whenever we circumscribe its claims upon us. As soldiers, our highest principle of duty, obligation and honour is that which binds us to the War itself. Our calling presupposes an acknowledgement of harsh reality unknown to any other field of human endeavour. The sublime authority of the War, the priority of its imperatives, the sacrifice it redeems – all these are infinite. War is God, and only futile error stands against it.” “And the War spoke, in a thunderous voice, savagely edged with metal and flame: Thou shalt have no other God beside me.” “The time will come when we have no option but to envisage a war waged at the level of the absolute, a war about nothing but itself.” Comments: Holy War From the Other Side chicken little: nick, still sifting this. but, reading it makes me want to boil eggs & start a food fight. Nick Land: makes me want to boil eggs & start a food fight sounds terrifying northanger: reading this nicholas, i was reminded of the first time i killed a man. feeling testosterone rise ... seeing gray metal gun in hand ... tasting no-fear at the back of the throat ... hearing thunder crack & smelling acrid smoke ... fortunately, managed to hide the body in the trunk before my mom came out of the doctor's office and told me she had breast cancer. this rocks, blew me away. hey chick, got me some ammo: just made me an egg salad sandwich 730

Spengler: Excellent work guys. You may know me as Spengler, the columnist at Asia Times, I have followed your blog activities for a few months, keep up the good work. I have been interested in the Colonel West's case since 2003 the time that the court martial started to investigate criminal charges against West. It is rumored that the court's sole purpose was framing West not for his criminal assault charges against prisoners during the war but treason charges and his treachery towards the elite counterterrorist unit Delta Force, the treachery severely imperiled Delta Force operations and the life of delta troopers across the globe. Delta Force never reported any news about the treachery to avoid controversies and further dangers threatening the US national security as West possesses invaluable information about Delta Force activities since 1984 when Delta deployed in the middle east in response to the hijacking of a Kuwaiti Airlines airliner, during which two Americans were killed and the secret connections of Delta with the British SAS and other counterterrorist units. In short, West knows Delta's ins and outs. During the trial, Delta Force announced that some information from the personal archive and files belonging to the retired US colonel Jackson West has leaked out. A few days prior to this announcement, I came across an article at CNN featuring a few hurried but very interesting explanations revealed by West in regard to his relationships to a Delta Force strategic unit named P.A.T.R.I.O.T. active in highly covert and clandestine counterterrorist operations in the middle east (I had no chance to save the article but remember the West's last sentence, dunno it was a cryptonym or a real tactic used by PATRIOT, "Recycle, Then Kill; Kill, Then Recycle"). The same day that Delta reported the leak, I found that CNN article has been hurriedly removed; a very weird coincidence confirming that Delta has spread fake information (including West's diary, mission reports, contacts list, etc.) or made fake information accessible for hackers to confuse curious people, cover the real information or countermine and neutralize any possible information revealed by West. The link to that interview is still available (don't expect nothing but 404 ERROR, however) http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/19/sprj.irq.accused.officer.ap/ind ex.html Your post caught my attention, for the first time I read it in 2003 and this is exactly an excerpt from the files that Delta announced their illegal disclosure by asian hackers, they have been brilliantly counterfeited by Delta security experts to hide West's real diaries and missions' reports after they removed that valuable piece of Information at CNN which is in contrast with these notes attributed to colonel West. 731

After the Trial, West suddenly disappeared, I assume he has been wasted (he was a burnt agent after all) but one of my fellow journalists at IslamOnline noticed me that he has been seen for the last time in Marivan's mountains (Kurdistan, Iran) searching for a notorious Iranian oil smuggler, but there is no evidence confirming such news. ps. Don't forget that Colonel Charles Beckwith was a jury member in the court martial investigating the case. He was the creator of Delta Force, West's trainer and close friend. Nick Land: Spengler - hmmmm It is rumored that the court's sole purpose was framing West not for his criminal assault charges against prisoners during the war but treason charges and his treachery towards the elite counterterrorist unit Delta Force ... This casts interesting - if ambiguous - light on an otherwise cryptic remark appended to one of the investigative reports (also presented at the court martial, though without further comment): There are modalities of treachery which have nothing whatever to do with supporting the enemy. West's relations with Delta Force definitely go beyond the Beckwith link (as you're already suggesting). West seems to have presented a series of internal policy papers calling for an "institutional re-appraisal of the Delta command structure, with special reference to its capacity for autonomous action." Ccru informants also indicate that the Marivan sighting should be taken seriously, with some intelligence hinting that a rogue CIA unit has been dedicated to the area, either to 'conclude the West problem' or - perhaps implausibly [given the 'Cryptogliberal' culture currently predominant in the organization] - to support his activities there. And: The same day that Delta reported the leak, I found that CNN article has been hurriedly removed; a very weird coincidence confirming that Delta has spread fake information (including West's diary, mission reports, contacts list, etc.) or made fake information accessible for hackers to confuse curious people, cover the real information or countermine and neutralize any possible information revealed by West. 732

OK, know this construction has been floating around for a while, especially in East Asian intelligence spirals (I should have mentioned it), but it has also been suggested, more credibly IMHO, that this whole 'hoax' was designed to give West some cover while still getting his 'message' out. You seem to be inoring one telling quote from the CNN piece: "Let's face it, there are plenty of people in Delta who are behind Jackson and the vector he's putting together - plenty of people. He got right out of the box for us, and if we can help to cover his ass, we will ..." northanger: whoa, this is deep. checking out asteroid #912 maritima - her name [ASTEROID 912 MARITIMA] is on one of the two microchips on the stardust spacecraft supposed to (get this) collect interstellar space dust using aerogel (see: pazuzu link below). stardust considered very technologically advanced mission. is this on topic? stardust spacecraft deployed 07-Feb-99 ontop of delta ii rocket. maybe only seeing things? maritima is 249º from yildun. eon phase #25 (keynote: seeing the whole picture) on 27-Dec-04 @ 01:23UT - i'll post more on my journal later. http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/status/990207.html http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/microchip/names2m7.html http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003889.html http://www.khaldea.com/eon/eon25.shtml Nick Land: northanger - "i was reminded of the first time i killed a man ..." - kind of guessed you must have tapped-out at least a couple of guys by now (or why would you be here, right?) "is this on topic?" - ha! [but sounds interesting] Spengler: IMHO, that this whole 'hoax' was designed to give West some cover while still getting his 'message' out. You seem to be inoring one telling quote from the CNN piece. Maybe, and maybe not. I have already heard about this possible hoax. Let's face it, there are plenty of people in Delta who are behind Jackson and the vector he's putting together - plenty of people. He got right out of the box for us, and if we can help to cover his ass, we will ... 733

I don't remember if it was a part of that piece. There were many pieces about the court martial at CNN but only one article was taken away. I have seen this *friendly* quote a while ago. Yes, Delta released this noticeably hilarious punk-witted statement to cover the case of treachery and disconnection. "We are with him, he is still among us." During the past year Delta has tried its best to come up with tactical solutions and avoid jeopardizing the organization by covering the case, and distracting other organizations by insisting that West is still in Delta or has some more potent and clocked connections with the organization. My fellow journalist at Islamonline (now that you confirmed him too, he looks as a reliable source of information) once told me that Delta even welcomed the probe of the leak. He added their intention was to frame West by the court martial in the first place but things took a turn for the worse when they realized that a guerilla islamic unit known as Jama'ate Takfir looking for West as the most resourceful figure in Delta. They know that many underground military islamic units are after West and his information, so the wisest solution to overcome this mess is claiming that they support West and West is in contact with them though unconventional ways. Ccru informants also indicate that the Marivan sighting should be taken seriously, with some intelligence hinting that a rogue CIA unit has been dedicated to the area, either to 'conclude the West problem' or - perhaps implausibly [given the 'Cryptogliberal' culture currently predominant in the organization] - to support his activities there. A friend of mine dropped me a note yesterday confirming the presence of an access agent or some sort of brush contact deployed by CIA in Marivan, near the Karkhe river which is an accessible tunnel between Iran and Iraq, reed-beds along Kharkhe I suppose cover the movements of boats during night. What do you know about this or these CIA undercover officer(s) deployed near Karkhe in Marivan, as my other friend noted, and their relationships with West? Why Karkhe, it is carefully monitored by iran authorities? Iran government has warned about the recent foreign activities along the river in Kurdistan which was a seriously troublesome region during iraniraq war. northanger: kind of guessed you must have tapped-out at least a couple of guys by now (or why would you be here, right?) naw, just trash nummificators it appears. why am i here? ask myself that daily. thankfully, it's monday now & linear time looks kinda - relaxing. 734

but this post was really good w/ more info on captain west. i hesitated to mention this earlier: but wasn't west involved in time travel and that waver named drexiya? Nick Land: Maybe, and maybe not. I have already heard about this possible hoax agree jumping to conclusions would be incautious, to say the least They know that many underground military islamic units are after West and his information, so the wisest solution to overcome this mess is claiming that they [Delta] support West and West is in contact with them though unconventional ways. It gets quite tangled - these supposed 'contacts' between West and shadowy Islamic 'ultras' seemed to be a decisive aspect of the court martial, but - of course - everything rests on seemed. (Should note, some suspicious assassinations of Jihadi extremists in northwest Pakistan have been linked to the West case, but the information is still pretty fuzzy) What do you know about this or these CIA undercover officer(s) deployed near Karkhe in Marivan ... don't have much to add to this right now (hoping Reza's contacts might help out, but guess he'll have to be quite circumlocutory about the whole business ... As I'm sure you already know, West was quoted as saying "The Kurds are our Montagnards" by an Azerbaijani journalist - found it hard to track down this citation right now (hopefully dig it out over next few days) northanger - but wasn't west involved in time travel and that waver named drexiya? not sure about the Drexiya link without more research - assume it will be quite indirect - but West definitely had some distinctive 'theories' about time - patience ;) Slightly worried Reza will jump on the "The Kurds are our Montagnards" quote which could easily be unreliable - to add to his sense that West is locked into a 'Vietnam mindset'. There are plenty of reasons to be deeply concerned about West's cast of mind, but this really doesn't seem to be one of them IMHO. He understood that the Mesopotamian combat environment would lead to an unusual emphasis on urban combat long before this was widely recognized - certainly in the public/media domain - e.g.: 735

"Turning jungle into a desert takes work, air sorties, high explosive and Agent Orange – here we get it for free." - Colonel J. West, Tac/doc analysis paper 77542/03 Spengler: They know that many underground military islamic units are after West and his information, so the wisest solution to overcome this mess is claiming that they [Delta] support West and West is in contact with them though unconventional ways. Thanks for the correction! yes what I meant by 'they' was Delta Force; the claim that delta supports West and West is still an active Delta officer. Nick Land: Spengler - compared to noise, jargoplexy and disinformation we're used to here, you were as clear as a mountain stream ;) northanger: i was reminded of the first time i killed a man ... kind of guessed you must have tapped-out at least a couple of guys by now (or why would you be here, right?) nick, thought this out more clearly w/ sleep. "why would you be here" - why am i here? if magickal initiation is individual, group, national, global, etc. looking at hyperstition as magickal formula, then, how does hyperstition enable us to determine which "fictions" become real? how does individual deal with fiction=>real? or, subjective=>objective [=> means becoming-being real] tricky bizness spengler or nicholas, can you comment on something reza said here: “Grasping War as a Machine” "This is why Delta Force (the former secret military society of Col. West) had no success to NAMify the growing desert of Islamic Apocalypticism. This is not Vietnam, this is not jungle, desert is always ready to subvert all human thoughts, to suck warmachines dry. "The sado-conspiracy of desert is to let warchmines be easily camouflaged; that means it brings the ultimate nakedness to warmachines, brutally exposing all their properties, 736

trajectories and inner mechanisms, peeling off all camouflages from their quivering bodies. Desert does not camouflage warmachines; it camouflages War itself." Nick Land: northanger - how does hyperstition enable us to determine which "fictions" become real? think this is sheer experimentalism (which is probably something else on the other side). As a demonist sure you've had plenty of experience with the deep perversity, mockery and general abuse that the 'outer powers' seem to specialize in - I'm assuming that's why all sorcerous practitioners have prioritized banishment rituals (which I've always been particularly crap at). As Vysparov is once said to have advised: "First tip for occultists: expect to be screwed over, spat out, then stomped on repeatedly amid raucus celestial laughter - if you're lucky." On Reza quote - I think Reza's a bit too quick to judge West in this respect. It's true West refers to Vietnam a lot, but he's thought a lot about desert war - and more importantly, he's practiced it. As I tried to note in a previous comment - too cryptically no doubt - if the Jihad is so in love with the desert, how come its practitioners always end up hiding out in urban areas when it comes to a serious fight? Makes you think they'd maybe love a bit of jungle if it was available. (That's straight from West, by the way, I forget the exact source just now). Really looking forward to something from Reza on this, but it will probably be most interesting after it's been fed through his take on concrete Jihadi tactical doctrine, freed up a bit from sweeping abstractions. (Certainly going to need Reza to make sense of what the hell's going on near the Karkhe river - Iranian 'oil smugglers' and all). "tricky bizness" take II - leaving for a moment the soiled desert of the Smurfs, sure there must be a rigorous approach to these questions - evident to me that Hyperstition still in extremely germinal condition when it comes to systematization of methodology and expectations - much of the 'make themselves real' problematic extends to the outer boundaries of social reality, so a truly general 'hyperstitional theory' is way off on the horizon, but even broad principles are still in obvious need of shoring up. Your q.s intersect with (at least) issues of: 1) Practical principles of 'magic' in its most 'degraded' sense as hoaxing, illusionism, and technics of artificial 'reality effects.' 737

2) Political theories of consensus, community, cult-formation and collectively invested representations. 3) Practical disciplines feeding entertainment industries, advertizing, public relations and other 'manipulative' social technologies (I'm quite cool with these, if this sounds moralistic). 4) Metamathematical topics of axiomatics, formal systems and foundations of rigorously constructed (non-controversial) theories. That's to say (ask), is collective libidinal investment of particular hyperstitional lines ensured through trickery, social mobilization/ engineering, promotional technicity, theoretical implacability, all/some of these or something else (including strategies from the other side not adequately correlated to any of the above)? With the followup: what then converts mass-libidinization into pragmatic consistency and sheer survival? One more comment on this (for now): think no.4 the 'healthiest' to emphasize for a whole set of reasons - plenty of fun to be had in all the rest, but they play into the basest demonic impulses and can end up in really shitty micropolitics if people start getting too serious about it all. If hyperstition strays too far from being a microsocial machinery for engineering rigorous systems it risks becoming a sad kind of nightmare - no shortage of examples to be found to confirm this. northanger: nick, very helpful, still parsing. Desert/Jungle/Forest “Jungle/Desert Militarism” ok, what i got out of the last few days is hyperstitionally working out "saving the world". being here gave me an opportunity to (being quite silly!) do this. happy for the experience. now, playtime over, gotta go to work make money and get rent paid. hyperstition to me seems like a playground, a stim, a game to play (make sure you don't play too long and get addicted!). it has given me an openness i've never experienced before. but nothing i've experienced is "authoritative" -- have i (wondering out loud) understood hyperstitional strategies and tactics? hard to determine, in this unreal place, what i take with me. 738

Nick Land: northanger - Sure, make some money and get some sleep - hope we're going to see you around here every now and again - it's been fun Northanger: see you nick, thanks a lot Reza Negarestani: Hi everyone!! hope this post goes through without any problem (have emailed it to my friend so he can post it) ... will return to the blog in a few days ... everything is going fine here btw: Nick, On Reza quote - I think Reza's a bit too quick to judge West in this respect. A possible misunderstanding: I was talking about Delta Force not West. IMHO, this is another reason that West leaved Delta Force (he couldn’t overcome his monomaniac obsession with the desert) and was rather disappointed by Delta Force outmoded PoVs about the desert. Absolutely agreed with your suggestion about West and the desert. As I tried to note in a previous comment - too cryptically no doubt - if the Jihad is so in love with the desert, how come its practitioners always end up hiding out in urban areas when it comes to a serious fight? Take 1: “You haven’t tasted the jihads burning soap yet” (Anonymous source) Only through complicity / collusion with the crusading army along the Gog-Magog axis (expanding along strategic participation) the arid catastrophe of the Xerodrome (or your mecca-nomics) can initialize its universal process of desertification. If the pax islamica is so enthusiastic to drive the war to urban spaces, it is because they know that the US warmachines do not actually destroy cities locally, that is to say, merely wiping out a part of urban areas like conventional armies of a conventional enemy but they ‘overkill’ cities, their tactics and extra-terminating weaponries have been set to make desert out of cities75, eradicating all manifestations of idolatry (thus becoming one with their Wahhabi adversaries in leveling everything erected) ... it is the inexorable destiny of the US wargasmic technology that it cannot destroy, it has to desertificate whatever it touches, nuking buildings instead of impairing them with tanks or artilleries; it doesn’t leave any pathetic symbolical trace of War in the shape 75 don't forget that they feed on the black corpse of the 'Sun' (oil) whose capacity for destruction exceeds what is necessary. 739

of a ruined building, it disassembles every urban entity into its nano-rubbles, razing them to the omega-desert. The Jihad lures the US army to urban areas to turn cities into deserts, and this is the desert that is supposed to evaporate every trace of military survivalism, not the Jihad itself (the military survivalism that does not only run through the body of the crusading army but also its adversaries) this is the idea of total Ghiamat: connecting the monotheistic monopoly of the desert to the Tellurian Omega. The word Ghiamat -- as I will discuss later in the piece on ‘islamic chronopolytics’ -- does not mean Apocalypse (to reveal) but Insurgency (Ghiam) and it is directly connected to Sura Al-Takvir (overthrowing). Take 2. Nothing organic is empty of reactionary survivalist desire towards the ultimate desert (where the earth reaches immanence with the sun). In Ghiamat, even entities of the pax islamica should be incinerated by the omega-desert, the reactionary escapism merely complicates the panorama but doesn’t negate it. northanger: finally, hi reza! undercurrent: hi RZ ! Nick Land: Reza - expected your response would be fairly uncompromising, and guess what ... From "We destroyed it in order to save it" to "We defended it in order for it to be destroyed" northanger: From "We destroyed it in order to save it" to "We defended it in order for it to be destroyed" strategy: destroy or defend || to save or destroy this has something to do with line of flight and line of escape - does it? ("West suddenly disappeared" - what's he doing?) does the LINE define the tactic? Nick Land: northanger - response to your last salvo of questions will probably take some time to evolve, given complexity of the whole topic, e.g. "what's he doing?" exactly. 740

northanger: complexity, thy name is colonel west, total "zero-belief" topic - i know knick Nick Land: northanger - thanks, i've never had a Crowleyite name before northanger: northanger - thanks, i've never had a Crowleyite name before REMOVE RESTRICTION = KNICK (then you can "say" c-i-a-l-i-s on this server) gwendolyn: [COLONEL WEST - JOURNAL ENTRY :: 01.25.03] Saturday, January 25, 2003 • 3:38PAM • Sunrise - 6:53AM • Scorpio Moon • VOC: Moon 15Sc1 exits Via Combusta 5:42:30PM ..................................................................................................................................................... http://www.chemicalelements.com/groups/transition.html palladium, platinum, ruthenium, rhodium, iridium and osmium palladium (Pd), platinum (Pt), ruthenium (Ru), rhodium (Rh), iridium (Ir) and osmium (Os) palladium (Pd-46), platinum (Pt-78), rhodium (Rh-45), ruthenium (Ru-44), iridium (Ir-77) and osmium (Os-76) {saturn, jupiter, mars, venus, mercury, moon} Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, osmium 5 Ru Rh Pd 6 Os Ir Pt http://www.luminet.net/~wenonah/new/hudson.htm There is a group of elements found in the middle of the periodic table known as the "transition group elements": 1) One category of these is called the precious elements: 741

Silver, and the "light platinum group" ( palladium, rhodium, and ruthenium). These are called 3d transition group elements. Gold, and the "heavy platinum group" ( platinum, iridium, and osmium). These are called 4d transition, group elements. 2) Another category of these are the non precious elements: Copper, cobalt and nickel. These are called 2d transition group elements. Melting Point Boiling Point Symbol --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Palladium 1552.0 °C 2927.0 °C PD Rhodium 1966.0 °C 3727.0 °C RH Platinum 1772.0 °C 3827.0 °C PT Ruthenium 2250.0 °C 3900.0 °C RU Iridium 2410.0 °C 4527.0 °C Osmium IR 3045.0 °C 5027.0 °C OS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Palladium named after the asteroid Pallas discovered the same year. **Goddess Vesta was daughter of Cronos (Saturn) and Rhea (Earth) Homogeneous Catalyst Compounds http://www.amcpmc.com/homogeneous_compounds.html These precious metal compounds and salts are typically used as homogeneous catalysts. Homogeneous Catalyst http://www.webref.org/chemistry/chemistry.htm A catalyst that exists in the same phase (solid, liquid or gas) as the reactants. 742

SEE: Bose Einstein Condensate - www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/ Discovery Dates ----------------------------------------------------------------------------(1) Ceres 1801 01 01 Palermo Piazzi, G. (2) Pallas 1802 03 28 Bremen Olbers, H. W. (3) Juno 1804 09 01 Lilienthal Harding, K. (4) Vesta 1807 03 29 Bremen Olbers, H. W. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------http://sao-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/NumberedMPs00001.html http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/asteroids.html largest asteroid by far is 1 Ceres .... and contains about 25% of the mass of all the asteroids combined ... next largest are 2 Pallas, 4 Vesta. palladium Atomic Number: 46 Atomic Mass: 106.42 amu Melting Point: 1552.0 °C (1825.15 °K, 2825.6 °F) Boiling Point: 2927.0 °C (3200.15 °K, 5300.6 °F) Number of Protons/Electrons: 46 Number of Neutrons: 60 Classification: Transition Metal Crystal Structure: Cubic Density @ 293 K: 12.02 g/cm3 Color: white 743

Number of Energy Levels: 5 platinum Atomic Number: 78 Atomic Mass: 195.078 amu Melting Point: 1772.0 °C (2045.15 °K, 3221.6 °F) Boiling Point: 3827.0 °C (4100.15 °K, 6920.6 °F) Number of Protons/Electrons: 78 Number of Neutrons: 117 Classification: Transition Metal Crystal Structure: Cubic Density @ 293 K: 21.45 g/cm3 Color: silverish Number of Energy Levels: 6 rhodium Atomic Number: 45 Atomic Mass: 102.9055 amu Melting Point: 1966.0 °C (2239.15 °K, 3570.8 °F) Boiling Point: 3727.0 °C (4000.15 °K, 6740.6 °F) Number of Protons/Electrons: 45 Number of Neutrons: 58 Classification: Transition Metal Crystal Structure: Cubic Density @ 293 K: 12.41 g/cm3 744

Color: silverish Number of Energy Levels: 5 ruthenium Atomic Number: 44 Atomic Mass: 101.07 amu Melting Point: 2250.0 °C (2523.15 °K, 4082.0 °F) Boiling Point: 3900.0 °C (4173.15 °K, 7052.0 °F) Number of Protons/Electrons: 44 Number of Neutrons: 57 Classification: Transition Metal Crystal Structure: Hexagonal Density @ 293 K: 12.2 g/cm3 Color: silvery Number of Energy Levels: 5 iridium Atomic Number: 77 Atomic Mass: 192.217 amu Melting Point: 2410.0 °C (2683.15 °K, 4370.0 °F) Boiling Point: 4527.0 °C (4800.15 °K, 8180.6 °F) Number of Protons/Electrons: 77 Number of Neutrons: 115 Classification: Transition Metal Crystal Structure: Cubic 745

Density @ 293 K: 22.5 g/cm3 Color: white Number of Energy Levels: 6 osmium Atomic Number: 76 Atomic Mass: 190.23 amu Melting Point: 3045.0 °C (3318.15 °K, 5513.0 °F) Boiling Point: 5027.0 °C (5300.15 °K, 9080.6 °F) Number of Protons/Electrons: 76 Number of Neutrons: 114 Classification: Transition Metal Crystal Structure: Hexagonal Density @ 293 K: 22.4 g/cm3 Color: silvery Number of Energy Levels: 6 http://www.amcpmc.com/homogeneous_compounds.html Homogeneous Catalyst Compounds These precious metal compounds and salts are typically used as homogeneous catalysts. The active metal component includes palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium. http://www.webref.org/chemistry/chemistry.htm Homogeneous Catalyst: A catalyst that exists in the same phase (solid, liquid or gas) as the reactants. 746

Reactants: Substances consumed in a chemical reaction. How a homogeneous catalyst works - Homogenous Catalysis http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/content/5/chemistry/catalysis/catsch7pg1.html In homogeneous catalysis the reactants, products and catalyst are all in the same phase. Often the reactants, products and catalyst are all dissolved in the same solvent. Due to environmental considerations this solvent is often water. In these situations the catalyst may be a transition metal ion catalysing a redox reaction. ...............................A catalyst provides an alternative pathway - reducing the activation energy. Transition metals The transition metal ion catalyses the original reaction by providing an alternative route between reactants and products that has a lower activation enthalpy. It can do this because transition metals can form stable compounds in more than one oxidation state and the transition metal ions can therefore readily move between oxidation states. During the catalysed reaction the transition metal ion is oxidised by one reactant to a higher oxidation state. This is then reduced back to the original form by reaction with the other reactant. The reactants are therefore converted to the same products as are formed without the catalyst. The only difference is that the reactants are converted into products more quickly. reactant 1 + transition metal ion in low --------> product + transition metal ion in high .................................oxidation state..........................................................oxidation state reactant 2 + transition metal ion in high --------> product + transition metal ion in low .................................oxidation state..........................................................oxidation state http://www.chemicalelements.com/groups/transition.html The 38 elements in groups 3 through 12 of the periodic table are called "transition metals". As with all metals, the transition elements are both ductile and malleable, and conduct electricity and heat. The interesting thing about transition metals is that their valence electrons, or the electrons they use to combine with other elements, are 747

present in more than one shell. This is the reason why they often exhibit several common oxidation states. There are three noteworthy elements in the transition metals family. These elements are iron, cobalt, and nickel, and they are the only elements known to produce a magnetic field. http://www.luminet.net/~wenonah/hudson/ Crystal. — The "ideal crystal' is a homogeneous portion of crystalline matter, ( q.v. ) whether bounded by faces or not. Crystalline matter is matter that possesses a triperiodic structure on the atomic scale. It is characterized by discontinuous vectorial properties that give rise to "crystal planes" [ (1) crystal growth ( faces ); (2) cohesion ( cleavage planes ); (3) Twinning ( twin planes ); (4) gliding ( gliding planes ); (5) x-ray, electron, or neutron diffraction ( "reflecting" planes ); all of which are parallel to lattice planes. ] M-STATE ELEMENTS THEORIES http://www.lyghtforce.com/WhiteGold/ormus.htm [1] A monoatomic element has one atom per molecule; a diatomic element has two atoms per molecule. Certain elements in a monatomic or diatomic configuration can form a stable structure where all of their electrons are Cooper paired, and so are not available as valence electrons (more on this later). Elements in this configuration are superconductors at room temperature and exhibit other quantum physical behaviors at a visible scale. Some of these quantum physical behaviors include: • Anomalous responses to gravity • Superfluidity • "Tunneling" through solid objects • Deformed nuclei in a high-spin state One term for these materials is microclusters. Microclusters have been described as follows on a microcluster forum: "A microcluster is a small chemically inert cluster of atoms that has definite crystalline structure. They can be synthetic, however for this work an assumption is that the natural microclusters are forms comparable to the man-made microcluster. Microcluster research started with natural occurrences. Clusters exist as molecular 748

species which can substitute and mimic various elements for one another. Microclusters can be as large as 200 or more atoms. Certain atomic examples for each atom are rare; the rarity is due to current physical chemistry concepts. Research has demonstrated that natural micro-clusters are superconductors; they are Cheshire in that they can disappear and avoid chemical detection by conventional means. Most, if not all, have catalytic properties; they are magnetic or can be induced to have electromagnetic properties; and they can form giant inert ions which I call Mega-ions." [2] Physicists have recently created a new state of matter (which we believe is related to ORMUS) in the laboratory. This state of matter is called a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). They did it by cooling atoms to a much lower temperature than had been previously achieved. This temperature was a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Absolute zero is the temperature at which all atomic movement ceases. When atoms are cooled near absolute zero, they move much more slowly than when they are at normal temperatures. David Hudson postulates that his ORME atoms have a natural internal temperature which is very close to absolute zero. This may be why they can be Bose-Einstein condensates at room temperature and higher. A Bose-Einstein Condensate is a group of atoms which are all in the same quantum state. Such a group of atoms consequently behaves, in some ways, as a single atom. Superconductors are a form of BECs and so are superfluids. http://www36.pair.com/waldzell/Library/Inventory/Phys/Matter+Energy.html Solid matter is said to be crystalline when the constituent particles are organized in repeating, three-dimensional patterns. Solid matter that is not crystalline is said to be amorphous. The study of crystalline matter is the subject matter of crystallography. http://www.colorado.edu/NewsServices/nobel/background.html Cornell and Wieman likened a Bose-Einstein condensate to an ice crystal forming in cold water and said it has the same relation to ordinary matter as laser light has to light from a light bulb. The atoms within the condensate obey the laws of quantum physics and are as close to absolute zero -- minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 273.15 Celsius -- as the laws of physics allow. http://www.fcii.arizona.edu/poulton/nats101/CourseContent/Mineral/t2d4.html 749

Platinum : The platinum group elements PGE include platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium. Platinum and palladium are about as common as gold in terms of crustal abundance. Their main market is as a catalyst. Catalytic converters use 40% of platinum and palladium production and 85% of the rhodium production. They speed oxidation reactions that convert hydrocarbons to nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water. PGEs are also used in electronics (30%), oxygen sensors in cars, and dental appliances. PGEs come from very old deposits formed when iron-rich magmas cooled. Nearly all platinum production comes from South Africa, most palladium comes from Russia. pearl : 1. A smooth, lustrous, variously colored deposit, chiefly calcium carbonate, formed around a grain of sand or other foreign matter in the shells of certain mollusks and valued as a gem. 2. Mother-of-pearl; nacre. 3. One that is highly regarded for its beauty or value. 4. Printing A type size measuring approximately five points. 5. A yellowish white. ETYMOLOGY: Middle English perle, from Old French, from Latin *pernula, diminutive of perna, ham, seashell (from the shape of the shell). calcium carbonate : CaCO3, white chemical compound that is the most common nonsiliceous mineral. It occurs in two crystal forms: calcite, which is hexagonal, and aragonite, which is rhombohedral. Calcium carbonate is largely insoluble in water but is quite soluble in water containing dissolved carbon dioxide, combining with it to form the bicarbonate Ca(HCO3)2. Such reactions on limestone (which is mainly composed of calcite) account for the formation of stalactites and stalagmites in caves. Iceland spar is a pure form of calcium carbonate and exhibits birefringence, or double refraction. Geometry & Pyramid-Connections: http://www.wizardofeyez.com/nousmath.html The limestone (calcite, CaCO3) pyramids of Egypt, along with the Great Wall in China and the Pentagon building are the only man-made structures visible to the naked eye from space. Calcite, the second most abundant mineral on the face of the earth after quartz (which some believe to have been used as a capstone on the pyramids), has a hexagonal symmetry (with right and left-handed hemihedron, rhombohedron, or scalenohedron shapes) with angles of 74 degrees 55 minutes between faces. 750

Much of the limestone of the pyramids is composed of fossil shells and coral. We know that coral (largely composed of Calcium Carbonate or Calcite plus over 72 trace minerals) is associated with longevity when dissolved in drinking water. When the Guinness Book of World Records studied the oldest living man in 1979 in Tokunoshima, Japan, scientists identified the coral waters of the whole Okinawa Prefecture as the reason these islanders lived an average of 10 to 15 years longer than the rest of the Japanese population, when Japan itself already holds the record as the longest-lived nation in the world today. The effect of coral on water is alkalizing, antioxidant and provides trace minerals, which act as energy receivers and co-enzymes in the body. X-Ray Analysis and X-Ray Diffraction of Casing Stones from the Pryramids of Egypt, and the Limestone of the Associated Quarries by Joseph Davidovits - http://www.geopolymer.org/pub3.html The hypothesis that the limestone that constitutes the major pyramids of the Old Kingdom of Egypt is man-made stone ... quarry samples are pure limestone consisting of 96-99% Calcite, 0.5-2.5% Quartz, and very small amount of dolomite, gypsum and iron-alumino-silicate. On the other hand the Cheops and Teti casing stones are limestone consisting of: calcite 85-90% and a high amount of special minerals such as Opal CT, hydroxy-apatite, a silico-aluminate, which are not found in the quarries. The pyramid casing stones are light in density and contain numerous trapped air bubbles, unlike the quarry samples which are uniformly dense. If the casing stones were natural limestone, quarries different from those traditionally associated with the pyramid sites must be found, but where? X-Ray diffraction of a red casing stone coating is the first proof to demonstrate the fact that a complicated man-made geopolymeric system was produced in Egypt 4,700 years ago. DAWN: A PROPOSED DISCOVERY MISSION TO ORBIT VESTA AND CERES www.astropa.unipa.it/Asteroids2001/Abstracts/Posters/russell.doc Ceres and Vesta are two complementary terrestrial protoplanets (one apparently "wet" and one "dry") whose accretion was terminated by Jupiter's formation. Ceres appears to be little changed since it formed in the early solar system, while Vesta has experienced significant heating and differentiation. 751

UA Astronomer Is Scientist For Proposed 'Dawn' Discovery Mission http://uanews.opi.arizona.edu/cgibin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/wa/SRStoryDetails?ArticleID=2937 "Ceres is more than a quarter the diameter of the moon, is water-rich, and has retained its primitive composition and condition. Vesta, on the other hand, was dry, heated to the point of melting, and preserves a record of its subsequent differentiation." Actually, scientists already have pieces of one of the asteroids within reach - as meteorites that landed on Earth. VESTA METEORITES http://www.michaelbloodmeteorites.com/catalog.htm Camel Donga: (Eucrite). Most researchers agree the euchrites, aubrites & dioginites originate from the asteroid, Vesta ... Unlike other eucrites, Camel Donga is anomalous, in that it has a small quantity of iron, making it slightly responsive to a powerful magnet, such as an electo magnet or rare earth. http://www.eoascientific.com/prototype/newcampus/space/12/asteroid/asteroid6 .html The meteorite's chemical identity points to the asteroid Vesta because it has the same unique spectral signature of the mineral pyroxene. http://www.meteorlab.com/METEORLAB2001dev/glossary.htm EUCRITE - achondrite meteorite made primarily from basaltic plagioclase and pyroxene. FELDSPAR - A major rock building mineral containing silicates of aluminum. PLAGIOCLASE - feldspars consisting of mixtures of sodium and calcium aluminum silicates. PYROXENE - A major group of silicate minerals of which two end members are enstatite and ferrosilite. SILICATES - Any of a large group of minerals that contain silicon, oxygen and one or more metals. 752

"BLUE/RED" ORMUS FLOWERS Reach me a gentian, give me a torch! let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower DH Lawrence, Bavarian Gentians "Torch" and "nasturtium" share the same word root; nasturtium is a form of watercress--Hudson reported, "water cress has a lot in it" (Rhodium & Iridium). http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/kings/gentiana.html GENTIAN - characteristic constituents of gentian root: Gentiopikrin ... to which the root owes its bitterness; gentisin ... a yellow, tasteless substance, whose reactions with ferric chloride seem to have been mistaken for those of tannin (SEE: ST JOHN'S WORT) ... and gentianose ... a crystallizable, fermentable sugar ... Fusing with caustic potash splits gentisin into acetic acid, phloroglucin, and oxysalicylic acid (C9H6O4), an isomer of protocatechuic acid". ---The root of OSMIUM is "smell". http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/kings/hypericum.html Saint John's Wort - 1 gram sample has 6mg Rhodium and 3mg Iridium. "Hypericum contains a volatile oil, a resin, tannic acid and coloring matter ... The red coloring principle is a resinous body known as hypericum red ... Karl Dieterich ... macerated the flowers with 90 per cent alcohol, and obtained a tincture of a rich red color, containing a mixture of two coloring matters, a yellow principle soluble in petroleum ether, and a red coloring matter, insoluble in this solvent." HARMONIC CONCORDANCE - NOVEMBER 8th http://astrosite.com/__JM1.htm "The goddesses Venus, Vesta and Juno are conjunct in the truth seeking sign of Sagittarius while Venus is in partile parallel (read conjunct) to Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, fairly trumpeting the presence of the Goddess in this moment." NOTE: Venus and Vesta share the same degree 7 Sagittarius. Connection between Pythagorean Triangle and Sacred Sothic Triangle? http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/shewbread.htm 753

The Great Pyramid, The Golden Ratio and The Royal Cubit http://www.sover.net/~rc/deep_secrets/ See: Pi section http://www.artifice-design.co.uk/kheraha/k_frameset.html Hexagram Geometry http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~hexageo/index.html Sabian Symbols ----------------------------------------------------------------------------23Taurus23Rx - Ceres - Sickle/? A magnificent jewelry shop is revealed, containing every conceivable article of value of beauty. 29Virgo52Rx - Pallas - ?/Sulphur + 29Virgo1Rx - Vesta - Flame/Alembic? Pot? A scholar has just succeeded in deciphering an archaic manuscript; it holds for him an idea for which he has long sought. 2Aries21Rx - Juno - Flower/Sal Ammoniac? A comedian is entertaining a group of friends. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------* Current Astro Symbol / Alchemical Symbol VESTAL VIRGINS - salt cakes! http://17.1911encyclopedia.org/V/VE/VESTA.htm The Collegium Pontificum included four branches: the Pontifices, the Rex Sacrorum, the Flamines, and the Vestal Virgins. The Vestal Virgins lived at the Temple of Vesta in Rome. Vesta was the native Roman goddess of the hearth, and the Vestals' duties 754

reflect the centrality of hearth and home in Roman ideology. The six Virgins (earlier two, and then four [eventually seven]) tended the sacred fire, baked sacred SALT cakes called mola salsa, and oversaw the care of sacred objects in the Temple, including the Palladium. (pbs.org). ...founding of the Roman temple of Vesta [attributed] to Numa, who transferred the centre of the cult from Alba, together with the four vestal virgins .... guardians of the seven sacred objects on which the stability of the Roman power was supposed to depend: the chief of these was the Palladium, a rude archaic statue of Pallas, which was said to have been brought by Aeneas from the burning Troy. This sacred object was never shown to profane eyes, but it is represented on the reverse of a coin struck by Antoninus Pius in honour of his deified wife Faustina. Coin: Antoninus Pius Denarius / Vesta Vesta stg. l., holding simpulum and palladium (3rd down) http://www.ancientimports.com/romansilver/?page=6 MICROSOFT "PALLADIUM" OVERVIEW - August 2002 http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/jul02/0724palladiumwp.asp "Palladium" is the code name for an evolutionary set of features for the Microsoft Windows operating system. When combined with a new breed of hardware and applications, "Palladium" gives individuals and groups of users greater data security, personal privacy and system integrity. Microsoft Palladium: Safe or Security Flaw? http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,53805,00.html What's Palladium? Depending on who you ask, it's either a catalyst to turn silicon into gold for the PC industry, or it's the stuff the black helicopters are made of. Four turns to the power of eight, find the bridge that is the mate. Coffers full, resolved to time, trace the path of the Sacred Nine. As he grows in lavender mist, silver bears he to a tryst. Gold is broken upon his brow, as heather bows before the plow. 755

Lightening scores the ten to one, and with this stroke, a circle done. Follow close the path of Nine, seek ye there and ye shall find. Bring the One, the Lightning Born, to sacred ground beneath the horn; And here shall rise the dragon's hand, that none shall stay the Day of Man —Maia Christianne Nick Land: gwendolyn - periodic table ref's add new dimension - but this sure as hell ain't Colonel West (you could be consolidating a new carrier with this epic, rather than blurring-out one that already exists) - why not attribute it to Slobodan Milosovich, it would be about as convincing ;) Really - go positive on it: Who would be following this line? If this notebook didn't come from the 'mqb' it came from someone else with apparent interests in chemistry, astrology, ancient mythology ... and no discernible links to the military or the WoT. Don'tcha think? Hyperstitional procedure has to involve restraint, or everybody says everything and nobody says anything gwendolyn: Hyperstitional procedure has to involve restraint, or everybody says everything and nobody says anything time to scrape northy off the ceiling - can explain way better than moi Slobodan Milosovich actually N's muttering about "Streghe Liquore" [ witchy brew] - & italian warloke follow this line hell ain't Colonel West got a ton of CW's stuff, if you want it (except dirty bits since your server is so sniffy) it came from someone else with apparent interests in chemistry, astrology, ancient mythology 777-912 lightning-understanding Nick Land: "got a ton of CW's stuff" - is this meant to be stubborn ;} 756

northanger: got a ton of CW's stuff nope, gwendolyn's helping me sort all this stuff. D26 IF = got a ton of CW's stuff = WHITE ENOCHIAN SENIORS = DR (N) = CYALIS = GODEL = SEMEN FLOWING INTO THE WOMB cw's notes indicate that WES-names discovered during alchemical process. WES related to 6 platinum metals mapped to VIRGO-LIBRA (see file g sent) btw, TSUNAMI chart for Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia (155m/250km SSE) @ 5n34, 95e20. GON1 9 = 5n34, 95e20 GON1 128 = Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia = The Dwelling Place of Him that is Fallen {Enochian Key: 19} GON1 155 = Therefore was the end of it sorrow; yet in that sorrow a sixfold star of glory whereby they might see to return unto the stainless Abode; yea, unto the Stainless Abode. gwendolyn: the work n&i; do involves sorting through CW's massive notes and structuring them into a timing device (see file sent). recall "waver named drexiya"? drexiya is possible wave-jumper from the future. apparently, CW + drexiya met at some point. CW was locking in location|time for a specific event in which "something" would be embedded inside earth's core. it would involve time-travel using six-hex-elements as vehicle (massive exodus). idea: TIME (singular) & SPACE (multiplicity). "the time grid" utilizes GRIDDED, AEROSOLIZED TIME =(81)= WHOM VIRTUE HAS UNITED, DEATH SHALL NOT SEPARATE (8+1=9) [may point to "Death = Time = 83 = Prime 23 (23 = Prime 9)" + Taqieyah: (strategic dissimulation)]. reason why n&i; are interested in this area is that (1) recent 9.0 earthquake near Northern Sumatra may be THE EVENT; and (2) numogram possible candidate for insertion in earth's core. CW's recent-gone missing is certainly great timing. Nick Land: gwendolyn - if you can just let CW off the hook and let the 'buddy wuddy' take over we're going to be able to negotiate this just fine ... Any chance 'buddy wuddy' can express himself in less that 2.5 megs? 757

"apparently, CW + drexiya met at some point" - give it a rest gwendolyn !!?? ;} There have got to be some hyperstitionalist consultants out there who can glue your frankenstinian abomination together better than this - holy shit, what's this West thing you've got exactly? You're stalking the guy! gwendolyn: nick, no stalking...take a look at this There is another guy here who is writing this: he says that on August 12, 1943, in Cornwall, that Aliester Crowley performed a ritual with the intention of producing a line of 'rough water' from Cornwall to Montauk point. Also, in August 1943, the Navy went ahead with the Philadelphia Experiment. Then, on August 12, in 1983, the Montauk Project crashed after successfully manipulating time and space as well as mind behavior control. Then, on August 11, 1999, the last solar eclipse of the Millennium will take place, and that the path of this eclipse is the same as the path of rough water Crowley wanted to produce in 1943. Furthermore, the shadow of the eclipse will first touch land at Cornwall, UK at 11.11 a.m. On August 12, 1999, one day after the last solar eclipse of the Millennium, four major constellations will form a grand cross square in space - this must be where this woman gets this grand cross imprinting thing - with Earth as its center. Some folks are saying August 17th and 18th. The four constellations are Leo, Taurus, Scorpio and Aquarius. These same four figures make up the Sphinx and are directly out of the book of Revelations. On August 12, 1999, at the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Illuminati, a faction of the Freemasons, begin rituals in preparation for the return of Horus. In attendance will be some of the most significant leaders of the world. Also, on August 12, 1999, a comet only just discovered this past April - this is Comet Lee - will complete its trek from behind the Sun. This comet fits all the Nostradamus predictions for a disaster in 1999. Crowley was associated with Wilhelm Reich, this guy says, but I believe that is incorrect as far as I have been able to determine; just more rumor mongering - famous for his theory on Orgone energy. The military used him in their research on weather control; I believe that is also a spurious rumor because, if the government did ANYTHING regarding Wilhelm Reich, it was to silence and destroy him. Orgone energy was essential to sexual magick practices by Crowley and others who followed and worshipped the ancient gods. Sexual Orgone Energy was a primary factor in Montauk projects, this guy says, and the Illuminati are a faction of the Freemasons who want to usher in a New World Order because they believe they will inherit the earth and that they can accomplish this by arranging for the return of Horus. He further writes that: 758

"Crowley's wife, Rose, went into trance and delivered to her husband instructions from Horus on the ways and means of preparing for his return. All of this smacks of conspiracy. I am not a conspiracy believer, but I do believe that many influential people do believe in practicing rituals according to secrets that have been passed down through the ages. How could Crowley coincidentally perform a ritual that connects Montauk to Cornwall, which happens to be the site of ancient occultic practices, at the same time as the Philadelphia Experiment, simultaneously connecting all three via time and space as well as physically." Nick Land: gwendolyn - I'll study this carefully in the morning - your Col. West stalking has totally discombobulated my thought processes (see new post) - let's (this said in the most pathetic imploring tone imaginable) start a new carrier for this Astro-oceanic time-twisting ,} (note: eye carved out with a rusty vegetable knife) gwendolyn: nick "Hyperstitional Carriers III" post is great, very useful. i don't think many people understand that leadership is hard-core business. it gets you writhing in the mud sometimes. abundant discombobulated apologies! i think northanger and i are sorting things out (in the basement!) and things are coming together. hopefully, by then we'll both be over idea-itis vomitus. :P Nick Land: gwendolyn - is our server still managing the (sub)basement? - anyway, heading over there ... gwendolyn: ohno! :-O AQ 280 = CRYPTOGRAPHY = MYSTIFICATION = NUCLEAR WINTER = THE (SUB)BASEMENT Nick Land: gwendolyn - do you think 'THE' is cheating a bit? gwendolyn: (SUB)BASEMENT = NORTHANGER hahaha 759

What was West thinking? Nick Land (December 28, 2004) By all accounts the voice recorded here remains unidentified. Analysts give a better than 90% probability of it belonging to a white American male, age between 25-30. The speaker is most likely from a southern State, has some East European ancestry and a limited college education. The conversation seems to have been recorded straight onto DAT in late 2003 / early 2004. The interviewer’s comments and certain short sections were deliberately and professionally erased at source. (Warning: contains coarse language). “… West? Hulugu West? Sure I was with him, look, I’m not going to discuss operation [erased] … that was the deal right? You’re cool with that? OK then [laughter]. … said OK. Pour me another one … bit more, yeah, OK. He was up here in the mountains for maybe five, six months. Yeah, he was interested in discussing his ideas. Very interested I’d say. Things were pretty quiet at that point, he was writing, working things out, training the [erased] guys. We were all [unintelligible] … sorry, is that better? Yeah, we were all mostly waiting for the shit-storm, you know, he seemed hot to go, but also calm, calmer than anybody else excepting maybe some of the [badly erased: ‘Peshmergas’?]. The irregulars had brought a big marihuana thing in with them … ‘Hashishin spirit’ [laughter] … yeah, you get it, never saw Hulugu hitting the bong but most everybody else got drawn in to some extent. Atmosphere became kind of crazy, you know. Then every so often we’d have a target allotted, [unintelligible] the shit out of it … strict orders to avoid all that Apocalypse Now-style collecting ears and shit, but sure … no, sure … body parts … yeah, of course, it wasn’t really possible to control, you know … yeah, they called it ‘a flexible command structure’ [laughter] … exactly, but the job got done, you know … sure … no, our casualties weren’t high, think we lost maybe five, six guys the whole time, only two Americans … War crimes? Holy shit … no, I’m not getting into that. War’s a crime, right? Actually Hulugu had this thing he used to say, almost a mantra at times … How’d it go? Oh yeah: ‘War has its own law’ … Laws, yeah, ‘War has its own laws,’ that’s right … He used to say: ‘Do what the war asks and I’ll support you’ … Just a drop more … [unintelligible] … look I want to focus on his ideas, OK? … He held regular seminars on military history, military classics, guerrilla warfare, ‘small wars,’ that kind of thing … yeah, it was regular pointy-head stuff [laughter] … There was this Iranian chick used to participate 760

sometimes, called [erased] … never really knew who she was … no I don’t think so … How’s that relevant? [laughter] … [unintelligible] a little, sure, she raised weird questions about the whole … what do they call it? You know, ‘blood for oil’ thing … I don’t think so, it wasn’t really about ideology, not in any way I recognized … They’d get into these exchanges, really intense, and what with all the dope and, you know, general mind-warping a lot of the guys began to really feel … I don’t know how to put it exactly … affected … [unintelligible] our heads, we’d call it ‘going blobjective’ … [laughter, unintelligible, ‘hands of’?] a shrink … seemed like the point where they actually disagreed was, you know, so far up the fucking river, it began to really screw with our thought processes … it was this ‘blob’ stuff that really bent things in strange directions, it was like, you know, one was debating whether the fucking planetary petroleum reservoir was some kind of living organism … [unintelligible] really, it was bizarre, truly bizarre, we’d get into these minute discussions about some tactical issue from ‘Small Wars,’ whether it was still applicable or whatever, that kind of shit, but when those two got going on whether the motherfucking oil-fields had their own strategic agenda … no, that’s wrong, what exactly their agenda was, like, of course the oil supply was doing its own surreptitious thing - you know? - everyone would just, like, pretend they were following, maybe not exactly nodding … [laughter] no, yeah, exactly, it was like that, like we thought we’d spent too long on the bong and were going to say something really stupid and embarrassing … sure it’s hard to understand … the whole atmosphere was, like, screwed into spirals, people would just start fiddling with their baggies of dried ears, awkwardly, while Hulugu and [erased] would be pushing the discussion up that schizophrenic motherfucking river arguing about some technical detail, you know, about exactly what ‘the blob’ was up to – with all the parameters agreed … sure it was insane … yeah, I do need another one … thanks … but what was worse was it began, you know, seeping in … no, I’m not saying it made sense … [laughter] … of course, that would be disturbing … [laughter] … but you know, fuck, it was disturbing, it began to seem like people were gradually buying into this loopy shit, by osmosis or whatever, like some kind of horror movie … really [unintelligible] it’s true, I’d hear other guys coming out with stuff – deeply fucking whacked-out shit – stuff that only hung together if all this blob weirdness had been, you know, accepted, incorporated … it was … I don’t know, just gone … no one said anything about it, about the basic fucking fucked-upness of the whole fucking situation, they just kind of slid, slowly, but with a truly twisted one-way uninterrupted inevitability … you’d smoke to escape and it would just thread you back in, more intense and fucked-up than ever … I’m sure it’s hard to imagine … some guy’s helmet would suddenly be daubed: ‘Born for the blob,’ ‘Petrol patrol,’ ‘Oil wells that ends 761

well,’ some shit like that … you began to wonder, where the fuck is that guy’s head, you know? … What’s most horrifying to me now, looking back, is that we all got it, profoundly and intuitively got it, in that seven-days-in-a-week, earth’s-surface-ismostly-sea-water, we’re-all-descended-from-apes kind of way … it was just how things seemed, ‘sure, the blob’s running the war’ … I don’t expect you to understand that … [end recording]” Comments: What was West Thinking? Northanger:going blobjective? [sounds like something westie would say] ::making serious java (honest!), to read stream of consciousness:: gwendolyn: the problem with this broken exerpt is that it would be difficult to determine anything definitive about west's activities, purpose, or objectives. we have to look at it with the knife of hyperstition -- like occam's razor perhaps. if everyone seriously looked at the non-belief of hyperstition - an entire civilization could be brought to its knees. if all meaning collapsed about money, working, etc., ... gee, we'd go to hell in a handbasket. [continued in the basement] Nick Land: gwendolyn - not in the [sub]basement!! [You'd fit right into a horror movie this way - 'hey, let's go down into the nightmare-choked basement for no reason whatsoever'] gwendolyn: [COLONEL WEST - JOURNAL ENTRY :: 02.06.03] The Birth of Babalon (by John Whiteside Parsons, 1914-1952 e.v.) What is the tumult among the stars that have shone so still till now? What are the furrows of pain and wrath upon the immortal brow? Why is the face of God turned grey and his angels all grown white? What is the terrible ruby star 762

that burns down the crimson night? What is the beauty that flames so bright athwart the awful dawn? She has taken flesh, she is come to judge the thrones ye rule upon. Quail ye kings for an end is come in the birth of BABALON. * I have walked three dreadful nights away in halls beyond despair, I have given marrow and tears and sweat and blood to make her fair. I have lain my love and smashed my heart and filled her cup with blood, That blood might flow from the loins of woe to the cup of brotherhood. The cities reel in the shout of steel where the sword of war is drawn. Sing ye saints for the day is come in the birth of BABALON. * Now God has called for his judgement book and seen his name therein 763

And the grace of God and the guilt of God have spelt it out as sin His bloody priests have clutched his robes and stained his linen gown And his victims swarm from his broken hell to drag his kingdom down. O popes and kings and the little gods are sick and sad and wan To see the crimson star that bursts like blood upon the dawn While trumpets sound and stars rejoice at the birth of BABALON * BABALON is too beautiful for sight of mortal eyes She has hidden her loveliness away in lonely midnight skies, She has clothed her beauty in robes of sin and pledged her heart to swine And loving and giving all she has brewed for saints immortal wine. But now the darkness is riven through and the robes of sin are gone, 764

And naked she stands as a terrible blade and a flame and a splendid song Naked in radiant mortal flesh at the Birth of BABALON. * She is come new born as a mortal maid forgetting her high estate, She has opened her arms to pain and death and dared the doom of fate, And death and hell are at her back, but her eyes are bright with life, Her heart is high and her sword is strong to meet the deadly strife, Her voice is sure as the judgement trump to crack the house of wrong, Though walls are high and stone is hard and the rule of hell was long The gates shall fall and the irons break in the Birth of BABALON * Her mouth is red and her breasts are fair and her loins are full of fire, 765

And her lust is strong as a man is strong in the heat of her desire, And her whoredom is holy as virtue is foul beneath the holy sky And her kisses will wanton the world away in passion that shall not die. Ye shall laugh and love and follow her dance When the wrath of God is gone And dream no more of hell and hate in the Birth of BABALON 766

[COLONEL WEST - JOURNAL ENTRY :: 02.06.03] ut To Allen Bennett I Hail to the golden One Seen in the midmost Sun! Hail to the golden beard and golden lips, His whole life golden to the finger-tips! Hail to the golden hair in golden showers Hiding the eyes like blue blue lotus-flowers! His name is Ut, for He Hath risen above all things that be. II Ardent and white, the Lord Whirls forth a strident sword. Its blade is broader than the great World-Ash; Its edge is keener than the lightning-flash. Brighter than all the lights of heaven, it whirls Out in a chaos of creative curls And sheathes itself in Me, Arisen above all things that be. III 767

Even as the burning tongue Of God to God that clung Dissolved His being to a nameless naught, Brake all the wings and waves of time and thought, So in the quivering flame that hurled Its founts of life to the remotest world Supreme stood Death, and sware Destruction to all things that were! IV Child, father, warrior, I worshipped Thee before; Friend, bridegroom, now I yield me to the rod. My God, and very God of very God As breath, as death, as all, as naught, unknown, Known, is there not an end, when one alone Stand I, and thou, and He Arisen above all things that be? 768

[COLONEL WEST - JOURNAL ENTRY :: 02.17.03] So in the Four of Swords you have the Gates of Cancer and Capricorn where they originally stood and the new locations--Gemini and Sagittarius--by the Progression of the Equinoxes. Equinox of the Gods, indeed. Libra, I believe, points to the Via Combusta. I must point out another thing that I just recalled. I had several dreams which were quite disturbing on some levels. A report of a man going from a bus to a train. He gets up from his seat and collapses. His legs fall off. We discover that in the bus a percussive event occurred in which no one appeared outwardly injured. However, this was a delayed reaction. Then there are scences of a doctor dealing with this issue (I am invisible and observing events). Someone closes the door to shut out unwanted observers when a man comes in to be tested. White with red hair. Apparently, their is a -- penium, prenium, perinium ??? -- located at the top of the head that is opened by this percussive action. It is closed. Difficult to see so it must be done by a spec-i-a-l-i-s-t. This man has this operation done and I watch him "singing" - a woman in a robe comes over and kisses him on the forehead. Another scene: A spider. Somewhat large, black. I am disgusted and cover it with a white carton of dental floss. (like Johsons&Johnsons;). Later, I attempt to shake it out but it won't come out. I see just the legs. Awake, I consider the meaning. Legs. Chelae? Yes. This is related to the trio of Virgo-Libra-Scorpio. The swords are a sexual symbol. Sheathed they are passive, non-aggressive. Touching the rose in this way means that their power is sheathed and the intention is not to sheath themselves inside the rose. The Rose is not the sheath. I get the sense that ... what has to be "done" exactly? Destroying the rose? Looking at the Sigillum on my desktop my eyes were drawn to the points of the heptagon that pointed to letters (the top point is on the mid-point of W(Vav-Hook) and Tz(Tzaddi-Fish Hook)). The six letters: NYGTAH = 78 and I immediately recognized this as the number of cards on the Taro. Looking at 777 I saw that this was the Angel of Ra Hoor Khuit. I asked it to verify itself and from my small deck pulled the Knight of Swords. The Knight of Swords represents the fiery part of Air; he is the wind, the storm. He represents the violent power 769

of motion applied to an apparently manageable element ... It is the True Will exploding the mind spontaneously .... 32nd hexagram, Hang - perseverance in well-doing, or continuously acting out the law of one's being .... integer vitae scelerisque purus. http://www.dl.ket.org/latinlit/carmina/terminology/terminology.htm chiasmus- a crisscross arrangement of words. (see also hyperbaton) Example: Horace -Ode 1.22: Integer vitae scelerisque purus = adjective noun noun adjective hyerbaton- conscientious separation of words which would usually be together. This allows the poet to position words for emphasis and sound rather than grammar. Chiasmus, Golden Line make use of this technique. Example: Catullus, 14: totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum. ....for I will give you some perfume which the Venuses and Loves gave to my lady; and when you sniff its fragrance, you will pray the gods to make you, Fabullus, nothing but nose. Titus Andronicus - 'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus, Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.' "Integer vitae scelerisque purus non eget mauris iaculis neque arcu (An upright man, free of guilt, needs no weapon to defend himself)." --Horace, in the Odes http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/teachers/te-gdp6.htm Far better is it if the student is able to bring back by aspiration and inflexible will the true poise and the calm confidence 770

of invincible strength that are imperatively required. One thinks of Horace's words in one of his Odes (Bk. Third, III): Justum et tenacem propositi virum . . ., "an upright man, tenacious of his purpose" - one whose steady mind is shaken neither by the threats of tyrants, nor the thunderbolts of Jove, the clamor of mobs, nor the movements of the great sea in storm. None of these can shake him of steady and upright mind. [COLONEL WEST - JOURNAL ENTRY :: 02.17.03] Malkuth has concerns. Maintain determination. After considering NYGTAH as the Angel of Ra Hoor Khuit. {9:44PM} Got all these references and names and finally looked at 777 again. the Angel of Ra Hoor Khuit is AYVAS. NYGTAH + AYVAS = 156. {10:10pm} I just got this.... I assigned the Ace of Swords to BELA and NYGTAH selected the Knight of Swords for me to verify her. Her? NYGTAH Nun (N) Yod (Y) Gimel (G) Teth (T) Aleph (A) Heh (H) = 78 AYVAS Aleph (A) Yod (Y) Vau (V) Aleph (A) Samekh (S) = 78 THELEMA = 93 ABADDON Aleph (A) Beth (B) Daleth (D) Vau (V) Nun (N) = 63 93 + 73 = 156 I was wondering where 156 was coming from. Mem (M) Heh (H) Nun (N) Nun (N) Aleph (A) Samekh (S) Kaph (K) = 226 226 Profound, hidden; the North. TzPVN [Vide K.D. L.C.K. p. 666] CHAPTER XXXI:624. From the red go forth seven emissaries, who deflect towards the left side, and they flame with fire, which is toward the north side, and they are 771

combined, so that they may be expanded into the world for the purpose of uncovering the ways of sinners. 630. The first colour is red, hidden and inclosed within red; in comparison with it, all other reds do not seem to be (red). {GHA} CHAPTER XLII:1038. Because the Arcanum of the matter is hidden in the time of the disciples of wisdom, who know our Arcanum, from Sabbath unto Sabbath. CHAPTER XXVI. CONCERNING THE EDOMITE KINGS. 519. Which these words intimate, ibid. 32: "And there reigned in Edom Bela, the son of Beor." 520. "And there reigned in Edom." Here is a certain venerable Arcanum hidden; for herein is that place intimated wherein all the judgments are collected together, and whence they depend. 521. "Bela, the son of Beor." This is the tradition. This denoteth the most rigorous judicial decree, for whose cause there are collected together a thousand times a thousand authors of mourning and woe. 522. "And the name of his city is Dinhabah." What is DNHBH, Dinhabah? As if it were to be said, "Give forth judgment." Like as it is written, Prov. xxx. 15: "The horseleech hath two daughters, crying, 'Give, give.'" Random Notes on Liber Al, by Benjamin Rowe 4. Chapter 2, v. 49: "I am unique & conqueror. I am not of the slaves that perish. Be they damned & dead! Amen. (This is of the 4: there is a fifth who is invisible, & therein I am as a babe in an egg.)" "Unique & conqueror" = IChID + MNTzCh = 220 220 = BChIR, one of the Elect. (Also, the number of verses in Liber AL) Alternatively, adding the "and" = IChID V-MNTzCh = 226 226 = TzPVN, "hidden", an attribute of Hadit. 772

{GHA} CHAPTER XXXV:852. "The word AMTh, Emeth, Truth, therefore dependeth from the Ancient One; whence in this passage Moses saith not: 'And in truth.' MENNASK - 462 = Chief of All, Chief Adept, Stars, New Aeon, Red Circle, Red Lion, Elixir, HRILIU, Diabolos, Christ, Hexagram, Shemesh, Caduceus, Athanor, Alkahest, Animus, Swift, Matter, Power, Glory, At Rule, Despise, Runes, Jivanu, Varuna. • "Great Avenging Angel HUA" mentioned in Vault of the Adepti • This crossing of the Abyss was confirmed by Germer on March 10th 1955. "It was in this connection that S[chlag]. spoke of the Great Angel HUA and the Unicorn. I give S. credit for one thing: 'You will be told what to do' - from my own being at the time." (Jane Wolfe to Germer, 20.2.55). • Chapter of the Unity. 'Qol: Hua Allahu achad; Allahu assamad: lam yalid walam yulad; walam yakun lahu kufwan achad.' (Q'uran). • The Chapter of Unity [X] MECCA.-4 Verses. In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. SAY: He is God alone! God the eternal! He begets not, and He is not begotten; And there is none like unto Him. • "In witness of which I invoke the great Angel Hua to give me a proof of his existence.", Confessions, Chap 59, Crowley. • HRU, the Great Angel who art set over the operations of this Secret Wisdom (Vault of the Adepti). XX. The Aeon - Heru-ra-ha. A double god; his extraverted form is Ra-hoor-khuit; and his passive or introverted form Hoor-pa-kraat. (See above, the Formula of Tetragrammaton). He is also solar in character, and is therefore shown coming forth in golden light. The whole of this symbolism is thoroughly explained in the Book of the Law. It should, by the way, be noted that the name Heru is identical with Hru, who is the great Angel set over the Tarot. This new Tarot may therefore be regarded as a series of illustrations to the Book of the Law; the doctrine of that Book is everywhere implicit. (Book of Thoth, Crowley) Nick Land: gwendolyn - West had a mysterious qabbalistic buddy who sounded a lot like this - it was assumed he'd been killed during a covert op. in northern Syria, but that might be disinformation - thinking you might have got these guys a bit mixed up 773

PS. There's no reason to think West had any particular interest in Crowley or occultism gwendolyn: mysterious qabbalistic buddy heard the same thing, and did hear a lot of conflicting stories, impossible to sort it all out. There's no reason to think West had any particular interest in Crowley or occultism why not? may be the reason why west went underground disinformation don't know how important this is, but i've got a file with all this qabbalistic info in it, possibly created for west by mqb - ok to email it to you? [check celestial too] Nick Land: "why not?" - you mean, why not turn the only carrier who isn't a lunatic occultist into another lunatic occultist? (one who also sounds suspiciously like 'northanger', now sadly departed - perhaps for northern Syria) "possibly created for west by mqb" - phew! "- ok to email it to you?" - of course gwendolyn: now sadly departed --- aaaaaaaaaaah, how sweet [yelch] northanger outside in rain, hair in tatters, contemplating writhing in mud & howling with demons. acts like entire guts spilling out! geez louise. "- ok to email it to you?" - of course have huge todo list tonight, will send posthaste, unfortunately things may not render correctly if system fonts not loaded. will send posthaste let me know if you got it nick Nick Land: gwendolyn - yes, got 'it' (still downloading pix) - hmmm 774

Pix excellent but don't seem happy to be saved onto computer (take form of hotmail files demanding new login name???) - other 'thing' evidently magnificent but - as yet entirely incomprehensible (+2.5 MB) northanger: ah, does hotmail accept images? :scratching hed: uploaded pix to my server - check email other 'thing' evidently magnificent mysterious qabbalistic buddy wuddy thingy Nick Land: Northanger - any way to access this entity through your site? people 'ought' to see it northanger: any way to access this entity through your site? people 'ought' to see it hmmm? what "entity"? do you mean the 2-ton grid excel file? [if yes, that's what i've been trying to do - stuck] Tachi: Really not sure about the poetry and symbolism. Can we open the attic for this stuff? 775

Qabbala Unshelled Nick Land (December 28, 2004) [This provocative – in fact insolently aggressive and sarcastic – short text on the numogrammatic incoherence of the Hebrew Tree of Life, was written by ‘Frater V.’ (widely assumed to be P. Vyparov) and appeared as a letter in the short-lived journal ‘Occultism Today’ on 6th September 1956.] The Tree of Life is Essentially Qliphothic. Professor Echidna Stillwell’s (literally) path-breaking researches have opened the way to a rigorous Lemurian apprehension of the Hebrew Tree of Life as a degenerated hyperstitional structure. Her numogrammatic perspective decisively reveals that there are no immanent principles supporting the arrangement of the Tree, but only a dead tradition of acceptation, authority without demonstration, order without coherence or consequence. We only need to ask: Why does Kether, the first Sephira, occupy the crown of the Tree, unless by merit of a banal ordinal mechanism – no more than an instinctive reflex - binding primacy to supremacy and unity? Why does the zig-zag path of divine manifestation continue from Chokmah (2) to Binah (3) and then onwards in tedious ordinal conformity to the end of the series? Is the mere order of the decimal numerals already a map of creation? If so, why the contrivance of a two-dimensional arrangement at all? Why not simply say: the great hermetic truth of the scared ‘qabalah’ is the capability to count to ten and call it God’s work? And then why is Malkuth (10) entitled to sephirotic standing at all, unless as a proto-decimal atavism (attesting to an inability even to count to ten with understanding) whose numerical incoherence is available for subsequent exploitation as a ‘miraculous’ symbol of cyclic re-unification (an unwitting tautology gaudily clothed in the pretence of cosmic significance)? As to the patent absurdity of Da’ath (11), a ‘Sephira’ which would be simply laughable if not encrusted by bejewelled extravagances of magickal solemnity – at this point even elementary arithmetical competence has been sacrificed without reserve to the mysteries of inscrutable tradition. Imagining momentarily it were possible to sympathize with the servile consciousness of a ‘magickal adept’ prostrating himself before this concoction of sub-numerical nonsense, combining the calculative capabilites of a 13th century European peasant with the credulous enthusiasm of a masonic zealot, how are the ‘paths’ between the 776

Sephirot to be understood? Of course, there are 22 paths, for the overwhelmingly persuasive ‘reason’ that there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Let us also leave aside the fact that 22 is a number without any compelling numerical interest, except as a tautological reverberation of tradition (being the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet - and of course a doubling of Da’ath …), and merely ask: what principle organizes their distribution? Except, of course, that there is no such principle, but only tradition, blind authority and – concretely – a slithering downwards, vaguely echoing that so gloriously exhibited by the Sephirot themselves. Even that exultant obscurantist of occultic traditionalism Aleister Crowley is driven to admit: “With regard to the numbers 11 to 32 of the Key-Scale [the Hebrew letters], they are not numbers at all in our sense of the word. They have been arbitrarily assigned to the 22 paths by the compiler of the Sepher Yetzirah. There is not even any kind of harmony …” - as if arbitrariness was any kind of stranger in this domain. What a masterpiece of chaotic improvisation we are presented with: regions, paths, letters and numbers jumbled together discordantly, without anywhere betraying a hint of consistent articulation, procedural regularity or objective plausibility. One might as easily shuffle all these elements together on a whisky-soaked bar-table, entirely without systemic motivation or lucid intelligence, and then call the result a ‘qabalistic’ revelation. At least in this case some accidental order might arise to subvert the transcendent idiocy of the whole. The Tree of Life is to rigorous occultism what Ptolemaic astrology is to modern astronomy – a baroque relic of historical interest in the hands of scholars, but an indefensible embarassment when embraced by believers. Let all those who have serious work to do be done with it, lest the science of the Outer Spheres become universally derided as a joke. Comments: Qabbala Unshelled gwendolyn: nick, read once that if a child can understand it, then you're on to something .... God’s work: the great hermetic truth of the scared ‘qabalah’ is the capability to count to ten = provides one of the clearest, IMHO, definitions of the great work. the best instrument to deal with this work is occam's razor. Nick Land: gwendolyn - while you're getting all huggy with 'qabalistic' traditionalism i'm getting chewed up by Choronzon in the basement (surely the sub-basement by now) - can't even comment on the situation without some robotic nightmare 777

chopping me out - can't even describe what's happening without that getting blocked too!!! (kind of reminds me of your place) - figure it out - maybe us XY suckers are just produced as raw material for cosmic cruelty (but that would be paranoid, wouldn't it?) Not even allowed to mention the word, AQ values: 12, 18, 10, 21, 18, 28 Why the hell not? That unmentionable word used as the excuse for blocking my highly elaborate, nonabusive and in no obvious ways exceptionable comments on Choronzon Really, try converting it into alphanumerics and making a comment - what is going on here? It's got to be sacred - pushing it into the Gematrix now gwendolyn: Chonronzon [my name is legion!] gee knicky, if i'm paranoid that must mean i'm a thelemite :going to basement: Nick Land: Seriously, this is weird shit - the 'unmentionable word' in D26 = 2, 8, 0, 11, 8, 18 Try mentioning it - if you're not stomped, then i'll really get paranoid PS. Got stomped in the sub-basement before 'it' even mentioned 'the word' of course - as if i'd have even thought of it! (If Choronzon is running this site we really are screwed) gwendolyn: 12 = (1+2)=3 3 = ABYSS=WOMAN=111=OTHER Nick Land: Try it, i'm ****ing begging you gwendolyn - GoN1: 11, 5, 13, 2, 5, -5 Just try and say it, then tell me you're not paranoid 778

undercurrent: soC1AL1Sm? Nick Land: Undercurrent - you know, that's witty (if i wasn't in the burn-core of a paranoid psychosis i'd really be laughing) undercurrent: it's a well-known complaint amongst those wishing to converse freely online about soviet politics. A qabbalistically interesting factorial problem, no doubt. gwendolyn: you two....really! what are you getting so paranoid about? [between jehovah's witnesses just ringing my bell and you 2 a girl can go ... well, always thought laughter was the first and best response] undercurrent: not me, I'm trying to calm the patient ;) Nick Land: Hey, Choronzon, you win ***hole. undercurrent: having said that...why is it that comments sometimes appear immediately you submit them, but sometimes they take a few minutes - are the (AQ 12 18 10) checking them manually? gwendolyn: GoN1: 11, 5, 13, 2, 5, -5 LIGHTBULB 11=C|5=I|13=A|2=L|5=I|-5=S but, you can say 31 all you want to on this server and you can think whatever you want. GON1 31 = BLASPHEMY OF THOUGHT (Liber Arachnid) Nick Land: You two might as well put on your "I'll follow Choronzon into the burning pit and love it" badges right now Gwendolyn: LOL actually, i think crowley stretched the truth about C in V&V; #10 [drama queen] 779

Hyperstitional Carriers III Nick Land (December 30, 2004) The principal function of a hyperstitional carrier is to think what no natural ego can. They are units of artificial intelligence production, dedicated to the consistent pursuit of a cognitive trajectory that would be unsustainable under the sociobiological constraints of human psychic existence. This function is two-sided. It embeds a ‘philosophical’ condemnation of the human condition as a platform for rigorous intellection, acknowledging that ‘to be’ as concrete reality sabotages the ‘cogito.’ ‘I am, therefore thinking is denied.’ To assume otherwise is vainglorious pretence and tediously ego-coopted insanity. More positively, this function attests to the potentiality of rigorous collective procedures to overcome the compromises demanded of the concrete individual ego, enabling the release of a liberated synthetic cognition, outside real time, which can proceed on the basis of implacable indifference to all criteria of innate or social acceptability, tolerability or balance. While carriers may operate as ‘hoaxes,’ this dimension of their existence is strictly subordinate to their basic conceptual function. A carrier that successfully disguised itself as a ‘real human’ would be of interest only to confidence tricksters, since the best way of hiding itself in this way would be for it to think nothing of any interest whatsoever. The intrinsic destiny of hyperstition is to demonstrate that ‘human thinking’ is a fraud and a preposterous indulgence. Carriers are designed to pursue a line of thought further than is prudent, decent, or reasonable. They have no need to preserve themselves in the face of natural hazards, avoid unnecessary risks, reproduce, achieve acceptance within a community or prove themselves worthy of social recognition. They maximize the advantages of the robot and the psychopath in all these respects. A carrier thinks only for the sake of the thought itself, rather than for what its thinking will mean for its own interests. It has no interests, a fact that is the alpha and omega of its potential to be interesting. The singularity of a carrier is what it can ‘think,’ in the widest imaginable or even unimaginable sense of this word. The socio-semiotic technology of carriers is extremely delicate. What carriers carry is a line, a thread, that can be easily broken. It is of the utmost importance that carriers are not distracted or diverted from their defining pursuits, that they are not rushed 780

or over-stretched, burdened with extrinsic pre-occupations, recklessly hybridized or compromised. These are the ways in which carriers degenerate into mere fictions, sustained solely by a capacity to entertain. The existence of any carrier is annulled, reduced to fiction or fraudulence, if it cannot think further – more extremely or excessively - than any natural ego could think. Hyperstition is poly-focused and exuberant, or it is nothing. It is conveyed through carriers into a multitude of extravagances where human subjects could not venture without encountering death, mute insanity, annihilating social osctracism or the restraints of inhibiting ‘reason.’ To be a carrier is to be pushed beyond the limits of human possibility, to explore those regions where only an inorganic and artificial thinking is able to plot itself. Carriers know only what they need to know and no more. They are augmented by subtraction, their thinking liberated from the entropy of wisdom. They learn or remember only what they can use to go further, pursuing their relentless singular trajectories. Anything else, anything more, is encumbering freight, indulgence and mock humanity. Consolidating a carrier, therefore, is a matter of the most meticulous exactitude. Better to hesitate for a decade than to precipitously burden a carrier with five minutes of superfluous memory. Ask first where a carrier is heading next before provisioning it with a minimum of resources. At each stage of its journey, remove what it has not consumed. Keep your carriers hungry. Make them hunt for their own food. Sharpen them with deprivation, so their thought will cut like a knife. Comments: Hyperstitional Carriers northanger: http://www.emory.edu/ANATOMY/AnatomyManual/Etymology.html autonomic Gr. autos = "self", and nomos = "law". Hence that part of the nervous system which is self-controlled or autonomous. The Cervical Vertebræ http://www.bartleby.com/107/21.html 781

The second cervical vertebra (Fig. 87 and 88) is named the epistropheus or axis because it forms the pivot upon which the first vertebra, carrying the head, rotates. The most distinctive characteristic of this bone is the strong odontoid process which rises perpendicularly from the upper surface of the body. Jenni: The principal function of a hyperstitional carrier is to think what no natural ego can. They are units of artificial intelligence production, dedicated to the consistent pursuit of a cognitive trajectory that would be unsustainable under the socio-biological constraints of human psychic existence ... this function attests to the potentiality of rigorous collective procedures to overcome the compromises demanded of the concrete individual ego, enabling the release of a liberated synthetic cognition, outside real time, which can proceed on the basis of implacable indifference to all criteria of innate or social acceptability, tolerability or balance. Well, that all sounds jolly radical (in a kind of sci-fi novel blurb sort of way). Rather than asking you how you think you can overcome the sociobiological limits of the concrete human ego (which are what, by the way?) by hanging out in an internet chatroom, donning pseudonymous masks and playing-make believe (also the typical pastime of a huge percentage of today's teenagers, btw), why you seem to think that "collective procedures" are somehow irreconcilable with "concrete human egos", what you think is especially "rigorous" about the so-called "collective procedures" of Hyperstition (which to all appearances consists of a totally uncoordinated jumble of esoteric numerological exercises and random comments/commentaries on very loosely connected issues -- i.e. again, no different from a typical chat-room, except you seem to think that every comment posted is worth preserving and archiving), or pointing out the obvious fact that those responsible for this site have definitely NOT been proceeding "on the basis of implacable indifference to all criteria of innate or social acceptability, tolerability or balance" but have rather been consorial in the extreme (e.g. in recent weeks deleting all comments deemed 'potentially offensive' and betraying the basest of human all-too-human sensitivities when one such 'carrier' performatively challenged the internal coherence and feasibility of the Hyperstitional project) ... instead of getting into all that, I will limit myself to the following simple but pertinent question: If 'Hyperstition' indeed harbours this kind of radical potential for overcoming the socio-biological constraints which the "natural ego" (whatever *that* is) supposedly imposes upon cognitive experimentation and creativity, could you please point to just ONE example from your archives which attests to this potential (i.e. an example of thinking otherwise impossible/unsustainable by "the concrete individual" [which, of 782

course, has never produced anything in isolation or outside of "collectivites" anyhow])? After all, I could point to innumerable examples of "concrete human egos" (though, naturally, never in splendidly solipsistic isolation) who have radically extended the boundaries of cognitive possibility far beyond what their predecessors ever thought possible or could envisage, and I see no historical, neurobiological or other evidence to suggest that either “the socio-biological constraints of human psychic existence” (are these supposed to be *fixed*?) or the “natural ego” impose any insurmountable constraints (other than perhaps in the form of *conditions*) upon the parameters of cognitive experimentation or discursive possibility. In other words, if you are to convince anyone that what you are saying is anything more than a lot of empty rhetoric and hot air (which a certain proponent of so-called “Cold Rationalism” has conspicuously failed to do, and who in the interests of selfpreservation has recently resorted to the rather desperate expedient of closing down all comment boxes [the blog equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and shouting “Look, I’m right, and I you know I am, and I can’t hear you anyway … lalalalalalala …”]), the proof has to be in the pudding. After all, we could speculatively discuss the ‘in principle’ possibility and/or intelligibility of all the revolutionary claims made on behalf of Hyperstition until the cyber-carrier-cows come home, but really … no-one is going to believe any chef who keeps boasting that he has lots of great new recipes but who never actually gets down to any baking or a painter who keeps telling you that he’s found a way of radically transforming the very concept of a work of art but who can’t produce a single canvas. So, in short, please, SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO … or else stop blowing your own trumpet (never a pretty sight, I hope you’ll agree). northanger: nick simply, if we take HYPERSTITION and form an equation: HYPER means [over : above : beyond] + STIT [standing : stay : firm : fixed] + ION [action or condition]. HYPER is an IDEA beyond comprehension [[Love is the subtlest force in the world]] - STIT is the incomprehensible form it takes = ADAM [[The truth is that God is the force. He is the essence of life. He is pure and undefiled consciousness. He is eternal. The more efficient a force is the more silent and the more subtle it is]] - ION is the incomprehensible action that is taken by one MAN [[The force of nonviolence is infinitely more wonderful and subtle than the material force of nature, like electricity]] [[GHANDI]] The Cold Rationalist Kollektive: Jenni, 783

You’re obviously just saying all that because you’re a HBM (hot blooded male) and you believe in immaterial souls, because you’re unable to engage in rational discussion without resorting to the ad hominem and straw man fallacies, and aren’t consistent like me. Clearly you, like all other HBMs, are absolutely traumatised by the incontrovertible proof of the non-existence of the subject provided by k-punk’s recent paraphrasing of Beckett’s *The Unnameable* (“I must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on”) that you’re now trying to anaesthetize the unbearable pain by trotting out predictable automatized responses pre-programmed by the Great Kapitalist Machine. Put some ice on your balls and get rational if I were you. Nick Land: Jenni - this post is an attempt to move Hyperstitional activity in a certain direction, not to "blow trumpets" about what has already been achieved - [though actually such discoveries as the Numogram - worthy of considerable trumpet blowing IMHO but you are of course free to differ - would not have been possible without de-personalized carriers] TCRK - the generous coating of sarcasm on your comment makes it hard to get your sense, but if you are assimilating the issue of the subject here to that of CR, you are playing a little fast and loose - don't think you would find any 'ontological' assumptions here to object to, just preliminary procedures to create artificial cognitive situations Jenni (take 2) - the wounded tone you adopt (surely that of a CR burns victim) distracted me from your substantial posts, as did the attendant gestures which seem intended to inflict psychic pain (on the 'natural human egos' involved in germinal carrier production). Your substantive points merit a more extended response "that all sounds jolly radical (in a kind of sci-fi novel blurb sort of way)" - but actually it's a relatively modest proposition, is it not? Since people can be wounded, and forced into defensive psychological postures, while carriers cannot, artificial cognitive agencies have a margin of freedom to explore lines of thought which would be 'punished' if pursued in the name of a 'natural human ego.' (Do you deny the existence of a will-to-punish in your own remarks?) If this sounds like an SF blurb, so much the better (we don't have to impress any 'reasonable' interests or institutions here using 'reason' in a vulgar sense, not a philosophically elaborate one). "donning pseudonymous masks and playing-make believe" - this is exactly the conception of hyperstition the post was meant to call into question, one that has plunged our recent comments into schizi chaos (fun, but productively sub-optimal) 784

"what you think is especially 'rigorous' about the so-called 'collective procedures' of Hyperstition[?]" - this is the question being raised, with the aim of systematizing carrier production in such a way as to exploit its potentialities in a disciplined way. This will take time and - of course - might utterly fail. Hyperstition is an experimental undertaking. What might certainly be expected is that the explicit rather than merely implicit operation of collectivity, condensed through the emergence of an artificial person without social vulnerability, would attain rigour by dismantling psychology. "Hyperstition (which to all appearances consists of a totally uncoordinated jumble of esoteric numerological exercises and random comments/commentaries on very loosely connected issues" - Hyperstition is a virtual microsocial pragmatics which cannot simply be identified with what happens on this site. Hopefully, some of the things happening on this site will contribute to its emergence as a systematized social technology. "except you seem to think that every comment posted is worth preserving and archiving" - double-binding surely? Delete and its paranoid fascism, keep and its trumpet blowing. Seems we're going to basically keep everything - unless it leads into run-ins with political authorities in certain non-Western countries - but that doesn't mean we're endorsing any of it - 'we' clearly do not exist in anything like the sense that would suggest. "when one such 'carrier' performatively challenged the internal coherence and feasibility of the Hyperstitional project)" - puh-leeze "I see no historical, neurobiological or other evidence to suggest that either “the socio-biological constraints of human psychic existence” (are these supposed to be *fixed*?) or the “natural ego” impose any insurmountable constraints" - isn't Hyperstition saying exactly that such constraints are not insurmountable? Assuming here that you admit to some degree of bio-social 'molarization' that impedes thought (hence frequent incidence of insanity among those pushing the limits)? "if you are to convince anyone that what you are saying is anything more than a lot of empty rhetoric and hot air" - our priority IMHO should be so regularize and rigorize procedures among those most keenly involved rather than trying to preach to anyone. Personally my position is: If it ain't your brand of cola, just carry on up the aisle 785

"which a certain proponent of so-called 'Cold Rationalism' ..." - this site really isn't 'Cold Rationalism Watch' - know its hard to find a place to take CR-related complaints, but they won't lead to anything here "So, in short, please, SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO" - but this 'performatively' demonstrates everything - shouting, negative psychological engagement, ego manipulation, all predicated on the vulnerability of the 'natural human ego' (singular or collective) to contempt, ridicule and other related ego-challenges. The entire orientation of hyperstition is to escape from this type of tribunal - whose typical effect is dialectical molarization. We are under no obligation to impress you or justify our activities, and carriers will - of course - not even be able to make sense of such a possibility northanger: nick, this is a fine definition of hyperstition, IMHO. and i'm glad to have been part of it. {sorry i wrecked the sub-basement) Nick Land: northanger - did anyone accuse you of wrecking the subbasement? You made the goddam subbbasement. Only shame is the amount of stuff that will moulder down there without proper scrutiny (418 posts, good number to end on, but we need a professional archivist to deal with it). Admit to being in (amused) scold-mode on 'West Diaries' issue - always very aggravating to be on the receiving end of that i know - main thing though, I'm truly thankful to you for your role in forcing me to think through the issues in the post, they were a lot blurrier before. No hard feelings I hope, sure you realize you're an asset of inestimable value here. Don't entirely get ":o)" - is that the shrieking really pissed face? *} Jenni: Nick, I agree. Happy New Year. northanger: did anyone accuse you of wrecking the subbasement? no nicholas, thanks for letting me use it. 786

Only shame is the amount of stuff that will moulder down there without proper scrutiny what's in there is, hmm, about 0.00785% of the unending stream of data i've collected. for the first time, able to make sense of something. again, thanks. Admit to being in (amused) scold-mode on 'West Diaries' issue didn't take it personally, lol. was about to post scolding letter from leader of my order: Mizraim, Vangelo delle Streghe, The Order of Amaranthus. I'm truly thankful to you for your role in forcing me to think through the issues in the post, they were a lot blurrier before. strongly doubt a tecnosatanist like yourself ever gets blurry. but if you say so. No hard feelings I hope, sure you realize you're an asset of inestimable value here. reza, you, hyperstition, Le Numogrammé, bloot, and everyone else = ditto; this has been one of the most dangerous things i have ever done. my experience "verifies" what's said in this post (don't know if "verifies" is the right word). this is quite addictive! i feel i need to stop cold turkey and get back to mundane existence, which, due to my neglect is falling around my ears. i'm left with several questions though..... [1] what the fuck just happened? [2] who in hell are you guys? [3] why did i become so "addicted"? [4] (sorry for cursing, honest) Don't entirely get ":o)" - is that the shrieking really pissed face? *} please attribute schizy emoticon to extreme sleep deprivation. I'm truly thankful to you for your role in forcing me to think through the issues in the post, they were a lot blurrier before. "West Diaries"? strongly doubt a techno ... whatever. *I* was able to get clear on many things - the question i'm asking myself is - what's next? give up magic? what? 787

pulled two tarot cards after reaching #418 (it's very easy for me to talk to demons and angels, btw). asmodai pulled princess of wands and belial pulled the magus. apologies for being "omnivorous in passion ... entirely reckless in the means of obtaining gratification, and insatiable" spin: all any of us were trying to do was to stop the early stages of yet another form of totalitarianism, this time named 'cold rationalism' Nip it in the bud. No hot blooded man could let something like that roam about unchecked. OK, as he has admitted, he's a nutter, so no one should actually listen to him - but what about the ill read fools of dissensus and the like? We must protect them from these life denying protestants. Nick Land: Spin - OK (hmmm), but why here? Tachi: Nick: "Carriers are designed to pursue a line of thought ..." 01 - So you concede carriers are *designed*. But how and by whom? 02 - If I wanted to create a carrier what would the concrete steps be for me, and for others? I assume I would first have to identify the lines of thought the carrier would explore, since a carrier is *defined* by what it pursues. 03 - But isn't this to delimit the motivational energy of the line of pursuit? Isn't this to constrain the carrier's line of flight to pre-determination? 04 - How open is it for any real person to contribute to the ongoing creation of a single carrier? Can anyone just jump in and add to the line of pursuit? 05 - Doesn't this risk jeopardizing the consistency of the carrier and its line? I mean, the ongoing creation of a carrier and its line of pusuit involves an accumulation of character, history, and directionality - irreversible. I don't just mean the production of one carrier could be trolled - that too - but even with 'good intentions', things can go wrong and out of shape. Nick, you say this is an attempt to stimulate "preliminary procedures to create artificial cognitive situations" - this sounds right to me. But I don't think I have seen much, if at all, dedicated thinking from anyone on the site to truly contribute to this experiment. 788

06 - Not meaning to be down about the site, but what do you think the best achievement of the site has been to date? 07 - And what would the best achievment possibly resemble? If we get this right, we can guide our activities better perhaps. Nick: "'what you think is especially 'rigorous' about the so-called 'collective procedures' of Hyperstition[?]' - this is the question being raised, with the aim of systematizing carrier production in such a way as to exploit its potentialities in a disciplined way... What might certainly be expected is that the explicit rather than merely implicit operation of collectivity...would attain rigour by dismantling psychology." I think that we should eschew objections of paranoia and facism to the notion and action of becoming more systematic, selective and organized. All effective and efficient operations, for whatever purposes, involve at least a minimal level of principles, conditions and targets (happy to open up this for a productive discussion if people disagree - as long as it relates to making hyperstition more productive). And I agree totally that for Hyperstition to work we ought to dismantle ego-centricity and explore how best to stimulate collective, multiplicitous productivity 08 - But should hyperstition focus its energies on refuting, denying, challenging, destroying ego? Or putting ego to use for the emergence at another level or an entity of quite a different nature altogether? Best for 2005, Tachi Obviously some loaded questions there. But seriously concerned about this forum becoming a site of production rather than a place just for clever laughs. I am more of the persuasion of being ruthlessly selective and organized about the site, I do think there needs to be more guidance, however it is executed. Why are people so quick to accuse others of being facist and authoritarian if you want to take a more positive and proactive role in guiding production? I say to these people - provide an alternative. Nothing spontaneously emerges from chaos without some guiding principles. I am not scared of having a recipe or - dare I say the filthy word - a plan; as long as this is just a scaffold to start something off. 789

The other thing is that we must confuse Hyperstition the site with hyperstition. What we can achieve here is not to be confused with the sum of hyperstitional activity ... and more of the relation between the two should be explored in my opinion. 790

Reza: Tachi, since a carrier is *defined* by what it pursues. Not necessarily but mainly by the other carriers it criss-crosses, the population it traverses (epidemical dynamism of the carrier) and the way it ‘moves’ (attains a certain dynamism) in different zones ... blending what it carriers to its mode of dynamism engineered by the mutual communication between the carrier and the population it probes. A carrier is more diagramed by whereness (non-localizable ubiquity) than by quiddity, the quiddity of what it carries or where it goes. (more later ... I mean soon) Nick Land: Tachi - I'll process your remarks very carefully, so just some prelimiary remarks. Hyperstition is in part a social engineering practice, involving a range of messy and complicated issues - essentially about engendering a set of productively cooperative relationships. I have huge sympathy with your agenda, so the question is how to advance it without an excess of authoritarian techniques ('bossing people about') - how can we reach broad agreement between those most dedicated to conducting hyperstitional experimentation, providing a supportive context for the kind of disciplined experimental work you are looking for? Seems to me one great asset to be exploited is multiplicity, running a large number of simultaneous lines involving different criteria and protocols. If we can sift different modes of hyperstitional engagement into different 'queues' and pursue them all, it will avoid the necessity of having to lay down 'laws' in advance about what will/will not work (think I've already been guilty of transgressing this principle, but what the hell ...) It would be great if we could avoid the chaotic and disciplined trends from merely opposing each other - I see real potential in both. How then to sustain pools of procedurally rigorous construction amid an unconstrained influx of exuberant commentary? Hyperstition is experimental, so it is simply erroneous to imagine we have any of the answers in advance - we need some relatively tidy 'lab' spaces without retreating into command mode. Not easy, but if we all put our heads to it, probably feasible. undercurrent: IMHO (not meant as a criticism [u/c as guilty as anyone], just an empirical observation) retreat into methodological questions is always a symptom of inevitable periodic slowdowns in production. When it's happening, you don't worry 791

about how it's done and whether you could do it more efficiently (which is why philosophy is _always_ worrying about how it's done ;) the idea 'queuing' sounds nicely algorithmic, but think of all that horrible stuff backing up in the pipework : { Daisy Sturmtrupp: IMHO (not meant as a criticism [u/c as guilty as anyone], just an empirical observation) retreat into methodological questions is always a symptom of inevitable periodic slowdowns in production. When it's happening, you don't worry about how it's done and whether you could do it more efficiently ... Well, that's not exactly an "empirical observation" though is it? What, in fact *is* 'happening'? Is Hyperstition simply about 'efficient productivity'? But, then, production of *what*? In my humble opinion, this site is badly in need of something like an 'Introduction to Hyperstition' page to let people who may have accidentally stumbled across this site know exactly (or even: roughly) what 'hyperstition' is supposed to be and what the site is intended for. Otherwise, it seems pretty inevitable that people are going to be perplexed and are going to simply respond to whatever they see (‘comment’ boxes are so tempting …), because they are provided with no protocols or directions about what to expect or how to behave. Any person who stumbles across this site and scrolls down any of this month’s threads (I’m afraid I haven’t gone back through the archives to see what else may have taken place here) is going to automatically get the impression (apart from utter perplexity) that it’s some kind of deliberately cliquish cult in which only those who know the secret rules of the game can participate. It’s of course fine if that’s what you want it to be, but then why not just close up shop and play on your own (via email or some such)? The thing is, from what Nick is saying now, I think that this site could indeed become a very promising forum for various kinds of ‘cognitive experimentation’ (or whatever you want to call it) and attract a good number of very talented people to participate, but there’s nothing like a ‘statement of purpose’ on the site to give anyone any clues, so it’s no surprise it becomes a free-for-all food scrap (you must see that there’s a temptation for people to throw food at what appear to be weird folk who sit around playing esoteric number games, especially when they have a tendency to come across also as somewhat pompous intellectual types). Perhaps if you bother to direct people as to the site’s purpose (sorry if that sounds disagreeably ‘teleological’), those who 792

don’t like it will simply move on and those who are intrigued by the idea the idea may be able to contribute in a productive way? For example, this site has been used to promote a deliberately provocative series of polemical outbursts (I wouldn’t call it a ‘position’ exactly, since that would suggest a minimal degree of coherence) which calls itself ‘Cold Rationalism’, and it’s fairly obvious that a number of people have been directed to this site via the ‘K-Punk’ site. Thus, those who click on the links via said site and find lots of spiel about ‘Cold Rationalism’ are inevitably then going to assume that the site is yet another outlet for Mark K-Punk’s spleen (i.e. his consummate hatred of all earthly existence) and thus respond on this site also -- especially when all comment boxes on K-Punk have been closed down and yet he continues to assault people (now, he seems to be hoping, without any fear of reprisals). Thus, it’s no good telling people “look, this site has nothing to do with Cold Rationalism” (cf. Nick's above response to Spin: "why here?") because (1) this site has been used to promote the same and (2) it’s entirely unclear what this site *is* supposed to be for (i.e. to those who arrive here out of the blue and who don’t have the patience to go trolling [ooops, I mean, trecking] through the archives – and I’m not sure they’d be any the wiser then, either). Fairly obviously, if there are no clues as to what the rule are and it’s a ‘public’ site (i.e. no passwords required etc.), people are going to use it for whatever they like. After all, they can hardly be held guilty of breaking the rules when they have no idea what the rules are supposed to be in the first place (and the are no unambiguous signposts to direct them). So, how about some a kind of in(tro)ductory piece or mission statement (obviously you won’t call it *that*, but you get the idea)? Perhaps Nick, Reza, Tachi et al. can use Nick’s reflections here as a starting point and come up with something (even if, as would seem requisite, something tentative and open to revision)? Failing that, is there something extant to which you can direct the bewildered? undercurrent: I think this is the closest thing to what you're looking for : http://www.cold-me.net/polytics/index.html also, take some tranquilisers. northanger: "shleth hud dopesh"?! 793

Rather than acting as transcendental screens, blocking out contact between itself and the world, the fiction acts as a Chinese box a container for sorcerous interventions in the world. The frame is both used (for concealment) and broken (the fictions potentiate changes in reality).' well, i'm certainly experiencing a "[pre]-mystical consummation of uncertainty" right now. i don't know what happens next. certainly, things go back to normal and i'm a carrier of some sort? (actually, serious medication needs to be taken before things go back to normal). aware that breaking the seal is a tricky bizness on different levels (carrier & host). hyperstition is ... a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. which fits since the numogram has 3 levels. i read my journals now with greater clarity and awareness. it's ridiculous. it's very easy for me to talk to angels, demons, or any passing entity who has nothing better to do. it makes me quite uncomfortable, and for quite some time i've been aware of skating the edge of something. hyperstition seems to have kicked me over to the other side. risky bizness. (popcorn is where the inside of a kernel explodes and is now on the outside). i can decide from this moment to believe my personal "fiction" and take action - the seal can be broken on my own reality. it doesn't need to be discussed with anyone. since, "no-one is going to believe any chef who keeps boasting". there's nothing for me to prove or disprove. hyperstition allows me a framework in order to integrate with something larger than myself (HYPER), be convinced of that experience (STIT) and take the necessary action (strategy & tactics) as each new condition arises (ION). i'm a hyperstitional carrier. Tachi: Daisy ... I think this is actually a good idea, but details need to be thought through. More pertinent is the process of how this is done - what method to agree? It should allow feedback and change, whatever. And I think this is be done with an overhaul of the site's structure. Perhaps a space for theoretical discussion, a space for 'actual' hyperstitional lines, a space for hyperstition Q&A; (of course in process). If we say we can't decide on anything because its an experiment we won't start anything. We have to be bold and be responsive to change, but by being bold first, we can put our decks of cards on the tables and let something take shape. Northanger, what is this quasi-hippy-cum-cult-initiation experience you are having? U/C - not sure I agree that 'production' slows down when we reflect on the theoretical underpinning of hyperstition. This kind of reflection only slows down 'production' of 794

inane comments and chat in my opinion. Maybe we can slice off a different zone for so-called theory? Maybe its more like a reflection on strategy. A good question that hasn't been tackled head on is 'production of what?'. I agree with Nick that this is a worthy experiment in social engineering; to what extent do we think that this is the artificial manufacture of a social intelligence? northanger: quasi-hippy-cum-cult-initiation lol! iGnoRe m.e. +b\/t doN't mAKESTH me r3tUrN to sub.b.a.s.e.m.e.n.t. Nick Land: Lots of really helpful suggestions here - hoping that Undercurrent's point can be met by running a 'methodological' discussion side by side with whatever is already ongoing, even possible a little slowdown along some vectors could be productive in itself Don't know what to do about the Cold Rationalism issue - it would clear the air in some ways if we could host a discussion of it on one thread, but it would probably just degenerate into a food fight. Still, take Daisy's point on this ... needs some chewing over. On Tachi's points - also connected comments elsewhere - thinking Reza's processing of the recent West material a useful model. It shows how it's possible to isolate a production module even among a flowing Tohu Bohu of multidirectional commentary. Perhaps we could even innovate some simple tagging codes somewhere along the line, to mark out a comment as part of a (semi-)cohesive but dispersed virtual 'thread'. Anyway, I've given up thoughts of actually trying to impose some rigid segmentary order on the threads themselves - doomed to fail in a multitude of ways and generate unnecessary microsocial friction. Intro. to Hyperstition - agree we need this, with all properly appended caveats. Let's try to condense some pointers - it would be interesting to see how we all envisage the 'purpose' of the site. Tachi: Nick, Reza - Maybe we can make a start on identifying what work needs to be done. Let's not allocate responsibility, but see what comes, what sticks and what flows (no filth intended). IMHO, we need to think about site structure - zones of productivity; here's a first attempt: 795

1] Intro to Hyperstition, including: - What is (and what is not)'Hyperstition'? Principles and motivating factors behind the site. - Site Map - Centrality of the Numogram. - Kick ass diagrams and images. 2] Hyperstitional Lines - broken into identifiable / classifiable themes, topics? E.g: - The Numogram - Petropolitics - ... *Several important issues here: i. The function of comment boxes needs to be carefully examined since inputs ought to lend to Hyperstitional production in this zone; a control of irrelevant material important IMHO to ensure consistency, sustainability, scalability, and momentum. My suggestion - meta-narrative at least sidelined, reallocated. This is Hyperstition in action. ii. How to organise this space so that hyperstitional lines are distinguishable for optimal productivity - eliminating drag factor - but fluid enough to change and interrelate? 3. Meta(hyper)stition: Discussion of theoretical resources underpinning Hyperstition, including: - Numerization / Qabbala - Fact and Fiction - Subjectivity - Cold Rationalism - ... 796

* This IMHO is the area where differences of opinion can be thrashed out regarding the conceptual backdrop to the site, and arguments can rage re. CR etc. The key I think is to identify what work needs to be done. Then perhaps we can go about it collectively. PS If we can't work together to agree on some mode of action, then I don't see it very likely that Hyperstitional lines themselves will attract much collective input and sustainability. I personally think that more work needs to be done in the theoretical area; certainly there is a communications issue on the site regarding what is going on and what it is to participate. Maybe some rules of thumb should be made explicit to encourage the 'right' kind of contribution? Space management I think is crucial. And accumulation, syncretion, cannot happen if the core values of the site are not shared by all. northanger: Tachi maybe you need a "quasi-hippy-cum-cult-initiation" room for folks like me. AQ 210 = COUNTDOWN = INITIATION = NORTHANGER = HAPPY QABBALA = QWER-WOMAN :-) Nick Land: Sure we can work towards a formula that has room both for northangerstyle qabbalistic free-association and Tachi-style methodical progression (i find both really exciting dvelopments) - for one thing, patience folks! we've come a long way recently and the quality of input of all kinds is definitely on a massively encouraging curve - the very fact we're having this discussion now is a sign that the issues at stake are being taken seriously. Let's aim to have a solid agenda or series of mutually tolerant agendas firming up by the end of the month - if we can move towards building Tachi's 'intro to Hyperstition' resources that would be fantastic (agree strongly with all four objectives detailed here). 797

Think myself that Cold Rationalism - unless relativized by a carrier (which it isn't at the moment) - is a separate issue without obvious intrinsic link to hyperstition, but open to argument on this ... "And accumulation, syncretion, cannot happen if the core values of the site are not shared by all." - feel this slightly overstates the point - evidently strays are going to wander in and we can hardly demand they conform to any kind of agenda, think we can realize all the concrete objectives outlined in comments above while still tolerating free transit of random particles ... a secondary sedimentary mechanism (to repeat, note Reza's West recap post above) will allow re-grouping of productively associated components and sifting out of noise undercurrent: on the contrary, the best way to look at CR may be precisely as an exemplarily ailing hyperstition whose carrier has been 'blown' or wrongly configured. maybe best thing to do is to split as follows (a)something like hyperstition as-is (free discussion,experimentation and trolling) (b)a 'closed' site that drily and solemnly publishes 'finished' items in CNN-destined press release format. Otherwise it would seem obvious that the methodologial talk is bound to dilute the focus of the hyperstitional entities. (although nick's recent comments about creating entities 'in public' seems to go against this..?) Tachi: Nick - thanks for feedback and glad you sense positive changes afoot/at hand. I agree completely - lets aim for a more solid agenda, as you say, by the end of Jan. This 'agenda' is in my view simultaneously a proposed re-organisation of the site and a proposed dilineation of Hyperstition's activities (the two being totally interconnected). Northanger - we can accommodate your "quasi-hippy-cum-cult-initiation" needs for folks like you with a dedicated room for hypermysticism if you like ... open to your suggestions as to how best done. Would this, seriously though, amount to a zone dedicated to "qabbalistic free-association"? U/C - the split you envisage between: "(a)something like hyperstition as-is (free discussion,experimentation and trolling)" and "(b)a 'closed' site that drily and solemnly publishes 'finished' items in CNN-destined press release format" - is this the same thing as my proposed separated zones for "Hyperstitional Lines - broken into identifiable / classifiable themes, topics" and "Meta(hyper)stition: Discussion of theoretical resources underpinning Hyperstition"? - since I do see the value in having 798

a clean zone purely for Hyperstitional accumulation and production (perhaps password protected for inputs?) and a free zone for meta-discussion etc. If your distinction is different, interested how .. As for CR, I would actually be quite happy to see a designated zone for it in one of the discussion zones, or even not at all. Nick - maybe there is a way to structure the site - the Hyperstitional production zone, not the metastition / discussion zone perhaps - according to the structure of the Numogram? Not sure how, but it would be cool for topics/themes perhaps to subordinate themselves to aspects of the Numogram. Just a wild, off the cuff thought .. All my thinking here, by the way, assumes a certain level of technical feasibiity. Not sure if this will hamper efforts to re-think the project. Nick Land: Undercurrent - CR point a little obscure to me, but methodological suggestion important - my recommendation is multi-tracking (rather than trying to maintain a single 'standard' of carrier polishing) Tachi - some of your more ambitious site organization ideas will take a while to (collectively) think through / plan, but we've started. Notion of 'zones' needn't be particularly rigid IMHO, due to potential for virtual isolation / secondary sifting mentioned previously. From a practical PoV, unless we're going to start fencing various spaces off, we have to respond dynamically to 'chaotic contamination' (don't mean this disparagingly, but maybe you think I'm being too relaxed about it?), rather than actually trying to insulate ourselves from it. I'd favour relatively flexible, open-ended and robust methods that can co-exist with Tohu Bohu (plus lots of "Kick ass diagrams and images" of course ;)) Your "04" above: "How open is it for any real person to contribute to the ongoing creation of a single carrier? Can anyone just jump in and add to the line of pursuit?" strikes me as a very important Q. Previous carriers have been fabricated off-line, allowing for lots of discussion and revision, so it has to be essential that nothing gets 'set in stone' merely due to appearing in text on the site. Think there's also a case for germinal carriers to have a single 'trainer' with principal responsibility for their early development, but maybe such 'rules' can be tailored to specific instances. Patience is crucial IMHO. The provisional 'self-organized' response to this quandary has been 799

the tentataive discursive mode ('it seems', 'there are reports', 'according to certain rumours' ... etc) allowing for revisability and back-tracking. northanger: tachi Northanger - we can accommodate your "quasi-hippy-cum-cult-initiation" needs for folks like you with a dedicated room for hypermysticism if you like ... open to your suggestions as to how best done. Would this, seriously though, amount to a zone dedicated to "qabbalistic free-association"? hypermysticism ... ah, a title of nobility. qabbalistic free-association ... ah, the world wide web consortium. i would say yes. spin: why here? if someone is trying to gather vulnerable disciples around them and necessarily does not want anyone to pick holes in their discourse, then a serious critic seeks ways to get to them any which way. That said apologies for the intrusion, but thanks for your patience. Hyperstition in action! cockles: Perhaps the whole cold rationalism thing was just about what an annoying prick k punk is. It would probably have been better if someone had simply kicked his head in. blonk: well yeah! Tachi: It should be clear that Hyperstition is NOT about CR, is not a platform for Mark to sound off, but nor for his critics to slag him off. The more you make it a space to attack Mark the more YOU look like a bunch of pricks. This is Hyperstition, not Cold Rationalism, not anti-CR ... if Mark got people's back's up I am sure it wasn't intentional. Nick Land: Tachi - think you might find backing quietly out of this foodfight works quite well ;) To repeat the substance of Tachi's remarks however, given that CR seems to be a first-order ideological commitment held without a hint of irony or hyperstitional relativization, and also that it seems to have no 'methodological' or procedural implications for Hyperstition whatsoever, it seems entirely random to discuss it here - excepting of course for the 'biographical' accident that a former hyperstitional engineer of the first rank has metamorphosed into the terrestrial incarnation of the Cold Rationalist gnosis 800

Tachi: "Former hyperstitional engineer" - Mark's exit official then? Nick Land: Tachi - just meant that his contribution to hyperstition has been huge in the past, but haven't seen any evidence that he's still interested in it for a while now if I'm understanding Undercurrent's last comment on the subject, Bergman seems to have morphed/degenerated into an enraged and humourless social persona with ensuing microsocial calamity (of the kind we've been witnessing here). PS. Not trying to have a go at MKP - just disappointed that his talents now seem dedicated to pointlessly winding people up Bob: Not trying to have a go at MKP - just disappointed that his talents now seem dedicated to pointlessly winding people up Well, I shouldn't worry about that anyway nick - I'm pretty sure he won't take it *personally* (tee-hee, snigger, titter) if Mark got people's back's up I am sure it wasn't intentional Again, I think you're right Tachi - only *persons* have 'intentions' ... Designated Spokesperson for Cold Rationalism: There are no subjects, there is only subject-Matter. By now you really shouldn't expect anything more, but the robust intransigence of Human Security in the face of challenges from Cold Rationalism is astonishing. What Cold Rationalism provokes in the speaking animal is trauma, and the automatic response to trauma is shutdown, anaestheticization. 'This thing that is happening to me cannot be happening to me'. Hence the otherwise inexplicable outbursts of Hot Blooded Males (HBMs) when confronted with Cold Rationalism. You tend to think, 'My god, can't they read?' but then realise that what you are up against is - as, it seems, they will freely admit - not anything rational, but a programmed autonomic response from deep in the Mammalian defence strata. They might as well just bare their teeth. The great Cold Rationalist lesson is that everything in the so-called personal is in fact the product of impersonal processes of cause and effect which, in principle if not in fact, could be delineated very precisely. And this act of delineation, this stepping outside the character armour that we have confused with ourselves, is what freedom is. 801

Theism has retreated, not vanished. The conviction that there is a Factor X, some inexplicable, ineffable residue over and above genetics, neurology and social coding that makes you you - this is the 'soul supersition' that Nietzsche rightly exoriated. It is the belief that the human is ultimately explicable in biographical and personal terms which Cold Rationalism emphatically rejects, maintaining, rather, that the personal and the biographical are only explicable in machinic and impersonal terms. Wilfred Sellars76: At first sight there would seem to be only one way of recapturing the specifically human within the framework of the scientific image. The categories of the person might be reconstructed without loss in terms of the fundamental concepts of the scientific image in a way analogous to that in which the concepts of biochemistry are (in principle) reconstructed in terms of sub-atomic physics. To this suggestion there is, in the first place, the familiar objection that persons as responsible agents who make genuine choices between genuine alternatives, and who could on many occasions have done what in point of fact they did not do, simply can't be construed as physical systems (even broadly interpreted to include sensations and feelings) which evolve in accordance with laws of nature (statistical or non-statistical). Those who make the above move can be expected to reply (drawing on distinctions developed in section I) that the concepts in terms of which we think of a person's 'character', or the fact that 'he could have done otherwise', or that 'his actions are predictable' would appear in the reconstruction as extraordinarily complex defined concepts not to be confused with the concepts in terms of which we think of the 'nature' of NaCl, or the fact that 'system X would have failed to be in state S given the same initial conditions' or that 'it is predictable that system X will assume state S given these initial conditions'. And I think that a reply along these lines could be elaborated which would answer this objection to the proposed reconstruction of categories pertaining to persons. But even if the proposed reconstruction could meet what might be called the 'free will' objection, it fails decisively on another count. For it can, I believe, be conclusively shown that such a reconstruction is in principle impossible, the impossibility in question being a strictly logical one. (I shall not argue the point explicitly, but the following remarks contain the essential clues.) If so, that would seem to be the end of the matter. Must we not return to a choice between (a) a dualism in which men as 76 Putting aside the fact that Sellars died in 1989, one would presume that the real Wilfrid Sellars would be able to spell his first name correctly. The comment itself is a long quote taken from Sellars’ famous essay “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.” 802

scientific objects are contrasted with the 'minds' which are the source and principle of their existence as persons; (b) abandoning the reality of persons as well as manifest Physical objects in favour of the exclusive reality of scientific objects; (c) returning once and for all to the thesis of the merely 'calculational' or 'auxiliary' status of theoretical frameworks and to the affirmation of the primacy of the manifest image? Assuming, in accordance with the drift of the argument of this Chapter, that none of these alternatives is satisfactory, is there a way out? I believe there is, and that while a proper exposition and defence would require at least the space of this whole volume, the gist can be dated in short compass. To say that a certain person desired to do A, thought it his duty to do B but was forced to do C, is not to describe him as one might describe a scientific specimen. One does, indeed, describe him, but one does something more. And it is this something more which is the irreducible core of the framework of persons. In what does this something more consist? First, a relatively superficial point which will guide the way. To think of a featherless biped as a person is to think of it as a being with which one is bound up in a network of rights and duties. From this point of view, the irreducibility of the personal is the irreducibility of the 'ought' to the 'is'. But even more basic than this (though ultimately, as we shall see, the two points coincide), is the fact that to think of a featherless biped as a person is to construe its behaviour in terms of actual or potential membership in an embracing group each member of which thinks of itself as a member of the group. Let us call such a group a 'community'. Once the primitive tribe, it is currently (almost) the 'brotherhood' of man, and is potentially the 'republic' of rational beings (cf. Kant's 'Kingdom of Ends'). An individual may belong to many communities, some of which overlap, some of which are arranged like Chinese boxes. The most embracing community to which he belongs consists of those with whom he can enter into meaningful discourse. The scope of the embracing community is the scope of 'we' in its most embracing nonmetaphorical use. 'We', in this fundamental sense (in which it is equivalent to the French 'on' or English 'one') is no less basic than the other 'persons' in which verbs are conjugated. Thus, to recognize a featherless biped or dolphin or Martian as a person is to think of oneself and it as belonging to a community. Now, the fundamental principles of a community, which define what is 'correct' or 'incorrect', 'right' or 'wrong', 'done' or 'not done', are the most general common intentions of that community with respect to the behaviour of members of the group. It follows that to recognize a featherless biped or dolphin or Martian as a person 803

requires that one think thoughts of the form, 'We (one) shall do (or abstain from doing) actions of kind A in circumstances of kind C'. To think thoughts of this kind is not to classify or explain, but to rehearse an intentions.2 Thus the conceptual framework of persons is the framework in which we think of one another as sharing the community intentions which provide the ambience of principles and standards (above all, those which make meaningful discourse and rationality itself possible) within which we live our own individual lives. A person can almost be defined as a being that has intentions. Thus the conceptual framework of persons is not something that needs to be reconciled with the scientific image, but rather something to be joined to it. Thus, to complete the scientific image we need to enrich it not with more ways of saying what is the case, but with the language of community and individual intentions, so that by construing the actions we intend to do and the circumstances in which we intend to do them in scientific terms, we directly relate the world as conceived by scientific theory to our purposes, and make it our world and no longer an alien appendage to the world in which we do our living. We can, of course, as matters now stand, realize this direct incorporation of the scientific image into our way of life only in imagination. But to do so is, if only in imagination, to transcend the dualism of the manifest and scientific images of manof-the-world. Reza Negarestani: HBMs ... The great Cold Rationalist lesson is that everything in the so-called personal is in fact the product of impersonal processes of cause and effect which, in principle if not in fact, could be delineated very precisely. A deep cold LOL from the Tartarian depths Nick Land: DSCR - lost all ability to discriminate cruel parody from genuine declarations in this area, but whatever the case: Why should we care about these pompous sermons? ... although plenty of folks obviously do. Apologies for getting so tediously ratty about this whole question. Missing the old MKP I guess (probably the CR burns victim crowd don't even know what that was) And sorry Wilfred, but they should tab you up and market the result as an insomnia cure - or are you also part of some bizarre tactical impersonation scam? 804

Losing it entirely for a change ... Wilfred Sellars: And sorry Wilfred, but they should tab you up and market the result as an insomnia cure - or are you also part of some bizarre tactical impersonation scam? Yes, real philosophers, unfortuately for the MTV generation with its inability to follow a line of argument that is sustained over more than two sentences, don't do 'k-punk' style soundbites and are typically not much cop at bullshit rhetoric. Rather, they reason and argue and painstakingly think things through to their ends, whatever those ends may turn out to be. What they say they say not in order to produce an effect or to shock or to sound 'radical', but in order to get things right. How dull eh? How tiresome? Who would bother reading a book entitled 'Science, Perception and Reality' when they could read one called 'The Thirst for Annihilation'? Hmmm, I wonder from who Mark -K-Punk learnt to do philosophy (I use the word very loosely here) in such a pompous, pseudo-radical sermonizing and dogmatic way ...? “When I said that the individual as a conceptual thinker is essentially a member of a group, this does not mean of course, that the individual cannot exist apart from the group, for example as sole survivor of an atomic catastrophe, any more than the fact that chess is a game played by two people means that one can't play chess with oneself. A group isn't a group in the relevant sense unless it consists of a number of individuals each of which thinks of himself as 'I' in contrast to 'others'. Thus a group exists in the way in which members of the group represent themselves. Conceptual thinking is not by accident that which is "communicated" to others, any more than the decision to move a chess piece is by accident that which finds an expression in a move on a board between two people. Suppose we are watching the telegraphic report of a chess game in a foreign country. And suppose that we are sophisticated enough to know that chess pieces can be made of all shapes and sizes, that chess boards can be horizontal or vertical, indeed, distorted in all kinds of ways provided that they preserve certain topological features of the familiar board. Then it is clear that while we will think of the players in the foreign country as moving kings, pawns, etc., castling and check-mating, our concepts of the pieces they are moving and the moving of them will be simply the concept of items and changes which play a role analogous to the pieces and moves which take place when "we" play chess. 805

Why do we feel that there would be something extremely odd, even absurd, about such a supposition?”77 Nick Land: Wilfred - google says you died in 1989. ... two years before me. Snarky biographizing reminds me strongly of our most obnoxious troll to date. Mention of CR draws them out like blow-flied to a rotting corpse. ... flies even ... Kodwo Eshun78: Snarky biographizing One of the key elements I took from Deleuze and Guattari’s "Mille Plateaux" was that philosophy should be reconstituted as concept manufacture. Philosophy Heidegger, Hegel, Merleau Ponty, Lacan - always gave me a headache because it was imponderable. Content manufacture made it more like being an electrician of thinking, trying to find circuit diagrams of the present. D&G; were so brilliant when they said: we can’t help it if Proust tells us as much how space time works as Einstein does. We can’t help it if Henry Miller tell us as much about desire works as Freud does. The theory fiction border is utterly permutable. These ideas came to me in 1994-96, when I met Nick Land, Sadie Plant, and her PhD students Mark Fisher, Steve Goodman, Suzanne Livingston at Warwick’s Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. We were all working on the same thing, the permeable membrane between certain concepts, embedded in science fiction ... the drive towards the utopian and the alien. Nick Land: Is this all going to try and pass itself off as yet another wonderfully intricate 'performative demonstration' of the limits of hyperstition by next week? If so, can we get the yawning out of the way now? 77 Again, taken from Sellars’ EPM essay. 78 Another troll (or more likely the same troll). This comment is taken from an interview with Eshun. https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Everything-was-to-be-done-All-the-adventures-are-still-there3447386.html 806

What is this obsession with turning everything into turgid microhistory lessons? - It's a drive made especially pathetic by its one-sided perpetration through unimaginative and vindicative masks. My guess is its a kind of foot-tapping tic while waiting (I'm afraid almost certainly vainly) for an opportunity to start yapping at a defender of Cold Rationalism again. They're not exactly thick on the ground here these days, although if anything were capable of triggering a resurgence of snarling CR fanaticism it would be these examples of flabby cowardice and twisted personological fixation. northanger: geez nicky, what is wifu2day? Tachi: There are no subjects, there is only subject-Matter. Firstly, sorry, somewhat self-indulgently I have to concede being extremely wound up by this equally self-indulgent intellectual fluff about subjectivity. It makes me want to reassert my individual, no, particularly human character, just to spite. Yes, I eat, drink, piss, shit, fuck, sleep, cry, laugh, aspire to 'moral' behaviour, fail in my endeavours, succeed, and self-indulge; I speculate, plan, judge, assume, assert, theorise, act of of character, and deny ... By intellectualising about these traits (no, not saying they are innate) and denying 'the' human subject, as if that was the really interesting issue of our day, you are so more the human you deny that it is laughable. The so-called rational aspect of CR is so exactly what it attempts to refute - theory is so particularly human. Don't say 'but machines can theorise' since saying this is human doesnt amount to saying its exclusively human. To do so would be asserting nothing interesting. After all it is flows that matter, and matter that flows. 'Subject-matter'? Cool soundbite but what does it amount to? You conclude just where the interesting and difficult questions begin. Where is the positive programme? This is the problem with most fucking philosphy is that it involves people, yes people, creating something that is suitable for them to tear apart. Especially CR. And what is more destructive than humanity? Before you jump down my dry throat, I am not saying that humanity is the last point of reference for destructivity, but just because life is machinic, it does not therefore mean that human life has no particularly destructive character. 807

Look for transcendence and you will find something to slag off. CRists = inverted transcendence junkies. Again - where is the creative aspect of CR? So humanly denying humanity, and so teenage-goth passe. Secondly, this Wilfred, who just want to fight MKP and say nothing constructive why not just have a proper scrap? I mean fix a time and a place. We can all watch. What rules do you want - what criteria for a victory? Or just a full on NHB (no holds barred)? Just preferably somewhere other than Hyperstition, puh-lease. Reza, Nick, sorry, not very good at anger management sometimes. Just my *person*ality. Don't mean to conclude sweepingly about human nature by using this figure of speech though. Nick Land: Tachi - i'm not exactly in a position to get all superior on that front right now ;) (in northanger's succinct 'word' "wifu2day" - nothing like a grave robbing obnoxioustroll-to-date to pointlessly exercise a random bad mood on) On a more constructive note - think the early parts of this thread very productive. Following your recommendations, aiming to launch a relatively open-ended 'method issues' thread within a couple of days to provide a space for the next stage of the discussion. Tachi: Nick - think its important for relevant questions to shadow us as we trail on. Below is perhaps a useful recap; feel free to junk anything, though IMHO some as yet unanswered questions are important to hold onto. Nick - "Hyperstition is in part a social engineering practice, involving a range of messy and complicated issues - essentially about engendering a set of productively cooperative relationships". It seems clear to me that Hyperstition is not to focus its energies on refuting, denying, challenging, destroying ego (prime CR objective), but focus on the creation at a level beyond ego of an entity of quite a different nature altogether. However, ... 01 A- What are these relationships engineering? B - What is the overall motivation for Hyperstition? 808

C - In the respect of creating a collectively engineered intelligence - if that is indeed the motivating factor - what would the best achievment for Hyperstition, possibly resemble? 02 A- How are carriers designed and by whom? Concrete steps? B - Is a carrier defined by what it pursues, given this may shift with what it passes through (Reza's comments) - and is the identification of this line of pursuit necessary to kick start a carrier? C - What level of flexibility is there to the consistency of character and interest for a given carrier? D - How open is it for any real person to contribute to the ongoing creation of a single carrier? Can anyone just jump in and add to the line of pursuit? It appears to me that there is a difference between Hyperstition as something that is done, by writing, and something that happens beyond human subjectivity, principally in world events. 03 A - Is there an important difference between unconscious hypersition - eg market hype and the substantially interlinking phenomena of islamic terrorism, petropolitics, and corporate-state desire - and the textual-based activities of like-minded people sharing a view on the horror and theoretical resources? B - If so, is this difference a problem? C - Where does conscious participation in carrier production and hyperstitional production trail off and unconscious production begin? 04 A - Is it worth having separate zones on the site for polished production and theoretical debate? Nick Land: Tachi - excellent Q.s (of course). I'll definitely take all of this as a guide - in fact (like previous Tachi-inspired post) think it's worth dedicating our next 809

method thread to thrashing through your agenda here - there are also some issues I'd add, but they can wait a little. Tachi: Hi Nick, glad you think they are good q.s. Think they can be put into better shape and prioritised though. Don't see why you should wait to add your own. One useful distinction that I see emerging is the use of the site as a publishing tool and another use as a forum for brain-pooling. I dont see why we shouldnt aim for HP (hyperstitional production) to be mainly a publishing outlet, with interactive content, free of hindering influences. And at the same time maintain a thoroughly lateral thrash pit, with dedicated zones for theoretical debate, methodological discussion, and strategic communications. I guess first we can work through the fundamentals then formulate a set of principles to guide activities. (Like in Chinese martial theory there are no techniques, only principles.) Interested in pursuing this and hope we can remain focused in the midst of any further shit slinging. northanger: :scholarly speaking: the word "wifu2day" appears in the trollictionary. Nick Land: Tachi - "free of hindering influences" - this is a whole topic on its own really, maybe deserving of it's own discussion thread (know it's a key q. for you) think Reza will have a lot of input into the discussion, and from both sides (he's both a hyperliberal on comments - who's persuaded me to follow him on this - and an engineering innovator of production spaces) northanger - highly expressive, but also sort of grotesque (from a qabbalistic PoV of course). "trollictionary" on the other hand is sheer poetry ... do i need a *} northanger: ... do i need a *} what is this? a black eyed pea? Spin: flabby cowardice and twisted personological fixation what, just because someone happened to mention a book that you authored?! ... really, if you're so embarrassed about having written it that the merest mention of it sends you into fits of anger and paranoia, it's a wonder that you ever agreed to have it published in your name in the first place ... 810

Posh Spice: Surely Wilfred had a point - it can hardly be denied that 'Cold Rationalism' is just one more hideous offspring of 'Libidinal Materialism'? Nick should be proud that he managed to father so many monsters and freakshows. Few academics have that kind of impact on their students these days, so that alone is pretty impressive. Tachi: Wilfed/Spin/Posh Spice/anti-CR entity: yawn. Say something constructive or move on down the aisle. Posh Spice: Is this all going to try and pass itself off as yet another wonderfully intricate 'performative demonstration' of the limits of hyperstition by next week? No, of course not. But then the limits of Hyperstition (at least, as put into practice on this site) need no special demonstration; they are patent for all to see. What was interesting about the ‘obnoxious troll’ incident of some weeks ago was not that the tactics were sophisticated; obviously they weren’t at all, and it would be hoplessly pretentious to claim otherwise. As one would expect from troglodyte, the troll’s tactics were utterly artless, crude, ingenuous, primitive, immature, unimaginative and the rest. So the only interesting question to come out of it, if there is one, is surely *why* such a tactically unsophisticated intervention was able to cause so much damage, such that a principal and founding member of the ‘kollektive’ has semingly deserted the camp entirely? -- Seems to me that you should probably be counting your lucky stars that the troll’s tactics *weren’t* terribly sophisticated! Nihil: Wilfed/Spin/Posh Spice/anti-CR entity: yawn. Say something constructive or move on down the aisle Why? Is 'construction' somehow more inherently valuable and interesting that *destruction*, in you opinion? Tachi: I never said construction was *inherently* anything. Don't put words in my mouth. It is of course from an entirely localised point of view -and pragmatic. But if you think that being destructive or obstructive (and being "clever") is a value we ought to share then you are obviously hanging around the wrong place. What is your strange fascination with Hyperstition if you consistently deride it? Why not seek out somewhere where you can exercise your wit and release your destructive wimperings? sophie: posh, you don't need to be sophisticated to scare a bunch of sophists! 811

Tachi: OK agit-geek (trumpet-blowing troll for sure) - put your case on the table. Let's see what your problem is. If you don't value productivity or constructiveness, then put the case against. If you have an issue - which is pretty obvious to me - then lay it bare, rather than being snarky and 'funny'. It seems that you are the one who enjoys ripping into CR and Hyperstition ad hoc. If you really can't contribute to the site and cooperate, even if you have serious reasons for dissent, then it will become obvious that you are just a nuisance, a hinderance, and a problem. Engage constructively or make it plain that you are more interested in being destructive. We all need to know where we stand. Nuisance, hinderance, problem: We all need to know where we stand. So here I stand, a European, and cannot do otherwise, so help me God ... Deserts grow: woe to him who harbours deserts! Nick Land: Tachi - think you might find backing quietly out of this foodfight works quite well ;) northanger: :backing out slowly: Posh Spice: What is your strange fascination with Hyperstition if you consistently deride it? Nobody is deriding Hyperstition; nobody knows what the fuck is *is* ... A hindrance? A hindrance to *what* exactly? What is supposedly being *hindered* here, and how? ... Please refer to what my old decrepit mother (Daisy Sturmtrupp) has to say about these things above ... Nick Land: Spin - "really, if you're so embarrassed about having written it that the merest mention of it sends you into fits of anger and paranoia ..." - this is totally missing the point IMHO, there's any number of things I may / may not be "embarassed about" that would be equally entirely irrelevant - in fact deliberately digressive and countervailing - to the positive stuff happening here, the only 'tactical' function of these references is to attempt to re-integrate natural biographies as a diversion from current activities - i.e. hyperstitional depersonalization and artificialization. I actually think you understand this, at least ueber-troll does. By referring to past biographical facts of any kind - 'remember that party we went to in 1993?' would be equally annoying - the statement is being made: 'I refuse to play this 812

(hyperstitional) game and insist on doing something else instead.' If so, why come here (except to be irritating)? [Ueber-troll has the honesty to "snicker"] PS. everybody - make sure you check the emails for every nic - previous 'nick' but one was fake, so annoying impersonations are more probable than usual at the moment. YAWN = 99 northanger: AQ 400 = MECHANICAL IMPERFECTION = SNARKY BIOGRAPHIZING Nick Land: Posh - "So the only interesting question to come out of it, if there is one, is surely *why* such a tactically unsophisticated intervention was able to cause so much damage, such that a principal and founding member of the ‘kollektive’ [sic] has semingly deserted the camp entirely?" - one theory: MKP got hacked-off mud-wrestling with trolls and left (not too complicated, was it?) Tachi: Posh - "..cause so much damage.." - you would like to think so, but recent events are part of the development of the site's activities and will undoubtedly affect the site's development. As Nick has said, this is an experiment, and we are asking serious questions about values, principles and methods ourselves. If you didn't get something out of hanging out here, then presumably you wouldn't hang out. What is your interest in being here if its not just to be irritatingly destructive? Pest Control: Dear all, You'll be happy to learn that I have just had the ueber-troll shot. Trust me, you will never hear from that creature again. It's perfectly safe for Mark K-P to resume his position without fear of attack (at least from *that* troglodyte -- I can't promise a permanent troll-cull, of course). I hope you all live happily ever after and that hyperstitional practice can now thrive here without interruption from further pests. northanger: nickcurious, why does mark leaving and the troll issue keep coming up? 813

nickreally appreciated what Tachi had to say about the human side of things. personally, i find that emotions, opinions, projections, etc, mess with team environments -- heck, with life itself. from original post: "Carriers are designed to pursue a line of thought further than is prudent, decent, or reasonable. They have no need to preserve themselves in the face of natural hazards, avoid unnecessary risks, reproduce, achieve acceptance within a community or prove themselves worthy of social recognition. They maximize the advantages of the ROBOT and the PSYCHOPATH in all these respects." [EMPHASIS MINE] i don't see "cold rationalism" as something opposed to this objective -- or maybe i misunderstand the whole thing. Nick Land: northanger - I'm not an expert, but the objection to Cold Rationalism that made most sense to me was that it presupposes as a source of discursive authority that which hyperstition works experimentally towards, that's to say: a 'cold' (destratified-dehumanized) position. Some might also find the CR formula: Jesus + Lacan + the National Health Service = Reason a little troubling. strangely COLD = HATE, but there's frozen hatred i guess PS. I kind of liked ueber-troll (the snickering was particularly attractive) northanger: the objection to Cold Rationalism that made most sense to me was that it presupposes as a source of discursive authority that which hyperstition works experimentally towards, that's to say: a 'cold' (destratified-dehumanized) position. ok, (humor me, plz) [x] <---------(destratified-dehumanized) position. [1] CR is already standing on X? 814

[2] Hyperstition is working toward X? :scratching head: huh? ps: "ueber-troll" is also in the trollictionary - but the committee is undecided - where's the umlaut? pps: committee getting tangled in knots, shouldn't "ueber-troll" be spelt "uber-troll"? Nick Land: northanger - are you being deliberately obtuse on umlaut question? - 'ue' = 'u umlaut' - all these ridiculous accents are an offense against the hegemonic ambitions of anglophonic qabbalism other point also nit-pickeroid - there's an evident difference between asserting 'I stand beyond mankind' (provoking ridicule and hostility as we have seen) and a project to explore the inhuman - isn't there? Tachi: Definitely a difference, Nick, though 'exploration' would seem to suggest there is something (inhuman) out there to be explored by humanity, when humanity and 'it' surely have an interesting interface. The CR project seems more bent on debunking human subjectivity (and relying on straw notions of transcendent, hermetic identity) than putting anything substantially useful forward re. understanding humanity's relation to the inhuman. Hyperstition is, from my point of view, more of a practice, supported by a theoretical framework in which human subjectivity plays no active role. Importantly, it is also a practice in which the denial of human subjectivity is *implied* through its practice, rather than overly emphasised in doctrine. Where Hyperstition has value, I think, is in examining the ways - from both a positive theoretical and pragmatic approach - in which events are produced machinically *through* social, collective processes. The most important thing is the immersed quality of exploration that Hyperstition involves - not as cold and rational outsiders from a denied-human perspective, but from an entirely situated perspective. What is being explored, albeit in fits and starts on this site - and the activity on here in no way amounts to what some of us are interested in developing - are inhuman 815

processes, and how we, as humans, are indeed constituted by, and constituitive of them. In the sense that the argument isnt really about human or inhuman anymore - let's move on - it doesnt matter if we say we are interested in 'inhuman' processes. We are interested in processes which are independent of yet related to us as humans. The relation of human beings to the events we are witnessing around us are in one sense so human, in that what impacts on us, what registers to us as important, is connected to our actions, whether or not we are in control. This isnt to say that human beings are the bedrock of explanation for anything, but it is to say that humanity is a crucial part of the unfolding, imploding picture. It is understanding this role of the human, of humanity as a species but moreso as a crucial part of the processes occuring on the planet, that drives me to understand the very inhuman nature of events. But not just so that I can claim any rationally calculated knowledge of the fact, but to get a more practical grip on how things are actually working. Why desire to understand, why desire to appreciate how things are 'actually' working? I can't say I know, but at the minimum it is in not being fooled. Which is why the CR thing of attacking the ego is partly right. But we cannot stop there. There is no solace in the human, but there is no glory in the inhuman. I do think that more work needs to be done on actual unconscious hyperstitional systems before we can artificially induce one. Where are the best examples? Nick Land: Tachi - "the CR thing of attacking the ego" - some mirth possible here ;) Actually think that a bizarro Tachi/hyperhippy alliance might be consolidating on this issue - and most terifying of all - it's right. Antihumanist meta-agendas should definitely pushed down into carriers and out of the axiomatic control-room. Will try to deal with this in promised method post. Tachi: Nick - "Tachi/hyperhippy alliance"?? Please expand. And on its terifying aspect .. Interested in your views on what I have said .. PS Where is Reza? 816

Nick Land: Tachi - don't panic! just mean that the danger of building hardcore antihumanist ideology into the 'axioms' of hyperstition seems to be a concern both you and northanger (quite rightly) share - there shouldn't be any doctrinal axioms of hyperstition, and hopefully our methodological thrashing session will push such agendas down into carrier systems where they cease to operate as potential sources of (pseudo)transcendent pontification ... Tachi: Cheers; do you check your mail, Nick? Something in the pipeline .. u/c: I've lost all will to involve myself in further reruns of this discussion, but excellent points well (and amusingly) made, Tachi...and nick: >Jesus + Lacan + the National Health Service = Reason ROFL! Although to take into account important late-breaking doctrinal developments one should add '- the Archbishop of Canterbury'. northanger: hegemonic ambitions of anglophonic qabbalism imperial englishman explore the inhuman then, being inhuman, makes sense, neh? how does one create an opening to the inhuman? Talent Scout: tell me the name of God, Nicholas how does one create an opening to the inhuman, nicholas? No there's true comic genius! Tachi: Undercurrent - did you see this: "U/C - the split you envisage between: "(a)something like hyperstition as-is (free discussion,experimentation and trolling)" and "(b)a 'closed' site that drily and solemnly publishes 'finished' items in CNNdestined press release format" - is this the same thing as my proposed separated zones for "Hyperstitional Lines - broken into identifiable / classifiable themes, topics" and "Meta(hyper)stition: Discussion of theoretical resources underpinning Hyperstition"? - since I do see the value in having a clean zone purely for Hyperstitional accumulation and production (perhaps password protected for inputs?) and a free zone for metadiscussion etc. If your distinction is different, interested how .." 817

WOMAN=111+OTHER: Tachi – Really appreciate and respect your thoughts on structuring the site. The fact I am even commenting on this is a very ironic, but I’ve found password protected sections are ultimately troublesome. What exactly do you mean by a “clean zone”? If you “lock out” wouldn’t it hinder unknown lines of flight? Tachi: WOMAN=111=OTHER (ironically one of my posts) - not sure *who* you are, but thanks for your comments. What I mean by a clean zone is more like a publishing space. Its best not to think of who is being restricted, but more like what is the mode of publication. Lines of flight do not automatically occur with comment boxes, as we have seen. This is a discussion I am glad to be having since I don't know the answers, but I do think that the site could have different publishing spaces, some with feedback for anyone allowed, some with restricted feedback allowed, and some with none. I don't care about anyone who wants to accuse me of being fascist, since I know that is a knee-jerk reaction to what is ultimately an attempt to provoke some management. No, its not molar control, bla bla bla, its about trying different formats within which content can better connect. Lines of flight may occur with a bit more space management; nothing to do with being liberal or not. W=O - interested in your thoughts on this, obviously. From your experience ... oops - wasn't paying attention ... WOMAN=111+OTHER ... Nick Land: "WOMAN=111+[sic]OTHER" has either made a typo or can't count (in AQ) Tachi - think your suggestions about varied security structures for different spaces are interesting and will ultimately prove important, but I'm going to basically shunt them aside in the method post because they involve relatively elaborate technical issues that Reza/Boris would have to grapple with - a provisional alternative (you'll probably think this way too soft) would be to try to tag threads in a way that allowed a voluntary herding of comments into thematically cohesive groups - some evidence this trend already underway IMHO. You're obviously right to ignore 'fascism' accusations, but a more relevant objection might be that installing a more controlling environment will just foster hostility and more dedicated agitation. Seems to me the amount of trollishness has hugely diminished - both quantitatively and qualitatively - since we overtly committed (under Reza's guidance) to a hyperliberal policy on comments. The problem of 'irrelevance' is stickier, but it's also vague (people can 'reasonably' differ on particular cases) and 818

easier to remedy by secondary revision, as exemplified by your recent (emailed) method recap, which will be fed into a post over next few days and thus reconsolidated. Virtual segregation (by topic) can be quite effective without having to be spatially or technologically instantiated. Maybe there are also search/indexing functions that can reinforce this approach. All the complex systems theorists said interesting stuff happens at the edge of chaos - excessive organizational zeal could end up being counterproductive. northanger: D26 CJ = WOMAN = [111+OTHER] = BLACK KING = BRANDING = EGO FLARE WOMAN=111=OTHER: Yes, a typo lol! Being woman=111=other, I’m not really concerned with numbers. In my case, password is a compromise and it would seem that hyperstition doesn’t need to compromise. Nick’s comment that it will just foster more hostility is correct. Guess the point I’m trying to make is that I am obviously “other” - not from the hyperstition world - and in a closed environment we wouldn’t be interacting. Does hyperstition want me to go away? northanger: Does hyperstition want me to go away? don't think so... AQ 661 = Posted by: WOMAN=111=OTHER at January 7, 2005 12:11 PM = SECRET MILITARY SOCIETY OF COL. WEST Nick Land: northanger - get a blog northanger: get a blog like this one? http://growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain/2005/01/good_news_2004.html An Observer: Guess this is getting pretty tiresome by now, but just a small observation: nick suggests that MKP left because he "MKP got hacked-off mud819

wrestling with trolls ... (not too complicated, was it?)", but, as someone who has been quietly following all these threads, it is IMHO undeniable that mark *actually* withdrew from discussion *not* when people were 'trollishly' trying to wind him up for the sake of it, but rather at precisely the point at which serious, principled objections were being voiced against the coherence of his 'CR' position (and these were voiced on a thread entitled 'Blissblog, Surfascism and Cold Rationalism' so you can't reasonably claim that such objections were out of place on this site). In fact, IMHO the objections voiced on that thread were a good deal less 'trollish' and good deal more sophisticated than Tachi's (if I may say so without starting another silly food-fight, somewhat idiotic/risible) assault on CR posted (see his Jan 05, 03.17 pm entry above), so let's not pretend that Mark left because of the antics of obnoxious 'trolls' (unless you're prepared to include Tachi in this company also). So yes nick, I agree, it's really isn't that complicated: MKP stopped responding when the questions got too difficult (and if you're left in any doubt about this, I suggest you re-read the thread mentioned above). some fingers: "get a blog" - is that the new way of saying "get a life"? Nick Land: some fingers - try breaking into the northanger security core and then tell me what you think - there's some kind of institutional change going down there lots of keening and stuff - but it's hard to see past the killer robots An Observer - hmmm MKP definitely winds people up, so the arguments get pretty nasty, personal and vindictive. It's hard to disentangle 'principled arguments' (on either side) from the general ambience of blood-flecked loathing Tachi: An Observer, that's fine to point out a greater level of 'sophistication' in a line of argument against CR other than what is taken to be an argument by myself - my post was more of a rant, I confess, since I have grown pretty tired of the whole focus on CR/anti-CR. Though if you do level the accusation to what I said (I know its not personal) of being 'idiotic' then I do think you ought to support this. I am interested in your views, not just to defend myself but for the sake of greater clarity and understanding. 820

Perhaps also you could make clear what was supposedly sophisticated in your view in that thread, since what I mainly read is an overly academic - exegetical - disputes concerning Freud, Lacan, Spinoza, etc. Contra-CR/MKP (obv) "flip-flopping between an all-is-hyperstition neomystical idealism and a hardman rhetoric of purified rationalism" (Posh Spice at December 16, 2004 01:41 PM) Obsever - was this what you meant, re. sohpisticated? ;) An Observer: Tachi, Well, I'm a little reluctant to pursue this just now (very busy), and your time would obviously be better much better spent responding to the issues raised in Nick's recent (and, IMHO, excellent) post on hyperstitional method. However, let me just very briefly respond to *this*: "if you do level the accusation to what I said (I know its not personal) of being 'idiotic' then I do think you ought to support this ... Perhaps also you could make clear what was supposedly sophisticated in your view in that thread, since what I mainly read is an overly academic - exegetical - disputes concerning Freud, Lacan, Spinoza, etc. Ok, here are a few examples of what I above identify above as idiotic/risible': By intellectualising about these traits you are so more the human you deny that it is laughable ... The so-called rational aspect of CR is so exactly what it attempts to refute - theory is so particularly human ... After all it is flows that matter, and matter that flows ... Look for transcendence and you will find something to slag off .. So humanly denying humanity ... And here is an example (though there are many others on that thread (by, e.g. Bloot, Posh Spice, john effay, henry miller et al.) of what I identify above as serious/principled/sophisticated: Is it really possible to retain the notion of the “consistency” of a rational position or discourse while dispensing with the entire language of commitments, entitlements, endorsements (and *responsibility* for those commitments, which you yourself have already had recourse to in your brief response above)? How do inconsistencies get “sorted out at the level of reason” except in terms of dialogue between rational subjects (persons) who who in the very act of forming propositions undertake rational commitments for which they are *responsible* in the sense of being under a certain socially instituted normative obligation to justify their entitlement to them? In this sense, a ‘person’ is nothing other than 821

a rational animal (where being ‘rational’ essentially involves being subject to the force of the better reason) and a locus of responsible action. In fact, simply by participating in this dialogue you are constituting yourself as such a locus of responsibility (person) by offering arguments for which you are responsible in the above sense of being obliged to provide reasons for your entitlement to them (i.e. in terms of their inferential implications with your other commitments). Surely one who keeps insisting that people who are unprepared to provide ARGUMENTS and REASONS (see response to henrymiller above) for what they say are unworthy of his time is not now going to deny such things? Perhaps you deem these questions as "overly academic" (this going along with your apparent scorn for "intellectualising", "rationality" and "theory" as somehow 'all too human'), but I really don't think so. (As a matter of fact, I don't even know what "overly academic" is supposed to mean, but I'm happy to be instructed ...) All the best ... Valkator: Or putting ego to use for the emergence at another level or an entity of quite a different nature altogether. So, ironically, 'I Am' comes before 'I Think', and thus, we arrive at the PRO-jection, resulting, commonly, in the natural ego confusing the cart for the horse -- even if the cart IS in front of that stallion. The eradication instincts unleashed upon the artificial, hardened thought -- called creation -- stem from a desire for sleep -- to Think nomore. Security and liberation... As a PRO-ject, the artificial is the thought itself, an activity creating and merging with 'whatever'. Once attributed to 'be', or 'I am', thought stagnates, petrifies, and leads 'everywhere'. Secure the objective... You can 'see' it if 'you' are not looking. Identify your Self... Who am I? I'm working on it... Nick Land: Valkator - been hugely enjoying your contributions. The opening quote of your last comment is truly excellent - where does it come from? Tachi: Dear Observer (should say, however, that you are becoming Participant now), Thanks for your response, though I am not sure that merely citing a passage renders it idiotic. Please let me unfold some of my comments in relation to the interesting 822

comments which you identified as being more 'serious/principled/sophisticated'. I think you will find that there is a connection. Firstly, by saying that "The so-called rational aspect of CR is so exactly what it attempts to refute - theory is so particularly human", what I am drawing attention to is a weakness, or inconsistency, in the CR 'position'. This is that CR seeks to argue for an explicit anti-humanist conclusion - that there are 'no subjects' is one instantiation - by employing theoretical procedures that are at variance with this conclusion. Why theory - or, more specifically, rational argumentation for conclusions from valid premises, if you like - is so particularly characteristic of being human may indeed be because it depends on individual human subjectivity. This is more or less what your 'more sophisticated' contributor claims, in that s/he argues that rational inconsistencies may only be resolved between responsible subjects. Then, on the other hand, it may not. The main claim made in the post you cite seems to be that rational consistency depends on "dialogue between rational subjects (persons) who who in the very act of forming propositions undertake rational commitments for which they are *responsible*". But I do not think the problem with CR is that its denial of human subjectivity relies upon rational argument conducted by rational subjects. This presupposes that the individual is the correct unit of analysis for an explanation of rationality, when evidence from cognitive science and linguistic anthropology has shown that rational behaviour, along with language and the use of technology, is best understood as an emergent property of social groups. Threse are of course comprised of individuals but they are also constituted by, and constituting, 'substantive multiplicities'. The relation between the sum (the group) and the parts (individuals) is problematic, but rationality cannot merely be reduced to a property of individuals. The question of how social intelligence emerged in the history of the human species as a property of populations and not just as a property of individuals, is connected to the emergence of technologized social life/ socialized technology, and many fascinating questions remain regarding how the rational behaviour of individuals and groups emerged as a singularity. How did this feedback loop become triggered in the first place? In any case, I would reiterate that "theory is so particuarly human", but it would be wrong to isolate and exhalt the *individual* as an axiomatic necessity for discursive activity, or claim 'theory therefore individual subjects'. 823

CR is problematic enough in that it categorically denies human subjectivity, employing theoretical procedures that are in themselves characteristically human. "So humanly denying humanity." Argumentation, however rational and irrational, is characteristic of the human species. Of course the species can be described in terms of individuals, but it is not simply because of human subjects - especially conceived as responsible and rational agents - that reason exists. This presupposes human agency for rationality. CR's denial of subjectivity is not misled because it employs rational argument which depends on subjectivity, but rather because it denies the role of individuality altogether in the concept of rationality it employs. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that CR does not use reason at all. I have heard this accusation levelled at MKP. Even if this is the position taken by CR - that it does not rely on rational argumentation to make its case - it then has the problem of making claims without arguing for them. Perhaps this is tantamount to dogmatism. This is an issue for any philosophical or theoretical position - the ground needs to be fought for, in which ever way. This is the difference between CR and Hyperstition, in that the former either dogmatically asserts, or humanly reasons for, a position in which human subjectivity is denied altogether. The latter aims to experimentally proceed to a position in which human agency no longer matters for the production of a social intelligence, for want of a better phrase. When I scorn any post as being 'overly academic' it is because I tire of petty differences in *position* between contributors who either rely heavily on jargon or reference to writers, as if this is a philosophy undergraduate lounge. I don't particularly value ironing out exegetical issues, but am more interested in how the content of any writer's thinking impacts on the world in which we live. I am of course happy to exchange ideas and identify questions which are relevant, and work them collectively through. I don't take to being called an idiot, though I am at fault at times to being flippant. I hope this post is of more interest to you than my previous posts. All the best ... An Observer: Tachi, Thanks for that. As I said, I don’t have time to engage at length (you’re right, of course, that I am at the moment becoming-participant, but only reluctantly), so I’ll keep this very brief. Firstly, I didn't call you an idiot — after all, I don't know you 824

from Adam. Rather, I said that I found the comments in that particular post 'somewhat idiotic/risible' (of course, even the most capable people sometimes say idiotic things, especially when they’re ranting) by way of contrast to what I still regard as the more sophisticated (i.e. less ‘trollish’) post cited — and, short of your attempt to redeem them above, I still do. But keep in mind the context: all I was doing was pointing out, contrary to nick's suggestion that MKP left because he was tired of 'mud-wrestling with trolls', that he in fact withdrew from discussion (and starting closing comment boxes) just at the point at which principled objections were being levelled at (the coherence of) his position. Thus, whether or not you agree with Bloot’s criticisms is not really to the point (though it might of course amount to an equally interesting, but different point). Also, while I have no special interest in defending what Bloot said per se (I’m quite sure that s/he is more than capable of doing that his- or herself) — again, my point simply being that these were indeed well-considered criticisms rather than mindless ‘trollish’ assaults — I see nothing in the passage cited which “presupposes that the individual is the correct unit of analysis for an explanation of rationality” or that s/he is reducing rationality to “a property of individuals”. In fact, given that the notion of a ‘person’ that Bloot defends here is framed in terms of the language of commitments, endorsements, entitlements, and socially instituted obligations, it seems pretty clear to me that not only would s/he not *deny* your point about the social emergence of rationality, but that s/he indeed *presupposes* it. Perhaps Bloot was merely pointing to a notion of personhood/subjectivity which *doesn’t* require commitment to MKP’s favourite straw-man (i.e. the ‘belief in soul-substance’) and which arguably plays an ineliminable, constitutive role in all rational discourse (or, at least, all rational discourse which is conducted at the level of ordinary/natural language)? Ok, apologies, but I must make that my last comment. Best of luck with working through the methodological issues of hyperstition. 825

January 2005 Col. West: a renegade Delta-trooper or an autonomous machine? Reza Negarestani (January 1, 2005) [Editor’s note: This post by Reza was simply the re-posting of comments from “Holy War from the Other Side.”] Comments: Col. West: a renegade Delta-trooper or an autonomous machine? Reza Negarestani: Nick, Spengler, “Marivan, Karkheh and CIA operatives”: I guess your source(s) on this particular topic are v. unreliable. This is one of the most unsophisticated goofy-hoaxes I have ever heard; The inventor of this hoax with such a clumsy mistake must be a playful journalist or a conspiracy theorist with minimum geographic knowledge about Iran: Karkheh river is not in Kurdistan, it is in Khuzestan province and because of the presence of the strategic dam over karkheh, military camps and guard-posts have been positioned along the river, it is nearly impenetrable. Spengler, Your remarks on West’s fake diaries / files / reports spread by Delta Force sound possible to me; have also heard similar news about the same issue. They make me more skeptical. -------------------------------------------However, the local Iranian radio station at Kurdistan has released some brief headlines about three disfigured heads (two male and one female appearing to be European or American -- lack of technical investigation!) discovered in a truck supposed to smuggle a couple of Iranian refugees to iraq. The driver has been threatened by armed men with covered faces to carry the heads and transport them to Iraq if he wishes to smuggle his ‘consignment’ without trouble. The driver has made clear that their accent was not Kurdish, some sort of south eastern accent (he hasn’t realized). Iran has contacted the Iraqi police for possible missing civilians or journalists but both coalition forces and Iraqi police have claimed no one has missed with such characteristics. 826

Friends discussed that this is v. unusual since Kurds are usually hospitable to western people. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“If ‘those’* places are still erected it is the American soldiers failing not ours, we hid there and waited for so long but nothing happened. They bowed their heads, stepped backwards and left without saying a word.” (from an unsigned shabnameh** recently spread in Iraq near the Marivan border) * emphasized in the original text ** shabnameh (literally means ‘night letter’, a kind of samizdat for propaganda and announcing secret meetings.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------northanger: reza last two items rather cryptic. what does west have to do with 3 dead heads and an unsigned shabnameh? also confused by image "Jama'at-e-Takfir". how is west involved in sadat's assassination? -if i'm not mistaken about that photoNick Land: Karkheh river is not in Kurdistan, it is in Khuzestan province and because of the presence of the strategic dam over karkheh, military camps and guard-posts have been positioned along the river, it is nearly impenetrable - thanks for this Reza, I've obviously been way to trusting of flaky sources. Do you think this is just a "goofy-hoax", or something more sinister? Reza Negarestani: Northanger, also confused by image "Jama'at-e-Takfir". how is west involved in sadat's assassination? -if i'm not mistaken about that photo No, you didn’t mistaken about the photo; but Jama’at-e Takfir is also an underground military unit after West (seeking vengeance or information or ...; no information available) 827

last two items rather cryptic. what does west have to do with 3 dead heads and an unsigned shabnameh? The information, I assume, does not suggest that West has something to do with these three heads (shouldn’t rush to get any firm conclusion, however). The Kurds rarely permit such activities happen by non-local groups (the driver has made clear that their accent was not Kurdish) under their nose ... Among the Kurds, it is a shame to use non-local people for such activities. Also, it is very odd to see the activities of such groups in the Kurds’ territories (they are very sensitive in this respect) ... two questions: have they been manipulated by non-kurds? Or they are cooperating with some underground units? Also keep in mind that Kurds’ military units can’t tolerate someone doing dirty jobs in their territory, soon they begin to hunt them down; but there is no evidence of any armed clash in Kurdistan for months. 3 heads (European or American) and CIA operatives in the region, a weird coincidence. The unsigned Shabnameh has been published in three languages, Farsi, English and Arabic. ‘those’ without a doubt insinuates ‘Holy Places’ and talks about Tahason in the holy places (tahason: gathering in a public place to protest or, tahason as a means of evading a punishment or offense by dwelling in holy places esp. holy shrines). The cryptic thing about this shabnameh: it looks as if it complains about the American soldiers’ failing to a third party: neither the coalition forces nor the writers of this shabnameh (the islamic units) Nick, You know, for one second (or perhaps more), yes, I hesitated to call it a goofy-hoax, maybe a distracting tool but I thought its mistake is so obvious and can’t really distract people for too long, also suspected that it has intentionally included such a hole. For now, let’s consider it as a goofy-hoax until receiving further information. northanger: For now, let’s consider it as a goofy-hoax until receiving further information what kind of information is needed to confirm it ISN'T a goofy-hoax? Spengler: Imposter alert: The orthographically challenged "Spengler" who posted in the above thread is NOT the author of the Asia Times Online column. This should be obvious from his poor use of punctuation and restricted vocabulary. 828

WOMAN=111=OTHER: "Dunno" is a bit concerning... why would Spengler comment on Hyperstition anyway? What are his/her intentions? Reza Negarestani: Bad weather here and our archeologic mission halted, so i'm staying at home: Spengler, Imposter alert: The orthographically challenged "Spengler" who posted in the above thread is NOT the author of the Asia Times Online column. This should be obvious from his poor use of punctuation and restricted vocabulary. hmmm...intresting! Are you Spengler? Or i assume you know Spengler don't you? If you don't fit these two categories then the problem becomes more intresting and sophisticated. The prose-style is not very definitive in identifying a writer, carriers (such as Spengler) can camouflage themselves easily. Nick, you are an expert, what do you think? Spengler or not, i guess the guy -- in spite of trusting in unreliable sources (the Karkheh / Marivan mistake was so ridiculous and i imagine Spengler has more geographic knowledge about the whole region to be fooled so easily) -- could give us useful info about West. Besides Nick participated in his discussion with 'so much productivity'. If he is not Spengler and Nick has accepted some of his information (including Marivan sighting) then we must conclude that West is another hoax unleashed by Delta or other manipulating organizations. Nick, again what do you think? woman=111=other, why would Spengler comment on Hyperstition anyway? Come on ... Hyperstition is globally famous ;) What are his/her intentions? You should ask the real Spengler; what do you know about his/her intentions when he/she writes anonymously in Asia Times? (s)he has become quite a media monster within a short time influencing every political journal. isn't that mysterious? A media saboteur or a secret agent? both categories rest upon some very 'intresting and sinister' conclusions. 829

his poor use of punctuation i guess editors do the punctuations ;) restricted vocabulary He has posted a comment not an ‘Essay’ for Asia Times Nick Land: Had my doubts about 'Spengler' but the quality of his remarks was so high i didn't make a fuss about it - suspect a highly competent relatively low level East Asian spook Allan Quicke: Spengler and Asia Times Online would like it to be known that the poster on this blog who calls himself "Spengler, the columnist at Asia Times", is an imposter. Those interested may find out what our Spengler really thinks by going to the "Spengler" category on the Asia Times Online readers' forum at http://forum.atimes.com/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=13 or by reading his columns at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/spengler.html Allen Quicke Editor Asia Times Online Reza Negarestani: Allen Quicke, If you explore the hyperstition archive, you may find how amazingly some of Spengler’s remarks are similar to hyperstition articles on War on Terror. By the way, if Spengler is so enthusiastic about keeping his/her/their true identity intact why does ‘it’ use a mask belonging to a dead writer? In hyperstition polytics everyone can use a mask, dissolving into another carrier. So I wasn't convinced that the (im)poster is really not your Spengler or your Spengler is not a hyperstition engineer. Plus, are you really the editor at Asia Times? ;) ... just kidding if you really are. Reza Negarestani 830

Hyperstition why would Spengler comment on Hyperstition anyway? the same question about Mr. Quicke's (Im)poster Alert?!!! Nick Land: Guess people must already have done the ASIA TIMES ONLINE = COLD RATIONALISM thing? Reza Negarestani: Guess people must already have done the ASIA TIMES ONLINE = COLD RATIONALISM thing? LOL ... It’s interesting that Mr. Quicke talks about ‘OUR SPENGLER’ (sounds very informative in some regards); just typed Spengler + Hyperstition in the Google search box, no external link to this article. How did they find this post? (intriguing answers lurk here) Nick Land: Reza - Afraid I'm an unredeemable dupe when it comes to this sort of thing - highly appreciative of the fact you're able to bring a surgical intelligence to the question. Can't even begin to get my head around the issue you raise here - just shorts out into fogged confusion. Was perturbed by the 'ethics' of the impersonation problem because I really don't approve, but now I'm totally lost. Have you got any usable East Asian intelligence assets to lean on? My contacts are generally pretty flaky, and everything coming down the Ccru pipe from this part of the world is basically white noise (our 'most reliable' HK guy was recently busted trying to put together a complex arms-for-heroin deal even he couldn't explain) ... Reza Negarestani: ok, i'll open it later ... currently, the blog is too hot for surgical investigations or explorations of this kind. but in regard to impersonation issue raised here: Is Spengler a molar person who can be easily impersonated? was writing to a friend: the effectively of carriers is guaranteed through their anomalous participations with characteristics, personalities and identities and not dissociation from them since as epidemic vectors they must retain a minimum attaching organ-ization to latch onto flows and bodies which transmit them, contaminate and being contaminated. So carriers may leak into each other. Therefore, the rush of paranoia into the space that carriers traverse is inevitable, a paranoia which should be taken as a schizotrategic insurgency rather than ‘merely’ fixated on (over)reactionary impulses or person/imperson diametric discourses. 831

Valkator: it looks as if it complains about the American soldiers’ failing to a third party: neither the coalition forces nor the writers of this shabnameh (the islamic units) It's always the 'third force', the 'hidden hand' -- the exception (the sovereign) - that has the potential to 'walk away' and spoil the party -- or find another one to crash. ;) Reza Negarestani: Forgot to say that my friends (one of them is a Basiji General -he is 39 -- in Kurdistan) noticed me that some of the recent Shabnamehs spread near Marivan border and also in Kurdistan have been signed under a non-iranian name: Jay. They are not sure if this is a western name because they have all heard the stories about a woman wearing Borgha (a cover for women’s face using in South of iran) named Jay who helped them in Operation Mersad (Eternal Light) in Mordad 3, 1367 (1988) by uncovering a few key information about the tactical movements of Mujaheddin-e Khalghs (pseudo-islamic commies who assembled a group after the Revolution). My father’s friends who were in charge of army (Artesh) battalions at that time told me that despite these hypocrites were Iranians but they were torturing and slaughtering more civilians than islamic Sepahies or Basijies, so Artesh, too, willfully (because Artesh was once considered as a decadent leftover of the last regime) helped other military units in Iran to utterly eradicate these crypto-commies. Mujaheddin-e Khalghs were a large army fully armed by Iraqi light and heavy weapons; they expected to conquer Tehran in a few days by passing through Kermanshah and some cities of Kurdistan where rebellions had intense activities, so they had actually planned to reinforce their army by people and rebellions as the march towards Tehran through these cities. What happened was quite different, people escaped them, rebellions didn’t join them and even Artesh’s powerful army divisions joined the battle. The Operation started by the Code ‘Ya Ali’, the mistake of Mujaheddins was their lack of tacticity, they moved their units through in-depth formation to attract people so they were easily overwhelmed by the united army, and after a few days (esp. after a tactical diversion led by Artesh) they were fully trapped and defeated (Mordad 5, 1367) Another subject attracted me here is the word Yatu (as I quoted one of these shabnamehs at the opening of the recent post), I guess I have heard a similar word before. Should consult my linguist teammates in the archeological project, they might have a clue. (btw, added this new piece of information to West post) Nick Land: Jay's certainly proving elusive - makes West seem quite the party animal in comparison ... 832

All ears for 'Yatu' ... Jihad: The Absent Obligation or the Latent Duty Reza Negarestani (January 2, 2005) [Editor’s Note: This post was deleted by Negarestani, like many before. However, in previous cases I was able to use the Wayback Machine to locate an archived copy. This is not possible for this post. However, the comments are intriguing and later posts will refer back to these comments, so I have included them even without the post.] 833

Comments: Jihad: The Absent Obligation or the Latent Duty northanger: on topic - fascinating post, reza [1] react autophagically - can you expand on this some more? [2] what is MOAB? [3] what is Qutb? off topic AQ 203 = SPE-C.I.A.L.I.S-T = APOCALYPSE SPE-T? ===========> PEST AQ 96 = PEST = DEMON = DURGA = HOLY = IBLIS = LIMBO =ZONE = AURT = JUNO = ELULA = ARDIS = ORLO AQ 107 = C.I.A.L.I.S. = GENDER = AUMALE = PIREDA Surprised you can get away saying SPEC-I-A-L-I-S-T. Commentors still can't say *that word* on this server. Looking more closely: left-over words = PEST. If SPEC-IALIST=APOCALYPSE, PEST=HOLY, C-IALIS=???? Reza Negarestani: When a tree is infected by Die-back disease, merely leaves and branches are destroyed, however, in the lack of leaves and branchlets, the tree becomes prone to the environment (all modes of taxis are locked into malfunctioning programs), lowering its immunity system and consumes itself from within. Die-back and a civilization: paranoia : lack of investment : civilian as primary targets for both fronts : dereliction : all result in a reactionary response which is self-destructive rather than health recovering. MOAB: (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/moab.htm) Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, also nicknamed the Mother of All Bombs: Mother of ABominations? (Rev. 17:1-6) Qutb: see http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/sayyid_qutb.htm 834

Also: have you seen this? http://www.greatdreams.com/trade_numbers.htm northanger: Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb crikey. Qutb Sayyid Qutb - tawhid (the singularity of God and, therefore, of the universe) have you seen this c'mon ... i'm a gematria-nut, lol, what do you think? the numbers for WTC were quite astounding. currently discovering interesting numbers for Magnitude 9.0 Earthquake. check your email reza! [1] What is Wahhabi? [2] What is Salafi? [3] What does Wahhabi + Salafi + Takfiri have to do with one another? [4] Why is ‘taqiyya’ (Taghieh) fundamental to Jihad? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad [5] Under what conditions MUST the "true beliefs" be declared? btw, AQ 96 = PEST = OLAHO AQ 107= C.I.A.L.I.S. = PIREDA OLAHO (For the Second Time) + PIREDA (Holy) are from the Enochian Language and appear in Crowley's "The Vision & The Voice". The following enochian phrase appears in the 28th aethyr: GON1 441 = OLAHO VIRUDEN MAHORELA ZODIREDA! ON PIREDA EXENTASER; ARBA PIRE GAH GAHA GAHAL GAHALANA VO ABRA NA GAHA VELUCORSAPAX EXENTASER = MOTHER OF ALL 835

441 = 21 x 21 HEB: 441 = TRUTH = THE WORK OF THE LORD = THE GOD OF HEAVEN = INFINITE = JOINED GON1 66 = [15 + 51] SIGILLUM DEI AEMETH = JAMA'AT-E-TAKFIR = ASIAN PEACE http://www.angelfire.com/ab6/imuhtuk/L_084_files/aemeth.htm 441 ACTUAL [7x63,9x49,21x21] http://essenes.net/gem4.html Nick Land: Another huge step forward on this line of investigation. [Going to be a bit tied up for a day or two, so appropriate feedback from this end will be retarded a little, but can already see ...] West/Jay 'discussion' massively gravitationally attracted by the question of escalation/diffusion of conflict in time and space - West's 'Deep Escalation' papers - forthcoming - highly relevant to this topic. northanger: reza - look at this http://www.vbs.org/rabbi/hshulw/response_bot.htm re: [1] 01:47am post above (truth) [2] What was West thinking? post (hashishin spirit) My dear friends not all tragedies are the same. If the death of this remarkable human being had come by accident -- a storm, a hurricane, an earthquake, or some mechanical failure of a plane, it would be sad enough. But we know if we are truthful, that this was not an accident, no aberration, no single act of lunacy, no result of a breakdown of the psyche of some mad killer. Had this come from some twisted, moronic, intelligence, some illiterate thug, it might be easier to explain. Even if it had come from the hand of Esau it would be tragic and fateful and we would manage to find the proper political categories to explain how it came about. But this was an assassination by an intelligent Jew, by a religiously trained person with the approbation of not one but many rabbis with ordination. This was an assassination and assassination is not a Jewish word. 836

The word "assassin" is etymologically an Arab word that derives from the word "hashish". To be an assassin is to be a "hashishin". That refers to the secret orders of some Muslims who terrorized Christians and others during the Crusades and obeyed the orders to murder under the influence of hashish which was either smoked or chewed. But a Jew -- an assassin? Nick Land: northanger - all Burrough's Hassan-i-Sabah stuff is about the Assassins, terrorizing the Islamic world of the time from their fortress of Alamut on the Black Sea coast. Burroughs especially stresses the (Crowleyite? Hash inspired?) maxim attributed to Hassan-i-Sabah: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." northanger: AQ 210 HASSAN-I-SABAH = COUNTDOWN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin The power of the Hashshashin was destroyed by the Mongol warlord Hulagu Khan [(also known as Hülegü, and Hulegu)], but several smaller sects remain to this day, such as the sect led by the Aga Khan. During the Mongol assault, the library of the sect was destroyed, and thus much information about them was lost. appears everything eventually points back to ... you guessed it! ... Colonel Jackson ‘Hulugu’ West Nick Land: Hulugu Khan swatted the previously unassailable assassins aside contemptuously while ravaging the entire region and strikingly ungodly horror into all that stood before his mounted hordes - hence West's 'affectionate' nickname. In 1258 Hulugu sacked Baghdad and piled up 70,000 skulls as a provocative political statement. (As soon as good horse country ran out, in Southern Mesopotamia, the Mongol tide was halted -- having inflicted an unprecedented spiritual crisis on a population that had previously been assured of divine favour -- Islamic theology became a lot more tortured (even a little 'christian' = twisted by martyrdom ('why have you forsaken me' and all that))) PS. From which West learns - nothing does better 'hearts and minds' on a resilient foe than the sulphurous taste of defeat. undercurrent: also confused by image "Jama'at-e-Takfir". how is west involved in sadat's assassination? -if i'm not mistaken about that photo 837

No, you didn’t mistaken about the photo; but Jama’at-e Takfir is also an underground military unit after West (seeking vengeance or information or ...; no information available) what's the deal with West and the Jama'at-e-Takfir? is West linked with them? Reza, I don't understand the exact relation between the Takfiri and the die-back machinery here - To what triggering mechanism is the ‘Takfiri under Taghieh’ attached, and by how is he bound; or is his camouflage itself an offensive weapon, autonomous from guiding authority - total dissimulation to make sure the enemy keeps thinking only about the fireworks on the battlefield? I assume from what you say that it is not simply to be thought at the level of 'undercover operatives' but a more profound level of assimilation-as-dissimulation; investing the enemy to empty it out. The further they deviate in the service of universal fidelity the more their explosive potential grows; So do the Takfiri-underTaghieh themselves even know what they're doing? Or who they are? Nick Land: Undercurrent - love this Q. Might have phrased it differently myself, but it cuts to the quick Reza Negarestani: A few answers for now, more answers to other fascinating questions (esp. Undercurrent’s discussion) later: The word "assassin" is etymologically an Arab word that derives from the word "hashish". To be an assassin is to be a "hashishin". That refers to the secret orders of some Muslims who terrorized Christians and others during the Crusades and obeyed the orders to murder under the influence of hashish which was either smoked or chewed. But a Jew -- an assassin? Nick + northanger, Most of Burroughs stuff on Hassan and Hashashins is historically inaccurate, based on inaccurate and wrong western translations. Assassin is not etymologically an Arabic word, it is a Farsi word. Hashish in old iran (both before and after Islam) was the most popular drug for Mages, Dervishes, Sufies and Poets. It is older than opium in iran. Hashashins (Assassins) are not the invention of Hassan i-Sabah. During the reign of Sunni caliphs, different Iranian Shia governments which had to pay huge amount of taxes to caliphs and were so distasteful of Arabs united with each other (from Sistan in the south east to Kurdistan in the west, Gilaan in north and Fars in south west and other places) they planned in secret to undermine, weaken and ultimately eradicate the reign of Caliphs. They incited many 838

rebellions across Iran, some of which developed and turned into full insurgencies and really threatened the borders and even the most important cities in the empire of caliphs. However, few survived ... ibn Maymun was among those whose survived and succeeded in their missions, Iranian insurgents sent him to Morocco and Tunisia, he was one of the most influential occultists and conspiracist in Iran, so he followed an entirely different way to damage the Empire. For many years, he was trained by militant nomads, sorcerers, guerillas and different cults in Morocco and Tunisia; after finishing his studies he traveled to Egypt, the country he picked up as his primary zone of operation, soon he started to undermine the influence of caliphs by engineering vast occult networks in Egypt which were supposed to give birth to as many as islamic minorities they could afford, spreading heresies, new beliefs, and feed on monotheism not as a direct religious path but a laboratory for sorcerous experiments, coup d'etat, etc. After nearly ten years, he got new allies (Al Fatemids) who were under influence of his occult-religions and heresies and were originally Egyptian aristocrats. In less than a week, they toppled the caliph’s puppet government and declared their independency. They remained one of the worst enemies of caliphs until the end of Caliph’s empire which was finally became an Iranian puppet government. One of the first cults that Ibn Maymun assembled was Batinyya (Bateniun) who were the first prototypes of Isma-ilie’s assassins. They were devoted, eccentric, mad (in every sense of this word) and Hashish addicted, they were trained to operate stealthily, killing every target by any means possible. Later Batinyya dissolved to Ismailie, and Hassan I-Sabbah the admirer of Ibn Maymun was authorized by Al Fatemids to continue the path of Ibn Maymun and his Hashashins (the bond between Ismai’lies and Al Fatemids never destroyed). More on Hassan and Assassins later. Nick Land: "Most of Burroughs stuff on Hassan and Hashashins is historically inaccurate, based on inaccurate and wrong western translations" - what fate could be more repugnant than that of a historical figure debased into hyperstition? undercurrent: also reza, what is the book that is illustrated at the top of your post? Reza Negarestani: Nick, what fate could be more repugnant than that of a historical figure debased into hyperstition? Lol ... the interesting point is that sometimes the historical life of a person is more hyperstitional / pestilential, as in the case of Maymun (or even Sabah) who WAS a 839

hyperstition engineer and harcore occultist; obviously western readers are more interested to hear about exotic ghost assassins, an inaccessible fortress and loads of hashish than listening to incomprehensible occult / conspiracy doctrines of a madman who is not even known in his country (talking about Maymun). The same thing about Japan (Samurais, Manga, Ninja, etc.) Undercurrent, It is a journalistic book (fiction, documentaries about Takfiries in Europe), once was a famous book but not really a good one. Nick Land: Reza - definitely didn't want to close down the issue, after all, this could happen to anyone ... Reza Negarestani: Nick, have you heard about HassanII? if not, will write about him in a post i'm writing. He is more Burroughsian than Hasan I (Hasan I-Sabah). Nick Land: Reza - HassanII - let's hear. Reza Negarestani: Undercurrent, some very confused thoughts ... forgive me ... should sleep for an hour or two and return to your questions again (and apologies for all typos, mistakes, etc.): A ‘Takfiri under Taghieh’ is nothing but a civilian, by destroying himself and civilians he can apply the die-back mechanism to a system. Taghieh is not directly connected to the die-back mechanism, it is a ‘logistical’ plane (remember that it is the only plane through which participation with strategy becomes impossible ... real commanders never seek to control a strategy, they look for a way to unleash it) by which a Takfiri can shift the role of taghieh from a mere camouflage to a powerful logistic plane for massively offensive strategies / tactics. Example: When a Takfiri goes under taghieh (as a sub-offensive logistical plane) it invests its sabotaging mechanisms within civilians, ‘civilians as back-doors’. A Takfiri under taghieh is disintegrated from a key operative figure in its own army to a civilian; at this point, taghieh actually unlocks a door not to important targets but usual civilians (the primary tactics in the die-back polytics), giving a takfiri an opportunity to effectively confound and twist all diagrams and maps by which a civilian is recognized from an anti-citizen one. Through this door, a takfiri can both destroy civilians (expendable entities of the tree) more effectively on a massive scale and turn their protecting system against them by assimilating them within itself and being assimilated by them. 840

Faraj is not interested in assassination but harvesting civilians as primary military targets as a part of the die-back mechanism and the strategies it unleashes. assimilation-as-dissimulation; investing the enemy to empty it out. Exactly! ‘being assimilated within infidels’ = activating the infidels’ defense mechanism against their own system and entities (activating the overreacting autophagic processes): they commence to fight within their own borders against their own (dis)simulated entities. So do the Takfiri-under-Taghieh themselves even know what they're doing? Or who they are? I really don’t know ... it is a complex matter (I appreciate more thoughts from you and Nick on this). Takfiries are very different, a wahhabi Takfirie feeds on Zero-belief point of cognition (have discussed it before), a wahhabi takfiri doesn’t want to know who he/she really is or what he/she is doing, not because that he has brain washed but because he finds ‘belief’ as a redundancy in the true cognition (in its utter virality) of Allah (and the utter submission to Allah) who unlike in Judo-Christian doctrines of Revelation will never be revealed to man, Allah always remains exterior to man and by this merciful exteriority Man can exist both in this world and the next world. (I’ll discuss about this in the piece about Islamic Chronopolytics.). A Wahhabi Takfiri knows that any belief even in his own operation is a manifest of deviation i.e. letting the civilians (all who believe and disbelieve) seed their beliefs on his own belief (Belief as a farm Shaytan)... he is not interested in possession as ‘take over’ but recomposing / messing the structure of civilians, and their cognition patterns. There is one thing obvious here that Takfiries are eaten by the strategies that they trigger and cannot work as the lines of command for their own operations any more, they need an external line of command and another plane of logistics by which the communication with their movements and cells becomes possible. but in terms of strategy, everything may go astray at any moment: all sides might be consumed; for a Takfiri, it matters a little. The famous Ali’s sword has two heads heralding the fact that in War your are closer to the slashing edge of the sword that your enemy, this is not considered as a danger but a mercy. A correction: through which participation with strategy becomes impossible ----> becomes possible (+ other corrections) northanger: “What was West thinking?” 841

but what was worse was it began, you know, seeping in … Taghieh is not directly connected to the die-back mechanism, it is a ‘logistical’ plane (remember that it is the only plane through which participation with strategy becomes POSSIBLE ... real commanders never seek to control a strategy, they look for a way to unleash it) by which a Takfiri can shift the role of taghieh from a mere camouflage to a powerful logistic plane for massively offensive strategies / tactics. a takfiri can both destroy civilians (expendable entities of the tree) more effectively on a massive scale and turn their protecting system against them by assimilating them within itself and being assimilated by them. A Wahhabi Takfiri knows that any belief even in his own operation is a manifest of deviation i.e. letting the civilians (all who believe and disbelieve) seed their beliefs on his own belief (Belief as a farm Shaytan)... he is not interested in possession as ‘take over’ but recomposing / messing the structure of civilians, and their cognition patterns. think reza's paper (Death as a Perversioin) might touch on something: PHILIA. ultimate sorcery: love thine enemy. however, that's not quite right: "enemy" removed from equation. this is not morality, evil vs. good -- it is something ... else (reza can explain way better [once he wakes up!]) Death as a Perversion: Openness and Germinal Death http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=396 ... philia is the engineering space of life, it is constituted of bonds and alliances by and through which desiring machines rise and inter-communicate, and finally engineer compositions of all forms (such as necro-philia). One might warn about the filiative and tendentious nature of philia in the cosmogonic models as what suggested by Empedocles' philosophy and the rest of unitary approaches; but considering philia on a non-transcendental level, philia is neither possessing, nor possessable; it is only contagiously open because the very bonds (of love, friendship, alliance, fondness, etc.) which make it philia, not as a capacity of tendencies but a space of bonds which are pestilentially fond of (the very meaning philia) everything, engineering alliances, transmuting every process and relationship into a perverse love-making ( the common meaning of necrophilia is a distorted apparition of this process) and finally, giving rise to inter-connective compositions, for compositions as Nick Land suggests are unfocused complexities [6] which do not allow the tendencies to gain victory or conquer the composition's complexity by the institutionalizing of economical 842

relationships through composition but affirm them as modes or transient instances of multiplicities imminent to the compos-ition. In such a space (philia) nothing remains pure since tendencies which try to forge purities are all contaminated and infected; they are inter-connected by each other. Philia, even concealed under all appropriated features of Greek tradition, is a space where desiring machines unground rigidities, storm borders and dimensions; and necrophilia is an event germinated through this space, an instance of 'border collapse' and a perverse love (an anonymous plague of energy, excess and multiplying bonds composed as a process of contagion) which does not fail to incite becomings wherever it goes (contagion commotion). Belief as a farm Shaytan reza - please unzip. die-back sounds like de-territorialization (NAMify - desertification)? presupposes: reterritorialization? by way of PHILIA? reminds me of john 15 (true vine | branches - fruit - pruning | husbandman). also, john 15 seems to abrogate all previous commands with a new command (love one another) ==> pointing back to PHILIA john 15 uses "agapao" and "agape" phileo is used in-John 12:25 He that loveth [phileo] his life shall lose it John 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love [phileo] his own 1 Corinthians 16:22 If any man love [phileo] not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha. anathema = "to consecrate or devote ... to exterminate ... doomed to destruction ... a curse" ps: reza can probably find something similar in the Quran? (just to save this conversation from getting way too christian) Nick Land: northanger - "left-over words = PEST" - i get 'pesc' Is the alien language you have started zoning out into some kind of Enochian? 843

"just to save this conversation from getting way too christian" - ha! Reza - "never seek to control a strategy ... look for a way to unleash it" - plenty of convergence takes place around this maxim i should imagine ANATHEMA MARANATHA = SCHIZOSTRATEGY (= US TRADEMARK LAW) = new name for the number 14s. (D26 - which is still truly weird to me, but this is 'nice': ANATHEMA MARANATHA = ET = X). northanger: northanger - "left-over words = PEST" - i get 'pesc' [S][P][E][C.I.A.L.I.S][T] Is the alien language you have started zoning out into some kind of Enochian? no = SYZYGIAL AMPLEXUS (AMAF, you also brought up the word that cannot be said, qwert liber ...etc) yru giving me a hard time? Nick Land: northanger - "[S][P][E][C.I.A.L.I.S][T]" - while since we had the blindness conversation me giving you a hard time! northanger: [stopping self from making bad cyalis joke] Reza Negarestani: This time: ‘Who is Hassan II?’ Not Hassan II, the king of morocco but one of the Imams of Isma’ilie after Hassan I (Hassan i-Sabah) In 1164, following one of the heresies spread by the hidden Imam of Isma’ilie (Abdulah Ibn Maymun) long before the emergence of Isma’ilie (that for moving towards the radical Islam which is nothing but Ghiamat you must take all the possible wrong / unislamic paths) Hassan II in the Isma’ilies’ stronghold Alamut in Iran declared that the time of Islam as a direct path has ended and announced the rise of a new millennium as Qiyamah (Ghiamat or the Apocalypse); to proclaim it, he ordered that Muslims must pray Namaaz by turning their backs to Mecca. During Ramadan, he turned Alamut into a carnal house, asking Muslims to partake in orgies and all 844

kinds of debauchery while his followers read the Quran for people. After sanctifying himself as the true Caliph of muslims (Al Fatemids also officially celebrated him as a caliph) he declared all those who still follow the path of Mohammad and Shariah (Shari’at) are blasphemers and should be stoned, stripped and whipped to death or impaled near the gates of Alamut. After the fall of Alamut, the cult that Hassan II initiated became popular in iran for sometime until some of its beliefs dissolved to other sects like Hojatian (the harbingers of the Apocalypse and Mahdi). Where is the exact location of Alamut? http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/Alamut-map.html Nick Land: "he declared all those who still follow the path of Mohammad and Shariah (Shari’at) are blasphemers and should be stoned, stripped and whipped to death or impaled near the gates of Alamut" - Imagine this suggestion didn't go down too well in certain quarters ... northanger: reza - thought this was interesting in light of "Takfiri under Taghieh"... AQ 291 = UNISLAMIC PATHS = HYPERCAMOUFLAGE = SEEK AND DESTROY Reza Negarestani: Northanger, die-back is a method of desertification but not NAMifying (Jungle militarism) or perhaps a twisted NAMification (In a Takfiri sense, deserted trees are not different from a Desert without trees.); de-territorialization, not sure ... should think about it. Salafi and Wahhabi are two religious sects but Takfiri is a Jihadi movement. Salafi and Wahhabi: there are many helpful documents on the Net. reza - please unzip. Unzip what? Ok, see this (the second http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004536.html section): Seek and Destroy; I thought it was technically an American tactic (esp. practiced in Vietnam). Nick Land: Reza - think it's 'Search and destroy' 845

Reza Negarestani: oops, sorry ... why did i write seek and destroy? i didn't listen to Metallica's Seek & Destroy when i was writing this post btw ;) northanger: die-back is a method of desertification but not NAMifying (Jungle militarism) or perhaps a twisted NAMification (In a Takfiri sense, deserted trees are not different from a Desert without trees.); de-territorialization, not sure ... should think about it. a tree is a tree is a tree. Unzip what? i'm just at university bugging my professor is all ... thanks for, unzipping (good link) Metallica's Seek & Destroy We are scanning the scene in the city tonight We are looking for you to start up a fight There is an evil feeling in our brains But it is nothing new you know it drives us insane Reza Negarestani: a tree is a tree is a tree. organically yes but economically / polytically no (more on this later) northanger Plus, have you ever seen a Russian forest near a tundra, with trees emptied of life because of the back rot and winter die-back; if you, you will find out what a desert with trees is. See Sergei Medvedev’s Blank Space http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=128 846

Or 'death as a perversion' (on the Russian necrorealist cinema) There is a great article on such forests on Pravda (should find it again) northanger: you will find out what a desert with trees is see your point. http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=128 excellent article, will enjoy reading north reminds me of the Dai Bishamon Tenno (Heavenly King of the North) appearing on Nichiren Daishonin's gohonzon: http://nichirenscoffeehouse.net/ShuteiMandala/4kings.html "Vaisravana is the guardian of the north and the chief of the four guardian kings - 'He who is knowing'. 'He who hears everything in the kingdom', the protector of the state par excellence, sometimes thought to be a god of defensive warfare. In China, he is considered to be a Buddhicization of the Indian god of wealth, Kuvera, the north being considered to hold fabulous treasures. He presides over winter and is black, so is also called 'the black warrior'. His symbols are a jewel and a serpent, and he commands a large army of Yaksas." See Sergei Medvedev’s Blank Space reza - thoroughly enjoyed AQ 151 = GOLDEN AGE = GERMINAL = GG-HCHVPH* = SHAYTAN AQ 168 = ATLANTIS = SPENGLER = SYMBOLS AQ 197 = NO MAN'S LAND = MECCA-NOMICS = NETWORKS AQ 231 = TROGLODYTE = ASTRO-OCEANIC = COORDINATOR = XXXXXXX AQ 234 = THE BLANK SPACE = BLUE TRIANGLE = PALEOZOIC ERA = TECHNO-FUNGAL = IN A NUTSHELL AQ 247 = NIGHT ON EARTH = GALACTIC CENTER = THE FREE WORLD = UNSTABLE ISLE 847

AQ 256 = PEST CONTROL AQ 258 = NORTHERN ROAD = GATES OF ALAMUT AQ 259 = THE ASCETIC IDEAL = THE BOOK OF LIES AQ 260 = SERGEI MEDVEDEV = DOUBLE-HEADED EAGLE = LIGHT OF FREEDOM = UNDENIABLY REAL AQ 280 = FINDLANIZATION = QABBALA UNSHELLED AQ 289 = THIRD UNIVERSE = JEWISH ZEALOTS = REAL INCARNATION = TEST OF CAPACITY AQ 308 = NEW IMAGINATIONS = EXTREME TRACKING = FORESIGHTEDNESS = TEN COMMANDMENTS = THE KEY TO THELEMA AQ 310 = DELEUZE-GUATTARI = PRECISE ANALYSIS = SHARED PERIPHERY AQ 334 = NORTHERN PROJECT = SPHERE OF INFLUENCE AQ 346 = EAST-WEST INTERFACE = ULTIMATE NAKEDNESS AQ 361 = SPHERE OF SENSATION = INTERSTELLAR DUST AQ 367 = NORTHERN DIMENSION = VANGELO DELLE STREGHE = CORPUS CAVERNOSUM = NEGATIVE INVOCATION AQ 388 = BLANK, LIKE A PALIMPSEST = UNSIGNALING CURRENT AQ 400 = MECHANICAL IMPERFECTION = SNARKY BIOGRAPHIZING AQ 413 = HACKED-OFF MUD-WRESTLING = CONCOURSE OF THE FORCES = DE REBUS QUAE GERUNTUR = EGG OF THE PHILOSPHERS AQ 439 = HORIZONTAL DEPENDENCIES = PEELING OFF ALL CAMOUFLAGES AQ 464 = HYPERSTITIONAL VOCABULARIES PRACTICE 848 = ENRICHING THE

AQ 484 = MULTI-LAYERED INTEGRATION AQ 599 = A PURELY DISCURSIVE ENTERPRISE = INNER EARTH COMPUTER IS PYMANDER AQ 684 = VERTICAL DISCOURSES AND STRUCTURES = A SHIP OR BODY DESTINED WITH A HOROSCOPE = AUTONOMOUS FROM GUIDING AUTHORITY GON1 105 = FILLING THE BLANK SPACE OF THE NORTH = ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE {*} HEB 110 = GG-HChVPH (Tectum coeli fabrilis sub quo desponsationes coniugum fiunt) Nick Land: northanger - from a relatively traditional perspective, really impressed by: NO MAN'S LAND = MECCA-NOMICS TEN COMMANDMENTS = THE KEY TO THELEMA (for different reasons in each case) northanger: AQ 150 = MAN'S LAND = CHECKMATE = TRIBADES AQ 220 = NON-MAN'S LAND = EXHUMATION = LOOPY SHIT = PARASITE EVE AQ 253 = NO WOMAN'S LAND = BLOWING SMOKE = NOTEWORTHY = POSSIBLE HOAX = HEAVEN ON EARTH AQ 276 = NON-WOMAN'S LAND = C-IALIS NETWORK = COUNTERCOINAGE = TRUE DEVOTION Reza Negarestani: Nick, No Man's Land is somehow translated as 'Na Koja Abad' in Farsi which is more frightening: originally coined by 'desert nomads' (http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004053.html) of central Kavir in iran, means a place that cannot be mapped, located and dwelled (and at the middle of nowhere). 849

v. intresting: Na Koja Abad = 150 = checkmate = Man's Land northanger: v. intresting: Na Koja Abad = 150 = checkmate = Man's Land yes, very... here's more: AQ 150 = OMICRON = RETURN OMICRON (The 15th letter of the Greek alphabet) 15th Enochian Æthyr (The Vision of the rose of 49 petals, and of the Holy 12-fold Table. Examination of the Candidate for M.T.) spells out the word KATHAROS six times: And the first drove a dagger into my heart, and tasted the blood, and said: {GRK:chi}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:theta}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:rho}{GRK:omicron}{ GRK:sigma}, {GRK:chi}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:theta}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:rho}{GRK:omicron}{ GRK:sigma}, {GRK:chi}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:theta}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:rho}{GRK:omicron}{ GRK:sigma}, {GRK:chi}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:theta}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:rho}{GRK:omicron}{ GRK:sigma}, {GRK:chi}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:theta}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:rho}{GRK:omicron}{ GRK:sigma}, {GRK:chi}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:theta}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:rho}{GRK:omicron}{ GRK:sigma}. Note: This Adept guards Tiphareth and tests the heart (which pertains thereto) for its purity. ({GRK:chi}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:theta} {GRK:alpha}{GRK:rho}{GRK:omicron}{GRK:sigma} = pure) six times; 6 being the number of Tiphareth. KHATAROS http://www.ajberga.es/turisme/camibh2_e.htm 850

AQ 165 = KATHAROS = COPULATE = DEHISCENCE - NOBODADDY = PAZUZU GON1 19 = MELEK TAUS = INTERLOCK = ORDEAL X = SHIA = WILLIAM = HOMOGENOUS CATALYST = METAL = INFINITE STARS = CONTINUITY OF EXISTENCE = LEMURIA = NOMADOLOGY that's the six vestal - transition metals i've been trying to explain... --these might help http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/l418/418.html http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/l418/aetyr15.html Nick Land: northanger - don't want to be total ratty bastard on this, but your Greek letter format is so inefficient its unbelievable - isn't there some way of doing weird fonts in comment boxes? if not, just the names would do northanger: nicklisten, spawn of satan, that's a direct quote from the online version of liber 418. Tachi: Northanger - I get the impression that you have degenerated into a numbojunky! Suggest you take a break and breath some fresh air in the Welsh hills. Your elf friends are probably missing you too ;) northanger: Tachi - i was a numbo-junky way before this. however, the nummificator must be a form of free-basing. Nick Land: that's a direct quote from the online version of liber 418 - may i please prostrate myself in a posture of utter abjection? i had never imagined the possibility that i might be questioning such a sublime authority - nick This is semiotically inexcusable garbage northanger, and you know it - Vauung PS. northanger - get a blog for fuxache - that security compound you're part of seems to get more inaccessible by the day (and there's so much interesting stuff there to quibble with) northanger: may i please prostrate myself in a posture of utter abjection? 851

yes. i had never imagined the possibility that i might be questioning such a sublime authority i was going for the 'attentive benevolent dictator', but 'sublime authority' has a ring to it. Valkator: OF course, this policy process of 'deforestation' -- making room for the mutated and castrated Self -- has a counterpart polarity that is not even acknowledged by Takfiris and, ironically, may 'appear' within the same 'unlight' as their own strategic modus operandus -- but moving those with Eyes to See toward an altogether different existential condition where the 'forest' appears as a single tree and the virus is easily spotted, exposed, and finally ejected -- cell by cell, naturally and with existing immunities carried within the cell itself. Examine US military strategy and the movement of its gamepieces. The choice will soon be made --- reverse infiltration and unassimiliation -- hastened by events that were already planned for. Chaos isn't a strategy when one is already understood. Strategic Takfiris? Only for the blind...who See nothing. 9 also equals a completed, manifested form. Hence, it is already 'dead' to Life...attempts to take all with it as its 'end' approaches. Resonance is, as they say, catching... Reza Negarestani: but moving those with Eyes to See toward an altogether different existential condition where the 'forest' appears as a single tree and the virus is easily spotted, exposed, and finally ejected -- cell by cell, naturally and with existing immunities carried within the cell itself. This only happens before diffusion when still there is a chance for extraction, but when assimilation is completed, the cryptogenetic structure of the viroid entity recomposes (not inducing itself as an alien entity or imposing itself upon the cell which irritates the system to trace, spot and finally cleanse the menace) the cell within itself and transcribes itself according to the cell. This process can be identified as overlapping which we discussed a while ago under the ‘Machines are digging’ piece. The Thing hunts in a similar way, it is not a predator but a machine of strategic survival which in its diseased struggle for survival, it countermines the system to overreact to any manifestation of survival as from now on, the system presupposes the equality or the mutual communication between ‘any instance of survival’ and ‘the epidemic distribution of the disease’ (Carpenter’s The Thing and von Trier’s 852

Epidemic). To this extent, decontamination is lethal, it is a hunting line that beside many other self-ruining symptoms is a suicide more than anything else. This process makes the system blind towards its own cells rather than guiding cells and the whole body according to a foreign (viral) politics ... diffusing / participating with the autonomy of the system, not trying to possess (characterized by authority) it. “If the Thing tries to survive at all costs then the survival as the passageway of the pest and the potential space of any function (whether associating to the pest or the immaculate host which passively renders a room for pestilential mechanisms i.e. giving the opportunity for survival to The Thing) must be blocked and extinguished”, the body whispers to itself. The Thing under hypercamouflage passes through the holes it digs into the voluntary / self-aware actions of the body (or the holes already available). When an entity overlaps over another one (without replacing or capturing it), it is nearly impossible to locate the mereologic address of that entity; methods of unassimilation or rejection are introduced to one mereologic address which both entities share (see Casati, Smith and Varzi’s account of mereologic address and the issue of overlapping in social and biological models ... their papers are available at the department of cognitive science and philosophy at Columbia University). Thank you very much for your comment (hope to see you here more often). BTW, on ‘9’: see The AOE and the Brotherhood (http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003844.html); http://www.cold-me.net/mb/messages/236.html of Nine also: Nick Land: Fascinating discussion (we've been getting a lot of very high quality dropin contributions recently). The trends explored here will obviously be decided 'on the battlefield' - but that increasingly means everywhere. The centrality of hypercamouflage to jihadi strategy is already having immense consequences, inducing a wave of 'retromilitarization' in State war machines, where 'teeth' flow back down the 'tail' in a process without obvious terminus (short of the fanging-up of the entire social body). Saddam Hussein's autodisassembly of his own war machine in the interests of a latent insurgency exemplifies this trend from one side, whilst the moves to harden up US logistics formations through armouring of vehicles and combat training for all personnel complements it from the other. 853

'Human rights concerns about killings of civilians could relevantly be extended from the empirical level to that of the transcendental, where the eradication in principle of all civilian populations is taking place. The very concept of 'the civilian' is becoming distinctly dated. (Virilio's analysis - despite betraying a somewhat antiquated perspective through terms such as 'endocolonization' - seems to have anticipated this trend). The US is especially interesting because it remains a 'peripheral' (even 'third world') society in certain respects, marked by a low domestic index of State monopolization of violence, thus allowing retromilitarization from the State pole to connect with an endogeneous paramilitarism already rooted in the 'civilian' population (armed vigilantism and militia movements). As far as militias are concerned, the world ain't seen nothing yet. Also intriguing that US/Iraq have comparable gun-control environments - perhaps more liberal in Iraq, where every citizen is entitled to own an automatic rifle. [When thinking about the Terminator mythos, note Sarah Connor and her weapons cache in the desert, as well as the Star-Wars-gone-feral dynamics on the other side.] Reza Negarestani: Nick, fascinating remarks (and polytically attractive for new lines) ... I’ll return to this for sure, after finishing all the archeological stuff Valkator: Very true, Reza. Once infected, the disease cannot be extracted through triage by an outside source that, due to the nature of an invading organism (not the target 'cell' itself) being able to 'recognize' one of its own (outside) -- which only sends the diseased cell (the micro-battlefield) into a suicidal rampage, projected outwardly, making the 'whole' of one's peception the battlefield. Coupled to the reality that all are potentially 'target cells', strategies of attacking the virus only increase the diffusion and spread of the 'thing' itself. My remarks presupposed the existence of 'healthy cells' who already 'Know', at least on an instinctual level. Therefore, the polarity alluded to is not, actually, bound or even primarily existing within the 'density of the diseased' -- though one with these 'Eyes to See' may freely enter into the 'diseased realm' and remain immune, also bedecked in 'camo', but with an entirely different 'mission' -- but not to 'save'. The distinction might be made between the cell itself, which is the 'target' - and the ontological orientation of that cell -- which determines one's trajectory vis-a-vis being infected or not. That one may orientate towards a 'not-to-Be' polarity (regardless of 854

'density') appears to be the prime factor that is considered when one becomes a target and/or host of the virus. The result: a terrestrial blackhole. I'm working my way through the '9' documents now, so I hope to comment on them after a little more reflection. 855

Just say No Nick Land (January 3, 2005) “It took me a while to understand what Jackson West meant by ‘The Free World.’ I confused this language with the rhetoric of political liberty. Eventually I realized: the only thing he’s interested in freeing is the military apparatus itself, ‘liberating’ it from civilian captivation. This is a vision that far exeeds any mere putschist aspiration to military government. It is far more insane than that. ‘Renomadization of the US War Machine’ – that’s how he described it, on more than one occasion. ‘Shrug off humanity like dirty slag in the kiln of war.’ Nobody with the slightest shred of political decency should hesitate to denounce this obscene teleology without reserve, as the most uncompromising affirmation of Omega-phase murderous barbarism. This man is an offense to the uniform he wears. He speaks and acts as if ‘freedom’ were no more than the capability to kill without inhibition in the name of a ferocious robotic monstrosity beyond the horizon of human intelligibility. If the Free World – the true Free World – has need of such abominable partisans, then our prospects are already guttering out into abysmal darkness.” - from the private correspondence of Donald McPatrick, GTVN embed with the US 3rd Infantry Division Comments: Just say No poetpiet: Why Don't They Like Us, Heinrich? http://haloscan.com/tb/digby/110531487933949229 http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_digbysblog_archive.html#110530523 220157514 famous hitler cartoon illustrated with history made by america I go: everybody likes you man, congrats. -------- I don't know you from the first frog, matter of fact, haven't much time for the item either yet but here goes on the merit of your CarToon, since I already wrote this before dawn today: Don’t deny the Holocaust, ask yourself what the Holocaust could possible have been (and or, shame, STILL be) 856

a denial of!? Trinity? If we are gonna have one, try make one work at all I’d suggest discovering the meshes, overlaps and leg ups between economics, statecraft and populism as the preferable version of body, soul and spirit (or reality, fancy and fantasy, whichever you prefer, as long as it don’t hit überdrive and spin into spoilage again like it’s been doin with judaism, christianity and islam plus many subsets thereof in both directions, moonphased bloodlettage and patrist propriety protocols both). Can’t imagine what I mean? Well, I ain’t gonna even attempt a broad brush runaway sentence this time, I’ll take the shortcut cop out option, time is .. . . ran up against a Haloscan comment limit here so tried again: Ok, not fair to tease yall this much, .. . .so .. .. . you can have it all the way (though you should leave off .. . . if you still, and of course, always while you still can, . .. . . really), I can’t think of a better place to point you to at the mo than one I will warn you (starlinkwatchers) about, it’s a cult clutter of depersonalization aureolatry .. . . http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004670.html Just say No “It took me a while to understand what Jackson West meant by ‘The Free World.’ I confused this language with the rhetoric of political liberty. Eventually I realized: the only thing he’s interested in freeing is the military apparatus itself, ‘liberating’ it from civilian captivation. Continue reading "Just say No" By the way this place numegrammatizes stagecraft thus: and statecraft thusly: . .. . .. (can’t think of a better way to gently break it to you there are proffies out in them there spawning, fawning and collusionary realms pretending to pry away principledly enough and as playfully as they can but since their mommies never let’m get dirty .. .well, .. .say no more .. . no .. .let me finish . . .here: . .. . who made a name writing about some poor french poopshooter trying to use, yoke and reckon with impersonal swarmlike unanimate forces such as dust, light, mist and the many beings to small and numerous to measure, measure up to and be responsible for for the likes of him, he never made it all the way to a clear concept of compost, not that he was insensitive to subtleties but living through the interbellum of old europe in an awful hurry and obsessed with human sacrifice one way or another), which brings me to the tie ins and ups between hormone levels confidence and reputation. There seem to basically be 2 ways to get an explosive mixture of 857

machoness to come to be (flinging and flailing itself) about: the ways Andrew Lehman describes (see his origin(s)ofautism site explaining effects of patrism (deceit, force, deprivation, etcetera) or plain momentum of great diet, hard work absorbed by an all to rich and elitely idle generation (prussian junckers). running short, I’ll do some so far dropped dead name dropping: Strauss, Spinoza .. . .no just kidding, the elitist and his state deifying forerunner (just bycause Strauss didn’t get the mechanics of the craft either and just went looking for all that weird people harmonizing power in personifications ((of power)), also with an eye to religion ((the vain hope to keep a dead man’s charisma alive)) are the type of level splitters and ghetto stackers I am polemicizing against (by way of contrasting peace throught trade, the latter only possible ‘on one’s good name’) here, it is of course, still, and very predictable for my regular readers (I should say most or max regular will not be very since I dish out the same old shit for foolhardy year after year, sets and flushes of them in fact): Knapp and Beckerath. A popular and or productive nation (specialized and or able to harness natural blessings without doing so to guarantee a long term effect) sees its money and what it stands for admired, used and consumed respectively. Great, . .. at least until temptation comes along and it will (the more unstoppably so if the rethoric would sound like Hitler’s, appealing to anger felt and resentment built) and be just as hacked in half and split asunder (he was very smack in the middle of an all too dizzyingly and bedazzlingly spectacular growing public eye (which gets split down the middle like the folks ((behind the folks behind that (((evil))) eye)) targeting .. . eh . . sorry, financing them are . . .split down the middle . .eh . .sorry, competently competitive) as those sailing under cover of their own shroud so to speak, the announcement of them being found out focussed on and about to be eliminated, in short their demise, this is where irony gets sick cynical and very deadly, I dare say semitic (the dutch have a civil war on their hands they will lose if they keep on willfully refusing to recognize this race and shake it off (quick) or dilute it (slow and very painful but who knows, it may cause Holland to shine in 2222. If by that time my nome de plume is still caged up on totally failed commercial endeavours like half baked directories sold to sex shops I’d be even more severely disappointed than I am seeing this with my still very own living eyes here and now, if Google can’t even stop that shit how are we going to stop the onslaught of 10 billion flavors of islamic apocalypticisms?). Cause even in a world of relatively perfect nations the übernational, mobile, too free for it’s own good and too selfish for freedom (as in socially setting free even the perfectly deadpatient non- and presentient) type of generic, untracealbe and what (wall have) ever (you fire) money 858

that pays the type of freedom fought for, over and bycause of will exploit tiny differences, the weak link to make stronger ones more like itself (give a bribe, get tax exemption, stratify the socially security to where it is an dangerous and relentless flogging thing instead of a safety net), it’s a desertification pyrusvirus, mireflush direplush, not to be confused with the hopelessly, ridiculously and dangerously corrupted certification hire plus .. .OK that’s it for taday planties, the ((th)ink)well is dry. Nick Land: poetpiet - no idea what the hell this is about yet, but it's cool as the 9th circle, probably evil, and definitely welcome as a 'contribution' - hope we're going to get more ... northanger: Why Don't They Like Us, Heinrich? http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_digbysblog_archive.html#110531487 933949229 Nick Land: I can't get blogspot (or typepad) here - it's quite annoying. Blundering bureaucratic randomness probably more oppressive than fine-tuned tyranny ... piet: yesterday german radio cast one of the most rapid and sharp native tongues (as yet owned by homegrower thereof: volker pispers who sports the looks of those that can boast of long and tough enough wasteland passage/survival) broad, I couldn't think of a better illustration for your last line nick. 859

And more West ... Nick Land (January 3, 2004) This just down the pipe from Undercurrent – no grip on its reliability yet, but it certainly raises eyebrows: “A colleague at the BBC turned up the following in a research file relating to a (subsequently spiked) anglo-american documentary co-production of 2000-1, working title "A Patriot Too Far"[sic]. This colleague had no involvement with the programme itself but worked through the file while conducting research for one of our middle-east correspondents recently. She has been following Hyperstition's disinterment of the West story, as have I, and although she cannot vouch for its verisimilitude, she considers that these notes may be of some interest.” [from the producer's notes] Following the storming of the US Embassy in Teheran in Nov. 1979, a student group began to publish documents seized from the building. These dossiers, published as "Documents from the US Espionage Den"[sic], included top secret material which the Americans, who had apparently been taken entirely by surprise, did not have time to shred or otherwise remove. Since the series runs to over fifty volumes, and includes routine bureaucratic memos and dubious 'espionage documents' reconstructed from shredder scraps, it is unlikely that anyone outside the intelligence services has reviewed them in their entirety. Our contact in Teheran draws attention to the minutes of a meeting of Nov 2 1978 that is collected in vol.56 , featuring someone referred to only as "West". Given this pseudonymity and the political sensitivity of the content it is unlikely we could use this text directly (legal have not yet given an opinion) but from the tone and content of "West's" remarks it would be difficult not to conclude that this is 'our' man. [...] WEST: Who's puppeting who? You made every stupid mistake possible, you created a monster and armed it to the teeth in the name of profit and some phony idea of stability and political alliance. These people see the light of freedom, and you respond by humiliating them, and still think you can contain the situation, you think you've got everything covered, but it's you guys who need to cut loose before it's too late. Kermit and the CIA lost control, the Shah has lost control, you guys've never controlled anything, no-one has control once the blob is free. You beat down 860

Mossadeq because you didn't want a red road through the mideast. Well, you're fighting yesterday's enemies. Black tentacles, gentlemen, that's what you should be worrying about. It doesn't even make sense to think about enemies anymore. And you think this place is friendly, your little island of stability? The blob is gonna unlock things you don't even want to dream about. [....] By taking pre-emptive action now we stay in the vanguard of escalation. Who knows how long we'll wait for another opportunity to get the American people behind us? Otherwise you fools can just waste another ten, twenty, fifty years in snivelling diplomacy, negotiations, deals with rug-merchants, and gradually letting the advantage slide. Pre-emptive action is the future, the future... SCH: If we could just tone down the apocalyptics some, I must repeat that all of the intelligence available to us at the present moment suggests the advisability of ongoing lines of communication with the Shah as the sole agency likely to command the means to maintain political stability and control of the military. It is unthinkable that any of these opposition factions will in the near future constitute anything more than a minor nuisance. We doubt very much whether Komeni [sic] commands the sort of power that is attributed him by certain fanatic elements. In sum, this is no time for talk of aggression, and with all due respect, [deleted], I can't help thinking that your presence here is unlikely to help our efforts to smooth things over and return to stability. WEST: Your stability is a joke, [deleted]. You're talking to a soldier here. Things can flip any minute, white to black, blink of an eye. Then it won't be your little island anymore, the shutters will come down, and the talk will be of alah and jehad[sic]. It's time to think the unthinkable, gentlemen, there's no room for manouevre. Either you exit and turn this place into a parking lot on the way out, or the whole region will be a weeping sore that good american soldiers will be wasted mopping up decades from now. Things have gone too far, it's time to make ourselves worthy of the 'great satan' ... "West's" intemperate and bizarre tirades throughout the first half of the meeting are brought to an end by a "WS," with the words : "You come on like a mad ayatollah, West, I do believe you've spent too much time smoking hashish with the Imams". Although this is presumably intended as a joke (admittedly one unbefitting a "diplomat") to defuse the tense atmosphere evident even in transcript, it might suggest that West had been tasked with some sort of ground-level intelligence861

gathering. However given the fog of disinformation, all-too-familiar to us, that surrounds West, it seems unlikely we will ever know who he was working for or whether his "opinions" were authorised or shared by any military or intelligence body. What does seem certain is that, if duly tolerated, he had no friend among those present at this meeting, and since "West" does not appear on any subsequent documents, we can assume that he left Teheran as little more than a figure of fun, an immoderate marginal. Nevertheless, on Nov 9 1978 the US Embassy would issue a momentous Telegram, tellingly entitled "Thinking the Unthinkable", and signaling a total reversal of their long-held position on the Iranian political situation (as articulated in the transcript by "SCH") . This switch, far too late to make any difference, thankfully fell far short of "West's" policy of a scorched-earth retreat and a opportunistic escalation of aggression (worryingly feasible, as "West" had suggested would be the case, given US public opinion over the coming hostage crisis). If, over the following year, a year that would end with the sacking of the Embassy, this embattled diplomacy (or "lack of nerve" as West would have it) served only to reveal the lamentable failings of US intelligence and the shortsightedness of their policies, it is impossible to say how much worse might have been the consequences of that unthinkable inhumanity advocated by "West", compared to our current political situation in which the dire prophecies of this militant madman have mercifully not come to pass. [New York, Aug 30, 2001] 862

Comments: And More West… Nick Land: Just have to take the first crack at this one. When I read this: "you created a monster and armed it to the teeth in the name of profit and some phony idea of stability and political alliance. These people see the light of freedom, and you respond by humiliating them" my first reaction was extreme suspicion. Nothing West-related I'd ever come across sounded remotely compatible with these kind of sentiments. But after looking more carefully I began to wonder whether they didn't serve as the greatest confirmation of authenticity, for at least three reasons: 1) These transcripts were produced by Iranian Khomeinists and would obviously be doctored to serve their ideological purposes, if West's words could be gently 'guided' in a direction suiting their purposes they would be. 2) After coming across McPatrick's remarks (forwarded to me anonymously) the twisting of 'freedom' into something alien and unrecognizable began to seem almost like a West signature. 3) What reason to think West would reject the principle of 'taqqiya' if it could be worked to an ulterior purpose conforming to his - still deeply obscure - strategic purposes? There are numerous reasons to think he considers the very existence of Shia Islam to be a 'faultline' in the Jihadi edifice (can see Reza going appropriately ballistic - or pestilential - over the expression 'Jihadi edifice' so I just can't bring myself to rectify it ;)). Anyway, it sure sounds BBC, so one level of credibility is pretty solidly chalked in from the start. Reza Negarestani: hey, i was just going to post this. :) ... but with more deleted / censored passages ;) undercurrent: West as freedom-fighter doesn't quite seem to fit (lol) but my question (forgive its naivety, not really been involved in the West saga so far, hence don't know why I am being targeted for unsolicited contribs) is, what exactly was/is West's position 'compatible with'? It seems almost every possible party has some more or less disavowed strategic overlap with his 'programme'. And what would 'freedom' mean to West exactly? 863

Nick Land: Reza - "... but with more deleted / censored passages ;)" - [seriously] after putting this up i was wondering whether it would be an electric cattle-prod issue for you - just let us know if you need stuff hacked out Undercurrent - "what exactly was/is West's position 'compatible with'?" - keep asking the same question, and all I get is hideous Terminator remixes ... ... and that's without factoring in 'the blob' undercurrent: having properly read through the other posts re. West, it doesn't seem impossible that hardline Islamic militants would want to build up (and perhaps partly fictionalise) West as a significant character, in order to constitute a mirror-image enemy of jihad, a worthy enemy or partner in escalation, a mutually-respectful nemesis - making an anti/hero out of him. (apologies Reza ;) This was just one meeting, but the persian mind is obviously oriented toward excavating sinister hidden factors (maybe West represented the 'real' US interest). But, if they had deliberately twisted his words, I would have thought they'd have made some capital of this rather than hiding it away in the 50th volume. Unless they hoped for someone in particular to find it? Nick Land: it doesn't seem impossible that hardline Islamic militants would want to build up (and perhaps partly fictionalise) West as a significant character, in order to constitute a mirror-image enemy of jihad, a worthy enemy or partner in escalation - utter concurrence from this 'analyst' undercurrent: in fact (don't want to de-stitionally deflate things but...) since the whole saga has the air of a psychotic hollywood-scriptwriter-turned-mad-mullah about it, is there any hard proof from reliable US sources that "west" existed? Nick Land: Undercurrent - as the hackneyed saying goes: if West didn't exist, it would be necessary to inevnt him (and with the BBC, CNN, and sundry other commentators thoroughly plugged in - we're talking serious black helicopters if the guy turns out to be an invention) undercurrent: Remaining entirely agnostic on the ontological implication of his 'invention,' it's a case of who had most need of inventing him, then. Well, without pre-judging the interests of global media organizations and various other parties, anyone wanting to explore the outer reaches of the 'Skynet scenario' 864

would have an obvious investment in West's extremity ... taking 'Renomadization of the US War Machine' as a key (re-read the D&Gon; War Machine essay with this in mind, and if it doesn't freak you at all, let me know ...) undercurrent: ah, the "net-centric warfare" beloved of Rumsfeld... Reza Negarestani: [seriously] after putting this up i was wondering whether it would be an electric cattle-prod issue for you - just let us know if you need stuff hacked out. Well, obv. this has been written by infidels so keep the post. (apologies Reza ;) This was just one meeting, but the persian mind is obviously oriented toward excavating sinister hidden factors (maybe West represented the 'real' US interest). lol ... wait and see what Jay has stored for West. those hidden factors have already begun to work, btw. Nick Land: Undercurrent - if you think we're only talking Rumsfeld you really haven't even started to walk the plank ... the truly provocative thing about West is that he diagonalizes - he doesn't expect 'the enemy' to concede to anything, in fact, he affirms their refusal to compromise. That is why continuous incoherent rumours about his 'alliance with the jihadis' perpetually re-emerge, with no relation whatsoever to BBCesque sympathies with the supposedly underlying political grievances to jihadi agitation - my strong expectation is that West (despite his almost inexpressibly offensive position) has a far more intimate relation to the cultural 'logic' of jihad than multicult Western liberalism could imaginably reach - he respects an enemy the BBC will never understand, because West wants the jihad to become stronger - for 'reasons' diverging radically from (overt) Jihadi objectives - (and if Rumsfeld wants anything remotely akin to that he is even more interesting than I had ever suspected). Reza - As long as you're not being brave just to make a point ;) u/c: your strength is my strength Reza Negarestani: Nick, Bravery is a scarlet letter marked on West’s soldiers to serve; for Jay courage is a redundancy, a deterrence in the un-manned journey to the End of the River. I may publish a few passages from the journal of one of Jay’s puppet in the next few months. Be patient ;) 865

Before logging-off; my apologies for horrible illiteracy; was wondering who the hell Hulugu is (apart from West’s nickname). I just found out you mean Holaku Khan, the spelling has been terribly but excitingly mangled in English (on name-anomalies see: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004335.html). Needless to say: I prefer Hulugu. Should add Holaku khan finally turned into a faithful Muslim (and all his successors), he constructed many magnificent mosques in iran over what he had ruined before. This might be a good historic lesson for West. ;) Nick Land: Reza - "This might be a good historic lesson for West" - sure, whatever keeps the pot-heads happy ;) Undercurrent - your strength is its strength ... and then there's 'the blob' (a quite different 'it' - i think (!?)) u/c: re-read the D&Gon; War Machine "From the standpoint of the state, the originality of the man of war, his eccentricity, appears in a negative form:stupidity...madness...illegitimacy..." Hmm, I know a president like that...I _hope_ this isn't what you're trying to tell us... Nick Land: Undercurrent - politicians don't count - thinking more along the (paraphrased) 'States always have problems with their war machines ...' lines u/c: politicians don't count. nominee : nomadological pun of the month Skynet Reza Negarestani (January 4, 2005) 866

Skynet and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency79 Nick, certainly, has a lot to say about Skynet. Comments: Skynet DigitalDjigit: Have you heard about the robots that power themselves by eating flies? http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/12/27/explorers.ecobot/index.html Nick Land: Understand Undercurrent's 'net-centric-warfare' comment much better now - sweet dream everyone There's something so fantastically and preposterously innocent about the opening lines: "You'd think that the Department of Defense would heed the warning in the Terminator movies and try not to build anything like Skynet ..." [As if Skynet would let them stop] Think this guy goes off the rails by sticking too closely to the most diversionary aspect of the Skynet scenario - viz, nuclear Armaggedon. EMP is the last thing an electronic intelligence grid wants to play around with. The actual military trend is much more intriguing: precision, forensic targeting, warhead miniaturization, surgical warfare and robotic tactical predator machines within the general context of counter-insurgency operations. Biotechnical elements might also be expected to play a much more important role. The Thing ('Skynet' (a qabbalistically unconvincing term)) might not be soft, but it is certainly extremely exact. u/c: The actual military trend Takfirobotics, perhaps? (sorry, in flippant mode for a few days now..) northanger: AQ 304 = MYSTERY OF UTI = INDIRECT APPROACH = SKYNET SCENARIO = INTREPRETOSIS = TAKFIRI CULTIST AQ 80 = N.O.X. = CHINA = IPV6 = KODE9 79 http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2003/0307/How%20Close%20Is%20Judgement%20Day/Review.h tm 867

-vecyklonik: Nuclear armageddon is decidely the diversionary control tactic to move us away from other potentialities. Skynet technologies are likely to evapourate into nanotech/bacterial/pheromonal/mycological control and monitoring processes, via vapourware, immuno-engineering and quantum telecoms. Dissidents will die Bangutot style in their beds with no warning or Commissar breaking down the door. Utter precision down to the micro-biological scale and beyond. Utter invisibility, utter malignancy, well, for those who do not decontaminate, (if they know what they can decontamiate from). Or at the very least change networks, after all control eschatologies, i.e. what we are are talking about, have a tendency to multipicity, esp. after it becomes apparent what the overarching imperialial vectors are, were, or indeed will be. The emergent intelligences will manage to operate, in a insurgent sense, typical of a controlless environment. But there is definately no sense in a predator killing it all of its own preystock, any renomadised state war machine must stay active. Nick Land: -vecyklonik - complete agreement from me, we're definitely reading off the same page. This also very insightful point: "no sense in a predator killing it all of its own preystock" -'Skynet' in one aspect a 'viral parasite' taking over the production resources that are today nominally controlled by human political institutions of all types, scales and degrees of formality. If nukes get used, most likely to be a desperate human defensive reaction, or some kind of elaborate and tightly circumscribed diversionary tactic jd: Don't know if anyone still checks the comment boxes for the older posts, but I thought I should add this incase nobodies seen it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4199935.stm HKs are a go. Hyperstitional Method I. Nick Land (January 7, 2004) As anyone who has been following our fragmented discussion of hyperstitional method is already aware, Tachi has been raising a wide range of questions about the 868

structure and organization of hyperstition as a research and production programme and about the potential arrangement of this site. These suggestions in some cases dovetail with requests from other contributors – especially as regards easily accessed introductory material – and in others conflict with arguments others have made, particularly in relation to emerging controversies about inherent problems of methodological meta-discussion and exclusion of ‘irrelevant’ interventions. This post is primarily designed to open up a discussion thread. Rather than giving a detailed appraisal of Tachi’s elaborate suggestions and organizational model (divided into no less than 7 sections) - no doubt to be discussed within a more extended timeframe - it will instead offer a drastically simplified thematic ‘map’ of the activity taking place so far, in the hope of eliciting feedback and counter-proposals. The following remarks are guided by Tachi’s questions/suggestions. One reason to favour a crudely simplified scheme at this stage is that ‘organizational models’ inevitably crystallize agendas. Since hyperstition is already in motion, and experimentalism seems to be its least contested feature, the imposition of doctrinal regularity should be treated with extreme caution. Anything that can be eliminated from the stock of core presuppositions should be. It could be argued that this site’s greatest ‘progress’ has been eliminative: abstracting the hyperstitonal enterprise from contestible agendas – however ‘obvious’ these may seem to particular participants – thus inducing an emergent minimalism. Consider two examples. 1) Political ideology. Hyperstition is methodically inextricable from a ‘polytics’ or promotion of multiplicity. The consequences of this commitment, however, remain profoundly uncertain. Attempts to build recognizable ideological agendas into the core principles of hyperstition – ‘hyperstition is pro/contra capitalism’ being the most obvious case – simply degenerate into pointless slagging matches far better suited to an alternative venue. This is not to suggest that hyperstitional practitioners lack - often passionate – politico-economic agendas. It is simply to note that when such agendas attempt to establish themselves in the hyperstitional ‘command core’ of basic principles or procedures they immediately take on a futile dialectical character. The nature of the capitalism/hyperstition relationship remains essentially undecided and attempts to force a conclusion have been blatantly unsuccessful. 2) Antihumanism. Since hyperstition is a pragmatics of depersonalization and artificialization it might seem natural to identify it with polemical antihumanism. This 869

identification, too, has proven to be superfluous and self-destructively controversial. Anyone willing to experimentally participate in hyperstitional puppetry is able to comply with all necessary procedural requirements, irrespective of any broader agenda in regards to the future of human subjectivity, machinic insurgency, Cthulhu cultivation or the love of Jesus. One response to such a ‘polyminimalist’ position – favoured in this post – is to promote the greatest possible loosening of a key hyperstitional concept: that of carriers. At one extreme, carriers are well-articulated fictions able to convey a plausible sense of integrity and thus mimic a range of ‘hoax-type' effects. At the other extreme, proposed as a norm here, they are units of systematic relativization that function as sinks for ‘eccentric agendas.’ The term ‘eccentric agenda’ is being coined technically here, to cover an immense terrain, namely: every hypothesis, belief, emotion or commitment that can be evacuated from the principles of hyperstitional activity. The elementary function of carriers is to eliminate extraneous norms from hyperstitional practice. Carriers are the tools of hyperstitional autodisindoctrinization. To consolidate this trajectory, hyperstition has to radically desophisticate carrier production. A ‘carrier function’ is satisfied by elementary propositions of such types as: ‘There are those who might say …’ ‘Imagine an X holding that …’ ‘A conceivable position on this question might be …’ ‘What if someone felt that …’ ‘There could be a being wanting …’ ‘It might be thought …’ With the pragmatic tagging of such carrier-positions in no way necessitating elaborate fictionalizations, let alone quasi-credible hoaxing. All this being said, a minimalistic schema of hyperstitional activity might have three basic divisions: 1) Hyperstitional Doctine. The assumed impetus here is eliminative. Can anything that has been treated as axiomatic be deducted from the set of ‘essential’ hyperstitional 870

tools/principles? A series of ‘methodological appendices’ collects potentially functional but inessential procedural assets. Lemurian Hyperstition, based on the preeminence of the Numogram and decanomic decoding – and associated qabbalistic techniques - belongs here, but in a continuously self-problematizing position. Defining questions: What is Hyperstition? How does it work? What are its essential procedures? 2) Hyperstitional Analysis. This has been a relatively neglected dimension of the Hyperstition blog to date, but there is no obvious theoretical basis for this. Phenomena such as Apocalyptic Monotheism, Magick, Capitalism, Science Fiction … [‘random’ examples at this stage] and many others intrinsically involve the operationalization of virtualities, or ‘fictions that make themselves real.’ Even if programmatic hyperstition had no ‘engineering’ ambitions whatsoever, the existence of hyperstition as an analytical apparatus would still be legitimated by this ‘efficacy of potentials.’ 3) Hyperstitional Production. The puppet theatre of carrier construction. Using hyperstitional procedures systematized in (1) above to investigate phenomena of all kinds within a polytical pragmatic framework. This dealt with at a methodological level in the series of ‘Hyperstitional Carriers’ posts, and practically exemplified elsewehere. OK, enough for now … discuss. [Apologies to Tachi for everything not yet touched upon] Comments: Hyperstitional I. Nick Land: I always end up with that pompous tone when i'm trashed out of my head Maetl: Just dropping some notes/concepts that could be relevant... One reason to favour a crudely simplified scheme at this stage is that ‘organizational models’ inevitably crystallize agendas It could be worth considering organizational models in terms of cybernetic entities, abstract machines. The organization is a totality comprising collective relationships of production. Capitalist/scientific/20th century organizations tend to be based on regulated channels of communication. For any transmitter in this system, its capacity of regulation cannot exceed its capacity as a channel of communication. This is known 871

as the Law of Requisite Variety. Outcomes can be treated as units. One the one hand, many models make the mistake of seeing the organization as a closed system, and mis-understanding the resulting entropy of the system. On the other hand, the heirachical/regulated tree structure imposes a massive restriction on the potentiality and variety of production/relationships. But if channels of communication were deployed based on the unique properties of carriers, rather than trying to push all carriers through a single regulation mechanism, then a different sort of organization might be possible. Also note that certain strands of computational science are moving away from 'classical' models of binary logic, towards membrane systems ('in'/'out') comprising multiple levels of nesting / passthrough operations (one membrane consumes/wraps itself around another)... A computation in this model is an interaction which changes the nesting order/interconnection of in/out relationships of membranes inside membranes. Nick Land: maetl - thanks for massively interesting comment. In the context of your wider remarks, this is extraordinarily helpful: "if channels of communication were deployed based on the unique properties of carriers, rather than trying to push all carriers through a single regulation mechanism, then a different sort of organization might be possible" Those who've been through the D&G; mill tend to react to 'organization' with immediate suspicion, but i'd certainly be very open to the more 'positive' (decentralized and adaptive) model you sketch here. Tachi: Nick, excellent and timely post. Thanks for reference to my questions on the matter of method, etc, though I think this is an issue, or set of issues, that would have arisen at some point anyway. I like the way you have focused on Hyperstitional activity, rather than site arrangement, even though they are inevitably linked as long as the site is the locus of activity. The site should be driven rather than driving, as much as possible. Eliminative Hyperstition - This is very important IMHO, since there is the risk of pointless conflict at the axiomatic level if we are misled into thinking that we need to clarify and establish axioms - fundamental premises - to Hyperstition before we can start. 872

However, I sympathise with those that seek a clarification of what the 'core' axioms are, since, at least in a deductive sense, I guess they could be identified from what is going on. My take, probably similar to yours, is that what you have described as a set of useful but inessential ‘methodological appendices’ - Numogram, etc - will guide 2. (analysis) and 3. (production). In any case, analysis and production will develop themselves without needing to refer back to an axiomatic bedrock, perhaps, in fact, feeding back into procedural consistencies and methodological tools. I think the general division between doctrine, analysis and production works well, but nitpicking over the name of 'doctrine, I would rather see something like 'principles' or 'procedures'. The wording isn't the really important thing, but what is important is that this first section is clearly related to the concept of Hyperstition, and that this concept involves a set of procedures or principles and should not be conflated, though related to, axiomatic positions such as anti-humanism. Like a section dedicated to analysis of 'real' hyperstitional activity - ie. that taking place independent of our efforts to artifi[...]e its production ourselves. Think that analysis and production may, hoever, at some point bleed into each other, but that is not a problem from MPOV. Think that we can learn a lot from this kind of hyperstitional activity for our own project (3.). Enough from me for now. Thanks for raising these crucial issues. Think as someone else quite rightly put it, we don't want to appear like an exclusive bunch of intellectual cultists. Nick Land: Just say for now is that I think I'm in agreement with all the points Tachi makes here, certainly 'doctrine' is a disposable term (chosen just to foster the eliminative spirit) and the agenda for more helpful 'guide' type material - easily accessed from the sidebar - seems obviously right - hope we can thrash some of this out concretely over the next few weeks pin: And then there was silence ... Nick Land: pin drop - been a spookily quiet weekend, that's for sure ... Tachi: Nick, do you think we've scared everyone away by drawing attention to method? Even the trolls are eerily absent. Perhaps people are busy pondering on the intricacies of Hyperstitional method and its ethos? ('Methos' works well here I think) 873

Nick Land: Tachi - patience! -vecyklonik: No, no, no...I'm quite intrigued. In fact, you've all got me intriged reza, northanger, undercurrent et al. I've just got a shitload of reading to do. I sat and read the Hyperstitional Carriers pieces last night, I now have permanent retinal line imprints from doing so. Though it does get a bit wearisome reading through troll passages. Going back over older CCRU stuff too in an attempt to refresh my memory. :) northanger: permanent retinal line imprints (lol!) -vecyklonik, i have eyedrops for that - it's one of the hyperstitional hazards they don't tell you about around here. Nick Land: pin drop - OK, I'm almost persuaded ... u/c: __________[flatlines] Nick Land: u/c - this 'restraint' thing is obviously catching ... kind of imagined northanger would be immune, but what do i know? Tachi: We need a carrier for Hyperstitional *method* ... Nick Land: Tachi - yes, been thinking along the same lines myself - actually, probably need several. Worth noting that carriers scale up to artificial cultures / species (/universes?) so they don't need to be anthropomorphic (although, of course, there's no reason why they shouldn't be if that makes them easier to use). northanger: kind of imagined northanger would be immune, but what do i know? what now, nicholas? Tachi: Nick - interesting point there re. anthropomorphization of carriers - just not sure how any carrier could propagate the collective elaboration of a methodology, or at the least the dynamic development of one .. northanger: an.thro.pomo.r.phiz.a.tion 874

:( Nick Land: Tachi - they're best at making suggestions, often through elaboration of obscurely motivated pattern systems ... northanger - cheer up, it could easily have been 'disanthropomorphization' northanger: hey nick, where's the ccru? Tachi: "northanger - cheer up, it could easily have been 'disanthropomorphization'" that was exactly my question as i sent the post. hmm. northanger: reza-bumped into this: http://www.renaissance.com.pk/jafelif986.html Classification of Hadith or Khabar The Muhaddithin divide Hadith or Khabar into two main classes: 1. Khabar-i-Tawatur (multiple evidence Hadith) 2. Khabar-i-Wahid (single evidence Hadith) KHABAR-I-TAWATUR - Khatib Baghdadi, the author of "al-Kifayah fi`ilm alRiwayah"2 defines Khabar-i-Tawatur as follows: It is that Khabar which is quoted by such a large number of persons that in normal circumstances it is impossible that on a manifest subject so many people would, at one and the same time, agree on a false matter, when there is no evidence of any pressure on them too. ...to me, Khabar-i-Tawatur sounds like (don't know how to say) something factual? accepted as true? if yes, then, how does this relate to hyperstition? Nick Land: northanger - "where's the ccru?" - Lurking in the deep jungles of the virtual u/c: u/c - this 'restraint' thing is obviously catching . I know you're trying to provoke me. 875

I'm tending undercurrent's patch of ascii-flux for a moment. Nick Land: u/c - you're on fire over at your place! really drawing a lot of inspiration from what you're up to there at the moment ... u/c: I was searching for something on nash qabbala to add to the last one - did you manage to find anything? The film is irritatingly vague when it comes to method (perhaps for public health reasons) Nick Land: u/c - there was an article in a magazine that gave all the necessary info, but it was a while ago ... (racking brains) Pretty sure I remember the principle though - essentially D26 but using standard place-value arithmetic and cashed out into HA numerals (so words represented relatively large numerical values) - think position worked according to Oecumenic conventions too (or i'd have noted/remembered deviance), descending D26 powers from left-right. Numbers were then processed arithmetically, especially factorized to extract primes - subsequent analytical procedures left undiscussed ... Nash qabbala seems to have definitely been a mathematical genius' own private schizo hobbyhorse, rather than part of a recognizable qabbalistic tradition u/c: is that supposed to make it more or less interesting?! It'd be interesting to know exactly what he thought he was finding, anyhow. Nick Land: u/c - interesting for sure (IMHO), not clear what the reference point is. There's a delirium of sheer pattern (which you're fully aware of) where the discovery of a vault of systematizable but unanalysed data overwhelms critical reflexes - when the AIs arrive (with comparatively unlimited processing power, especially viz predigitized (alphanumeric) material that scarcely registers in multimedia space) they're going to have a lot of fun ... northanger: IMHO, there is a way to structure mind & stop it from "seizing" when dealing with overwhelming pattern by allowing limited pattern recognition until the "seize ratio" decreases; therefore, allowing processing range to increase and (ironically) stabilize the mind's ability to function at a higher level. Nick Land: northanger - guess that's what natural selection did to us ... 876

Renomu Nick Land (January 9, 2005) [Audio track from a video tape of a conversation between two unidentified field interrogators ‘Jill’ [‘Q1’] and ‘Sam’ [‘Q2’] and Corporal Mohammed Hussain [‘MH]’ seconded from 3ID to West’s 709th SOG north of Mosul in June 2003. The recording seems to have been made sometime in the summer of 2004. The interrogation technique - a spectacularly crude ‘good cop / bad cop’ routine - suggests that the personnel involved were at a low level of the command chain, without specialist training. [Warning: contains coarse language] Q1: You understand the seriousness of the charges you are facing Corporal? MH: Yes I do. Q1: Desertion in the face of the enemy is a capital offense, you understand that? MH: Yes I understand that. Q2: So we know you were heading out to help your muj buddies? MH: You don’t know that. You’ve got it all wrong … Q2: Don’t give us that takki shit Hussein, we’ve got your number … Q1: Let me deal with this for the moment Sam, OK? Look, Mohammed, you could be in very serious trouble here … MH: You don’t know anything about this. Nothing! I’ve always been a faithful American … Q2: Your kind of fucking treacherous scum make me sick Hussein … Q1: Cool it Sam, just cool it a moment. … Corporal I understand it can’t be easy for anyone called Mohammed Hussain in the military right now. You must get a lot of strange looks. We’re just trying to work out what’s been happening here, OK? If you’ve been treated badly we want to know about it. MH: What about him? Does he just want to ‘know about it’? 877

Q2: I want to put a piece of .38 cal right into your stinking muj-loving cranium you piece of shit, and you know what … Q1: Hey, Sam, just give us a chance, OK? Q2: You’re protecting this asshole now Jill. I’ll tell you something, I’ve got dead and crippled buddies singing in my brain, and you know what they’re telling me? If this lying heap of garbage isn’t talking in 5 fucking minutes he’s coming outside where me and my pals want to get familiar. Q1: Just a chance, OK? … Corporal, you really need to start explaining what’s been going on here, because there are some very angry people … Q2: Too fucking right! MH: This is so fucking stupid! You think I have some sympathy with the mujaheddin? They’ve been shooting at us, blowing up our humvees, you think I like them now? You think just because I’m a Muslim … Q1: So what was it all about Corporal? MH: It was about West. About that goddamn psycho, he’s a madman! Really, before Allah I swear to you, West is bad news, bad for us, bad for America, his thinking is really … it’s really wrong, you know? Before Allah I swear this to you. I would never betray the guys, betray America, I love America, truly, you have to believe me … Q1: Trouble is Mohammed, you went AWOL with your weapon, and it seems to us you were aiming to make contact with the enemy. MH: No, no, I swear to you, you have it all wrong. I’m proud of this uniform, my parents are proud, I’d never shame them. It’s West. Your problem is West, I swear. Q2: OK Jill, it’s over. Hussain, you had your motherfucking chance, guess what? You blew it. I’m going to enjoy executing you personally you treacherous piece of crap … Q1: Just 5 more minutes Sam, just cool it, we’ve got all night if we need it. MH: Please, please, I have nothing to hide, but you wouldn’t believe … Q2: What wouldn’t we believe you muj cocksucker? Q1: Hey, 5 minutes. 878

Q2: My watch is fucking ticking. Every second this motherfucker breathes oxygen is a second too long. MH: Send him away, then I’ll talk … Q2: Just keep wasting time asshole, ‘cos sure as hell you don’t have much of it … MH: OK, OK, this is such stupid shit, you want to know? You want to know, I’ll tell you, I’m so sick of this shit. You’re not interested in the truth, but you know what? I’ll tell you the truth, then you can call me a liar and shoot me, and you know what? I don’t care anymore about this fucking shit … Q1: Just explain what happened Corporal. MH: It was West. You know him right? That crazy fucking bastard, you know him? After Baghdad fell they said an interpreter was needed for some special operations in the north. My parents taught me good Arabic so I volunteered, OK? I fucking volunteered to help that madman. They took me in a helicopter and already it was strange. They were West’s people and I felt bad about them very quickly. Their humour was all fucked up, you know? I was a fucking liberator until I got onto that fucking helicopter. I’ve always loved America … Q2: Cut the shit Hussain … Q1: Give him a chance Sam … MH: Just listen! For god’s sake just listen to me you idiots! I’m so sick of these fucking stupid games. I’ll tell you everything and then you can fucking shoot me you stupid bastards. So when I left 3ID the war was over, and now there’s some new war and West is bringing me documents all the time, and I’m helping to interrogate prisoners, and we talk a lot, me and West, about Arabic words, political ideas, religious ideas, stranger and stranger things. No one sleeps enough, as if we’re on some big final push, you know, a final effort – they’re all taking pills, speed, lots of speed, but so much drugs, hashish, opium, except the Colonel – West – he seems to stay clean, and I try too, except eventually I need the pills just to function, you know? They’re using up their reserves of energy, maybe one/two hours sleep a night, as if it’s all about to end, but it just goes on and on. Q2: What goes on? 879

MH: This little war, this private fucking war of West’s, and you know what? I don’t think it’s ever going to end. Because I’m an American soldier, you know? I fought to liberate this country, and what we were told about that, then what West told us, those things weren’t the same. Maybe at first they might seem the same, but slowly, steadily, they drifted apart, further and further. West didn’t want the war to end, not ever. But he spoke to me, and I understand the special thing people feel for him. He’s not an ordinary man. He changed me. Q2: Changed you? MH: He taught me things, and you know what? You know fucking what? They’re things I didn’t want to learn. Things no one should ever learn. Unamerican, inhuman things. Q2: You’re wasting our time Hussain. Q1: Sam! Seriously, shut the fuck up … Corporal, what things? MH: So you’re interested now you stupid bitch! Like you’re going to believe me … Q1: Corporal … Q2: OK Hussain, that’s it, make your peace with the fucking moongod, we’re going outside … Q1: For fuck’s sake Sam … MH: Fuck you stupid assholes … Q1: Corporal, just finish the story. MH: Who cares, right? It’s all lies and madness, right? I’ll tell you … Q1: So tell us. MH: Renomu. Q1: Re- what? MH: Renomu, he told me about Renomu. He told me a lot about it, night after night, how the military was ‘freeing itself’ … and then … Q1: And then? 880

MH: And then it got a lot stranger. It became harder and harder to resist what he was saying, I don’t know why, it all fitted together, that the President was just a puppet, that civilians wouldn’t matter soon, stuff I knew was very wrong, unamerican, that it was time to discard inhibiting ideas, that we’d been misled about the nature of time, that the war was our god … Q1: Mohammed, you have to slow down. Q2: This is such bullshit. MH: Every night, after working through the documents, he’d talk to me, like he was in a trance. I was so tired, but after a while that wouldn’t matter any more, it was like hypnotism I guess, it was horribly … pure … truly, I feared for my soul. I’ve tried to be a good Muslim, but there was a voice, it said: ‘you know he’s a prophet.’ You wouldn’t understand. That’s an evil thing. I thought Satan had found me, but it was Renomu. Q2: This Renomu dude again? MH: It was Renomu, speaking directly to me, and that meant everything West had said was true … it was too horrible. Too horrible. This was the end of America, the end of everything – the end of God. I had to go … Q1: Go? MH: I had to go. This wasn’t about anything I believe in, anything you stupid assholes believe in – it was Renomu. Q1: Mohammed, please, it’s really not easy to follow what you’re saying … Q2: Time’s up you muj-loving motherfucker we’re heading outside … Q1: Sam! MH: Go on, kill me you morons! You think anything scares me after West? After Renomu? These stupid games, it’s such shit. You think you can put a gun to my head and learn the secrets of Renomu? Grow up you stupid little children. Shoot me. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Q2: You know Hussain, that attitude could lead to major cranial trauma. MH: I don’t care. Assholes. Play your stupid games. 881

Q1: Sam, seriously, let’s try and get what we can here. … Look, Corporal, I’ll be straight with you, this seems seriously fucked up stuff. Maybe you need medical help, I don’t know. Amphetamines can be very destructive drugs. And if you’re hiding stuff about links with the mujaheddin … MH: Fuck the mujaheddin, this isn’t about them … Q1: Really, Sam, back off a little, OK? Q2: OK. We’ll do it your way, for a while. Q1: Corporal, this ‘Renomu’ thing …? MH: The sleep deprivation, the pills, they damaged my soul. I know that. Renomu’s voice … I’ve tried to understand. Maybe it was just sickness. But it made sense, abominable sense, more than anything I’ve ever known. I’ve tried to be a good Muslim, a good American … Q1: Just try to explain Mohammed, help us here, what is ‘Renomu’? MH: I will, I’ll try to help you. You’re fools, but I was a fool too, before, before West, I understand. I understand that. Maybe it was just the pills, but the pills came from Renomu, Renomu stole our sleep, Renomu sent West to us, Renomu sent us bags of dried ears and scattered them on our desks, Renomu sent us weapons, papers, prisoners, Renomu re-ordered our souls. ‘Read the American Constitution backwards and it will lead you straight to Renomu,’ that was what West said. Even then, from the beginning, I knew I’d have to go, get away, either go or be taken to the worst place in the world. The truth about Renomu? Well you should know … [transcript ends [sort of annoyingly]. 882

Comments: Renomu codlin: first, RENOMU is NUMERO scrambled. second, vauung (strung out, emaciated, grubby toe'd, heroin addict that he is) has a nasty habit of anonymouslyviolently inserting-exhuming hisself in sycho-strange-syriatic places. heard he was mohommed's willing (but of course, wretched) concubine. Nick Land: codlin - already impressed by the analytical skills - I'd assumed 'Renomu' was an abbreviation for 'Renomadization of the US War Machine' - so much to learn, so little time ... codlin: nick - analytical skills? amoralist. COLDRATIONALISM is AI NOMADIC TROLL unscrambled (rethink MKP). mohammed went AWOL when west's documents disappeared. Nick Land: codlin - qabbalistic panache can make you paranoid (masked message mania) "mohammed went AWOL when west's documents disappeared" - this could be right though, obviously quite a murky 'biznes' codlin: nick - I know IR is the ISO country code for IRAN; IR is Iran's ccTLD; and IR is the abbreviation for IRIDIUM. have also heard of IRIAL FAIDH and know the RII gene is susceptible to mutation because of its unique 10–base pair coding region (+ RII abrogates the formation of tumors). however, have yet to figure out what all of this has to do with SET and TYPHON. all of that went AWOL with west's papers. Nick Land: codlin - "have yet to figure out what all of this has to do with SET and TYPHON. all of that went AWOL with west's papers" - why is it i feel a hideous scream building from deep in the thoracic region? Hammer together a new carrier codlin, it won't take long ... (command control might even allow it a brief meeting with West, although that's looking highly unlikely at this point) northanger: nick - are you always so grumpy in the morning? nice post - one of your better ones. NICK = I SATAN, NITRO FORTH NIHIL 883

or, NICK = I SATAN, NITRO FORTH THE NIHIL Nick Land: northanger - doesn't add much except a word ('Skynet' was getting intolerable) - but at least there's no overt sign of Set or Typhon ;) Not entirely getting the latest equations - hours of study evidently required. If you have any contact with codlin, could you ask about the obscure MKP remark? [PS. Great stuff on your site recently] northanger: nick - don't know codlin. i was coming in as mark was going out, so i'm not sure about codlin's "obscure MKP remark" - but i noticed that AI NOMADIC TROLL is missing an "S". codlin's second one, hmm... mine? let me go get something to drink and i'll explain it to you, brb "[PS. Great stuff on your site recently]" - gracias! Mizraim: maybe it's NOMADIC AI TROLLS? northanger: yeah, a pun on the whole troll thing. nick, ever notice the gematria for the IPs here? “Troll Alert” 81.135.134.22 - 213.122.197.13 - 81.135.3.171 - 213.122.142.213 = 116 = MACHINE Nick Land: Ok with the Nomadic AI Trolls, not at all sure whether to 'nitro forth' conveys much intelligible content ... (nor what that whole expedition into schizolexia adds up to) northanger: I SATAN, NITRO FORTH THE NIHIL = THE THIRST FOR ANNIHILATION sorta has this schopenhauerian intensity to it, interiorized magic in the making ... totally hyperstitional too. gwendolyn: maybe what this whole post is about: mysteries wrapped in riddles inside an enigma. 884

colonel west is sure interesting, when is the other shoe going to drop? Nick Land: northanger - I'm supposed to fly into indignant rage at this point, but one thing nobody can deny: that book sure nitroed forth the nihil, quite Satanically I might add gwendolyn - Reza's supposed to be zagging my zig Do all computers get decorated with those wacky 'hotbars' now, with a set of icons for related topics? Lots of little tanks here recently thanks to Hulugu (Mohammed's grilling this time earns War / Games / Arabic / Drugs / Military - but maybe everyone can see that for themselves - if not, I'll be boring people with it endlessly). northanger: "fly into indignant rage" - ah, keep your jockstrap on "that book sure nitroed forth the nihil, quite Satanically I might add" -- don't be getting a big head now Nick Land: northanger - "don't be getting a big head now" - 14 years down the Herakleitean flux (equivalent to two successive 'life' prison sentences in the UK) I couldn't even justify a big shrug Thinking about Mo.'s cryptic US constitution remark last night - can't say I really get it, but was wondering whether it's connected to the fact that the second amendment actually makes State monopolization of violence unconstitutional - thus blocking the mainline modernization of American governance ('civilianization' of the social body)? Maybe some more frags of this transcript will show up - Reza telling me there might even be some stills from the video floating around ... northanger: well, reading that thing backwards seems like a necromantic situation, if you ask me Nick Land: northanger - expecting you to have qabbalized American political history into smoking debris by tomorrow morning northanger: lol, american political anything is doing a fine job of things w/o my qabbalistic assistance. ;) Nick Land: how would it know? thingy-jig: 'it'? you don't mean the, the, the *thing*, do you? 885

when is the sequel to the 'thirst' coming out? am looking forward to the 'the hunger of the number'. northanger: AQ 242 = RECOUNT OHIO = SEASONED SALT = COLONEL WEST = INTELLECTUAL GON1 11 = RECOUNT OHIO = A JUST WEIGHT = DEFINITION OF SUPPLIER = ECHIDA STILLWELL = EPHEMERAL PASSING = HACKER GON2 8 = RECOUNT OHIO = BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT = GOD = DEFINITION OF USER = GOD'S GREAT PLAN = RANDOMIZED PERMUTATION ANALYSIS D26 FC = RECOUNT OHIO = COLONEL WEST = COMPLEXITY = FLIPPANT WAY = LIGHTNING FLASH = NINETY-THREE = THE WHITE BEAST CXV 65 = RECOUNT OHIO = ABHORRENT = ENTRANCE = INVERTED = LUMINOUS = SERPENT = GREAT VOID = THEY HAVE THE HALF = YOG-SOTHOTH XIV -92 = RECOUNT OHIO = TENTATIVE NOTE = GOOD COP / BAD COP = HOOR-PAAR-KRAAT = NET-SPAN = PENTAZYGON = SPECIAL OPERATIONS = STOPS = READ THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION BACKWARDS XVI -86 = RECOUNT OHIO = TENTATIVE NOTE = NET-SPAN = SORROWETH = STOOPING = SURGE CURRENT = WE'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER 242 + 11 + 8 + FC + 65 + -92 + -86 = ?? ____OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM_____________ AQ 422 = "SIGNAL" ISN'T CLEAR ENOUGH D26 IE = INVALUABLE INFORMATION = QUESTIONABLE CONTENT = WARRIOR LORD OF THEBES GON1 61 = ALIMENARY CANAL = I MADE A LAW TO GOVERN THE HOLY ONES = JACQUES DERRIDA = SHAMBHALA = UN-ALIEN-ABLE RIGHTS = WHAT THEN OF ITS NATURE DOTH THE BEE SHOW FORTH? 886

AQ 467 = SIXTY-ONE THE JEWS CALL IT = C-IALIS IS THE FORBIDDEN WORD = IDENTIFY "MASH DOWN" VIRUS hahahahaha: when is the sequel to the 'thirst' coming out? am looking forward to the 'the hunger of the number' hahahahahahahahaha Up there with nick's formula for CR: Jesus + Lacan + the National Health Service = Reason Nick Land: northanger - what exactly are all those Roman numeral thingies doing? are you innovating a whole range of new gematrias, or what? some methodological sign-posts would help (a lot) northanger: what exactly are all those Roman numeral thingies doing? - ignore, not important, posted by mistake (personal gematria system) "are you innovating a whole range of new gematrias" - if i did not, would i be me? "some methodological sign-posts would help (a lot)" - nicholas ... some methodological sign-posts would help Nick Land: northanger - "if i did not, would i be me?" - there you have me ... Qabbala 101, Part 3. Nick Land (January 12, 2005) Primitive Numerization Among the primary test-beds for qabbalistic analysis are the numerolexic systems inherited from cultures overcoded by the modern Oecumenic alphabet. These include the Hebrew and Greek alphabets (with their Neoroman letter names and mathematico-notational functions) and the Roman numbers (inherited as Neoroman letters and still numerically active in various domains). In this respect, the absence of names for Neoroman letters are an index of their pseudo-transcendence – as ‘unnameable’ - within the present Oecumenic order. 887

A discontinuity is marked in the alphanumeric series (0-Z) by the fact that the numerals composing the first 10 figures in this series do have names, grouping them with the letters of previous alphabetical numbering systems from a certain qabbalistic perspective. This might be taken as the residual indication of an ‘alien quality’ still characterizing the numerals in relation to the Oecumenic cultural order they now indisputably occupy, a legacy of the cultural trauma attending their introduction. The qabbalistic provocation posed by this English number names is conceptually comparable to that of any other numerolexic system, while surpassing any other in the intimacy of its challenge. If the numerals have names, shouldn’t the qabbalistic processing of them as words yield – at the least – compelling suggestions of nonrandom signal? If the standard numeral names emit nothing but noise when qabbalistically transcoded, the attempt to establish relatively persuasive criteria for the evaluation of qabbalistic results suffers an obvious and immense reverse. What, then, would count as a minimally controversial first step in such an examination? Surely the most basic of all qabbalistic (or subqabbalistic?) procedures is simple letter counting – Primitive Numerization (PN). As a reversion to sheer ‘tallying’ PN has a resonance with the most archaic traces of numerical practice, such as simple strokes carved into mammoth bones and suchlike palaeo-ethnographic materials. If anyone was to bother systematizing PN procedure for the purpose of mechanization or simply for conceptual clarity, it would be most efficiently done by transcoding (‘ciphering’) each letter or notational element as ‘1’ and then processing the result numerically. PN’s extremely tenuous relation to issues of modulus-notation ensures that it can only ever be a highly dubious tool when intricate qabbalistic calculation is required. Yet this utter crudity also makes it invaluable as a test case, since it minimizes axiomatic arbitrariness and precludes any plausible possibility of symbolic conjuration (‘sleight of hand’) while fully sharing the qabbalistic ‘deficiency’ of sufficient anthroposocial or communicative motivation. Common reason – sanity - insists upon noise as the only PN output consistent with the general intelligibility of signs (a pre-judgement applying rigorously to all qabbalistic procedures). No message should inhere in the length of a word, excepting only the broad pragmatic trend to the shortening of commonly used terms. It is immediately obvious why this exception has no pertinence to the case in question here, unless stretched to a point 888

(for instance, expecting the smaller numerals to exhibit the greatest lexical attrition) where it is straightforwardly contradicted by the actuality of the phenomenon. So, proceeding to the ‘analysis’ PN of the English numeral names: ZERO = 4, ONE = 3, TWO = 3, THREE = 5, FOUR = 4, FIVE = 4, SIX = 3, SEVEN = 5, EIGHT = 5, NINE = 4. Is there a pattern here? Several levels of apparent noise, noise, and pseudo-pattern can be expected to entangle themselves in this result, depending on the subsequent analytical procedures employed. To restrict this discussion to the most evident secondary result, not only is there a demonstrable pattern, but this pattern complies with the single defining feature of the Numogram - the five Syzygies emerging from 9-sum twinning of the decimal numerals: 5:4, 6:3, 7:2, 8:1, 9:0. In the shape most likely to impress common reason (entirely independent of numogrammatic commitments) this demonstration takes the form: ZERO + NINE = ONE + EIGHT = TWO + SEVEN = THREE + SIX = FOUR + FIVE. - revealing perfect numerolexic-arithmetical / PN-‘qabbalistic’ consistency. PN confirmation of the Numogrammatic Novazygons (9-Twins). ONE + EIGHT = NINE + ZERO. (PN 3 + 5 = (4 + 4 =) 8) TWO + SEVEN = NINE + ZERO. (PN 3 + 5 = (4 + 4 =) 8) THREE + SIX = NINE + ZERO. (PN 5 + 3 = (4 + 4 =) 8) FOUR + FIVE = NINE + ZERO. (PN 4 + 4 = (4 + 4 =) 8) The approximate probability of this pattern emerging ‘by chance’ is 1/243, if it is assumed that each decimal digit (0-9) is equiprobably allotted an English name of 889

three, four, or five letter length, with 8-sum zygosys as the principle of synthesis. 7sum or 9-sum zygosys are inconsistent with any five or three letter number-names respectively, and thus complicate probabilistic analysis beyond the scope of this demonstration (although if everything is conceded to the most elaborate conceivable objections of common reason, the probability of this phenomenon representing an accident of noise remains comfortably below 1/100). Partisans of common reason can take some comfort from the octozygonic disturbance of the (novazygonic) Numogrammatic reference. How did nine become eight (or vice versa)? Lemurophiliac numogrammaticists are likely to counter such queries with elementary qabbala (since digital cumulation and reduction bridges the ‘lesser abyss’ in two steps, 8 = 36 = 9, as diagrammed by the 8th Gate connecting Zn-8 to Zn-9). [This is a step on the path to a discussion of time-travel – honestly!] Comments: Qabbala 101, Part 3. u/c: Slightly irrelevant question: Did anyone ever unearth any further information about the greek attic-numeric catastrophe? Nick Land: u/c - not irrelevant, just a mite premature ... (actually, might have been a mega-mite - you volunteering?) Ifrah is great on this kind of thing, he's incredibly down to earth and comes up with wonderful stuff through sheer dogged pursuit. Anyway, agree that it has to be crucial, given that it's a case of cultural autolobotomization of numerical competence. (Imagine savage market-based cultural darwinism has ruled that sort of weird shit right out of court since, based on your fascinating discussions recently - says something interesting about the Greeks that it was still possible for them). u/c: I did wonder whether there might be some indiana-jones style renegade classicist lurking somewhere in the world who has access to this mystery. On the whole though, no-one seems interested, whic his strange given the sort of minimicrodetails such academics spend their lives dissecting. 890

Nick Land: u/c PS. To tediously repeat an insert you might have missed: ZERO + NINE = ONE + EIGHT = TWO + SEVEN = THREE + SIX = FOUR + FIVE. Is this not strange? And if it has never been demonstrated before (given the prominence of the octave within Western culture), is that not really strange? Remember you had a big octave-numeracy thing at one point (long, long ago, so apologies if this sounds like 'do you remember that party we went to in 199x' - the very definition of annoying as previously given) - forgotten the source - Mr. Geodesic domes wasn't it? Also seem to recall having a lot of isomorphic zing with this, through twinning/folding (Vysparov's 'pitch' system also connected) u/c - we're in a major time-slippage zone, but the absence of this theme, not only in academia but also on the web, utterly stuns me. Tried googling elementary search patterns around digital reduction today and kept being sent straight back to hyperstition - assuming mathematics has really shut down the whole popular numeracy topic (which is why i love your recent posts, and have major gripes with Badiou) u/c: the only site that has much on the attics (and sundry other matters) is http://www.jesus8880.com/chapters/gematria/greek-numerals.htm Don't clearly remember the octave-numeracy although its clear that octavian perioddoubling is a topic straight from the heart of the pythagorean brotherhood. And (slipping further into distant connections) later on in history the transition to the tempered musical scale is really interesting as a numeric catastrophe: instead of a working system of harmony with anchoring in the real (ie in one particular key) and a corresponding system of different keys each with a peculiar characteristic tonality, we get a generalised, less-than-optimal approximation to pythagorean harmony that allows the scale to "start" at any point and sound 'the same', eventually making 'real' harmony intolerable or at least bizarre to our ears. ps I'm just awating Badiou's "Le Nombre et les nombres" from amazon, hopefully this will give some hardcore insight into his fundamental in/numeracy. 891

Not sure whether I can add any metacommentary to the eight-twinning that wouldn't be otiose. That's the (my) trouble with the numogram really, what do you do with it apart from act impressed...? Nick Land: u/c - "http://www.jesus8880.com/chapters/gematria/greeknumerals.htm" - thanks for that piece of sickness - can already see it's horribly compelling (any way we can hide this from northanger?) musonomic geeking also highly appreciated - definitely need more of this stuff - any comments on transcultural comparisons of musical 'common sense' and the arbitrariness of the octave? (going to check out the Chinese angle before sticking my neck out, but it's totally alien) u/c: I would have thought that the existence of octave-as-period-doubling was pretty hardwired into acoustical reality. The question why it has to be an octave rather than a nonave or whatever is different; this connects to the doubling-periods 1,2,4,8 (also=binary place values) as being more 'fundamental' than the cardinals (although this, in turn, could be simply a contingent result of math's perennial entanglement with music [but you could argue that this entanglement is a condition of possibility rather than a coincidence]). Nick Land: 888 HUGE over here (HUGE = 77 irrelevant to that comment) 12 pitches in the Chinese 'octave' PS. http://www.cechinatrans.demon.co.uk/ctm-psm.html - has that cool musonomic geeky feel, and addresses the issue (confirming your intuitions, while diagonalizing them into some kind of refractionalization trajectory) u/c adrenoresearch: According to Needham, sound is a form of chi and the chinese thinkers were generally more interested in sonic contagion (sympathetic resonance) and the 'miraculous' immanent relationships this suggested than in mathematical analysis. And compared to greek musical thought there was far more interest in timbre or texture of sound over 'musical' relationships (presumably because different sounds were different types of breath or mood - whereas in greece such things are only understood in terms of the notes used - modes.) 892

However, there is a "five-fold division of sound", relating to the pentatonic scale (blues scale, major scale minus fourth and seventh). But also a heptatonic scale that was supposedly invented by the Duke of Chou (of I Ching fame?) then later, a 12note series: And...(Ok, are you ready for this, try to stay calm....) "The easiest way to appreciate the elegant simplicity of the Chinese method is to glance first at the Greek method...A musical scale based on [pythagoras'] mathematical relationships was devised, although another Greek school still favoured tuning by ear...The Chinese gamut of pitches, on the other hand, requires only the simplest mathematics and does not use the octave as starting point..or at all....The Chinese simply took a fundamental note and then multiplied by two-thirds and three-quarters alternately, thus embarking on a process which evolves an unending spiral of notes. [In O]ur oldest source for any actual lengths... the manner in which they are expressed - by use of a decimal system in conjunction with a system based on thirds - has a distinctly Babylonian flavour." OK, notebooks out, then. Maybe should prepare a HS post on this. Nick Land: definitely exceeds current processing capacities .. u/c: Use of two incommensurate measures to create a spiral most appealing. I bought this four-volume paperback of 'science and civilization in china' (the abridged version, that is!) out of a bargain bin in a bookshop in Cambridge, around a decade ago. I knew it'd come in handy _one day_, LOL! Nick Land: So much going on in the adrenoresearch comment its difficult to know where to begin - mesopotamian connection ("distinctly Babylonian flavour") certainly doesn't contribute to a restriction of the research environment (if Reza has dug up any musical implements used by star-headed abominations we're really screwed into obscure spirals ...) u/c: two last points for now: The next line or the text says something to the effect that greek and chinese systems most likely have a _common_ origin in Babylonian, which makes it important to find out what it was the two models diverged from (interesting from pov of move from babylonian to greek conceptions of mathematics). 893

Second, of course it should be noted that the 'western' scale is a 7 _or_ 12 tone system (7 whole tones unevenly distributed in 12 semitones.) that could be understood as base-8 or -13 with octave ascension as place-value. This is notationally complicated by the fact that in the realm of music software we conventionally start at C0 (center of piano keyboard), assigning a totally separate (decimal) system to the decimal ascension/descent, and locating it to the right of the 'units', which themselves are a place-shifted version of the first seven letters ABCDEFG supplemented by fractional-modifiers up or downwards (sharp/flat). northanger: nick, where's the ccru website? u/c: should read next line OF the text assigning a totally separate (decimal) system to the OCTAVE ascension/descent, northanger: and the clocks are wrong u/c: the uk one is right, at any rate...where are you, northanger? northanger: seconds are off 22:[3]0 19:[0]0 03:[0]0 u/c: I'm strongly tempted to say something extremely rude to you c.i.a.l.i.s northanger: levitra FA it's official! i'm certifiable Ifrah is great on this kind of thing, he's incredibly down to earth and comes up with wonderful stuff through sheer dogged pursuit. you mean this guy? 894

Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471393401/ ZERO + NINE = ONE + EIGHT = TWO + SEVEN = THREE + SIX = FOUR + FIVE. Is this not strange? not strange. no one has never noticed this before? where are the ccru pages with all the zone information and the numogram on the front page? it's kind of relevant to this discussion, neh? tried googling elementary search patterns around digital reduction today and kept being sent straight back to hyperstition always appreciated this comment: http://myweb.unomaha.edu/~jreameszimmerman/Hephaistion/www.html Don't believe everything you read on the web. The internet is not (yet) a substitute for cracking a book. Verify your sources. how is it possible that Tehran is 30 seconds slower? never noticed this before. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/custom.html?cities=136,246,237 correction, 30 MINUTES slower http://www.worldtimezone.com/faq.html well, learn something new every day u/c: if you're confusing minutes and seconds, it's probably you who has the timekeeping problem. Yeah, tehran is in a fractional timezone, kind of cool eh. northanger: u/c: as i recall, all half-hours (for the home page clocks) were set at the same half hour musical scale main page: 895

http://www.kheraha.co.uk/k_intro.html The Song of the Great Pyramid http://www.kheraha.co.uk/seven.html Scale (music) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_scale In music, a scale is an ascending or descending series of notes or pitches, as opposed to a series of intervals, which is a musical mode. Each note in a scale is referred to as a scale degree. Though the scales from musical traditions around the world are often quite different, the pitches of the notes in any given scale are usually related by a mathematical rule. Scales are theoretical constructs which may be used to control a composition, but much music is written without any scale in mind. Scales may be described as tonal, modal, diatonic, derived or synthetic, and by the number of tones included. Diatonic scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic The major scale begins on the first note and proceeds by steps to the first octave. In solfege, the syllables for each scale degree are "Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do". The natural minor scale can be thought of in two ways, the first is as the relative minor of the major scale, beginning on the sixth degree of the scale and proceeding step by step through the same tetrachords to the first octave of the sixth degree. In solfege "La-Ti-Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol." Alternately, the natural minor can be seen as a composite of two different tetrachords of the pattern 2-1-2-2-1-2-2. In solfege "Do-Re-Mé-Fa-Sol-Lé-Té-Do." Solfege http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solfege In music and sight singing solfege is a way of assigning syllables to degrees or steps of the diatonic scale. In order, they are: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do (for the octave). In the East, the origin of Solfege was in the Upanishads, which discuss a solfege system of seven notes. Much later in the West it was a pedagogical technique 896

created by Guido of Arezzo; These names are still used for the notes in Latin countries while in Germanic countries the names of letters of the alphabet are used. sung lai wing: northanger - get some grip! pouring out the contents of your head doesnt mean a live connection with the hyperstitonists! you are like a child blurting out first thing in your mind. interesting site though, even if i don't understand anything you guys are talking about. except that chinese music you talk about is not the chinese music of today. dead culture. look now, things are different. Nick Land: northanger - "Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers" - Yes (theoretically understated, superb book) Ccru site - damn! ... this could take a while ... u/c: Sung: of course you're right that ancient musical models must have been overcoded by pop music - but what does it mean for a culture to be 'dead'? Could it not be the case that certain general ways of thinking about sound and music still exist and influence today's music, or does technology completely erase them? Have these forms totally disappeared, or do they combine with pop to create a specifically chinese pop? I have heard very little but for instance Ai Jing(?) seems to combine elements of traditional chinese music along with stereotype guitar-rock (I'm sure there are more interesting examples....) I'm just in the process of writing a piece about this in relation to D&G;'s "pop philosophy": This is an important subject because it's a metonym for a lot of fraught debates re. globalisation : is "pop" as a model to be regarded as a homogenising, erasing model of sameness, or simply as a mongrelising, contagious principle of distribution? Is "pop" to be thought of as simply relating to the production of lowestcommon-denominator popularity, or is it a specific sociopolitical modality? If I'm not wrong, the whole 'popular numeracy' topic indexes a general tendency to understand mechanisms of popularity conducted through sensory innovation as more liberatory than top-down imposed structures of understanding (sorry, that's a bit vague...). Given that numerology is generally written off as a similar kind of soothing illusory pastime to pop music, an opium for the masses, we should have something to say about an abstract "pop" model as such (as in Reza's comment about the apparently-benign but actually politically-corruptive influence of occultism). more precisely, should say: 897

we should have something to say about this positive abstract "pop" model as a _de jure_ distinct assemblage despite its _de facto_ occurrence only in mixed milieus (ie the fact that the pop charts are always full of crap, or that starbucks coffee tastes lkie shit, shouldn't be a cue for dismissal and retreat to ideological purism). Tachi: u/c - 'is "pop" as a model to be regarded as a homogenising, erasing model of sameness, or simply as a mongrelising, contagious principle of distribution?' Good question u/c. Though this question is launched above the specific Chinese milieu. Already by talking of "pop", without regard to local specificity you are exploring something assumed shared throughout all human cultures in which technology and globalised capital have a siginificant impact. I see it as a mongrelising of locality with homogeneity, a flattening, smearing of homogeneity across what was porous local space, in which previously music and culture (including dance, worship, tea ceremonies, other rituals) staked out some relatively isolated independence. DigitalDjigit: ZERO + NINE = ONE + EIGHT = TWO + SEVEN = THREE + SIX = FOUR + FIVE. Is this not strange? I don't get it. Are you surprised that moving an object from one pile to another does not change the total number of objects? Please ignore my previous comment. This is what happens when you read the comments but not the actual post. Nick Land: This is what happens when you read the comments but not the actual post - well i guess that's original (you're hanging onto your nic by your fingernails right now). Tachi - you still having technical problems? northanger - where are you? u/c: tachi, like your characterisation of pop - think it is key that it doesn't "come from" anywhere but is virtually present and activated in various ways. I'm still thinking about this....would like to find a way to prolong this line of enquiry. [many thanks for your comments at the other place, too] 898

northanger: "where are you?" - BOO! Tachi: Hi Nick, seem to be over the technical hitch, though just not able to dedicate enough dedicated time to engage with stuff arising in the blogspace. u/c - cheers, agree pop doesnt really 'come from' anywhere. Would like a second runup to your previous interesting questions, though not sure where is best to address these except here: u/c: "is "pop" as a model to be regarded as a homogenising, erasing model of sameness, or simply as a mongrelising, contagious principle of distribution?" This question lacks a noun relating to the key verbs 'homogenise' and 'mongrelise' sorry to appear linguistically uptight, but think it is important - since I do not think (and guess nor do you) that there is some stuff already there to be acted upon. Don't mean we should look for a noun that is 'doing' the homogenising and/or mongrelising, but think that it is interesting to ask whether *pop* can be seen as the *production* of a simultaneous homogenizing and mongrelizing aspect of culture (eg. music) precisely through a facilitation of the local by a bastard alliance with the global. The 'parochially local' gives way to the 'globally local'. Mongrelization - production through synthesis of the local and global (and/or local and local?) Globalization - production of/within a global model of distribution ... u/c: "Is "pop" to be thought of as simply relating to the production of lowestcommon-denominator popularity, or is it a specific sociopolitical modality?"" Again interesting q. Think I can see where you are driving at. Effacement, homogenization, simplification in a sense, vs. Effusion, dispersion, distribution? Why not: Pop = effacement of the parochially local forms of culture through the production of the locally global. Ahh. Help! Patrick Chapman: Just letting you know - your site is fantastic! , to forecast table you should be very big. 899

Islamic Chronopolytics I: The Heresy of the Apocalypse Reza Negarestani (January 14, 2005) “When Islam begins to breed all its minorities, giving birth to its offspring, all civilizations meet what they call the Apocalypse; it is the time that the Earth can no longer hold any religion even the religion of its own body.” (The Codex of Yatu) *** Some remarks on the Islamic account of the Apocalypse and why it cannot be put into oecumenic matrices analogical to the other modes of monotheistic Revelation: (sorry for simplistic explanations because, IMHO, it is necessary to slow down here even if by means of repressing the technical diversity) *** An Abrupt Disruption. Islamic account of Genesis spirals around a non-ontological unity. First as Mollasadra emphasized Allah is not ‘Being’ (yet it is not nihil); its truth can never be known, neither by beings nor non-being, neither before nor after the Apocalypse. Second (which is parallel to the previous one), Man can never attain an integral unity -- that in other monotheistic threads discriminates Man from their former state -- with the God; Man can only return to Allah not uniting with him. God is constantly external to Man, it only ‘ulifes’ through the impossible, an absolute potestās so ultimate that is im-posse-ible for Man. If the Christian apotheosis promises a final unity with the God through a transcendental participation or methexis with the Son (as an indispensably needed intermediary or the channel-regime of this exchangeability, the diabatic and double-binding chain of the Atonement) and the other sons (men) to take the initiative in a concrescence process (theological becoming) towards unification with God, Islam openly rejects such a theo-relieving covenant; Man can never be unified with Allah and Allah will never be revealed to Man. The son can never return to father since there is no son and no father; it is only Allah external to all beings. This outsideness is not led by jealous impulsions of God passed on to the victim body of Homo (a parasitic creed stubbornly energized and exploited by the exchangeability between lex talionis and victimology, their doublebinding system carved in the monopoly of God) but the immensity that is the undoing of Man (of all potential sons and the father). Islamic Apocalypticism is not a contemplating fluvius, (a pseudo-fluxional transcendence or a process of 900

concrescence [A.N. Whitehead]80) towards unification with God. It is a transcendental process to ultimately and fundamentally ‘surrender’ to the impossible which remains external to being (An absolute surrender = Pure Islam). Submission merely occurs according to the unconditioned and imperceptible Will (Hoda) of the im-posse-ible; but it does happen through participation. Everything is preserved and maintained by a pure externality, not because of the power it imposes upon being but for the sake of externality itself which is always preserved at the cost of its radical outsideness that at the same time provides the possibleness of being. The process of surrendering and submitting (or Islam) which should lead Man towards God is suddenly disrupted by Qiyamah (Ghiamat), a vast desert (see Sura Al-Takvir) where Man finds that he can never reach the Absolute or the Unconditioned (unbedingt), he is totally disillusioned (one of the functions of Ghiamat as awakening not in the sense of resurrection but disillusionment, entebaah) of everything he ‘believes’ to possess. Islamic Apocalypse is WHERE (not when) Man finds the utter externality of God to himself (an externality which in the Islamic account of the divine regarded as the utter glory and generosity of God to Man). Deleuze and Guattari diagram the Absolute in terms of a movement qualitatively different to relative movements but necessarily associated to them, in Islamic Apocalypse all movements which give rise to the Absolute (and flow ‘through’ and ‘as’ Islam) abruptly cease to process (they cannot install Man as multiple or even One); the process of rendering a Unity by exception or subtraction crashes before it initiates. In Islam, Man does not reach the Absolute, nor does the Apocalypse manifest the Absolute. Islamic Apocalypse unlike other apocalyptic revelations is a disruption for a transcendental process towards Absolute, a cessation, neither manifesting a succession nor an interlude but an utter terminus for transcendental Absolutism. Islamic Apocalypse is a momentary process for dismantling all manifestations of Absolutism, only highlighting the absolute externality of God as the Imperceptible (“The secret of God is eternally ungraspable by Man”; Quran does not speak about a concealment of the secret but inaccessibility to the radical externality of God which always remains secret not in the sense of Concrescence emphasizes on an economical participation through the theological doctrine of Diaconate which assembles a regulating all together; the itinerary of the process is continuously guaranteed by the responsibility of each entity to serve and survive for the other, becoming a passive negotiator-field to save the continuity of the self-refining flux. In such a participation (methexis), one can not escape and survive; the entities which cannot bear this dynamic but fully economical participation are automatically forced to leave the dynamic network of pseudo-flux (forced to be dumped out of the river). 80 901

mystery [muein] whose accessibility varies from the initiated to the uninitiated, but ‘being ungraspable and unthinkable forever’ for everyone), according to islamic scholars, it is the limitless generosity of this externality that makes ‘being’ possible for Man despite its radical externality. To this extent the monotheistic ‘belief’ -- hena theon, unum deum -- does not fulfill a rewarding destiny in Islam; it submits the cogito to an externality for which belief is at the same time a plethora of uselessness and a minimally organized line necessary for probing the eradication of itself as it blindly pursues the eternal unrevealable. Islamic Apocalypse is an anti-absolute polytics. God is the only Unconditioned -- it is neither grasped nor unveiled and thus cannot ‘come into being’ transcendentally -- which is eternally exterior to Man, it is the Absolute as the desert of un-restriction (ab-solvere) for which Man is a restriction, a modus and a deterrent. Upon such an unfathomable externality, Man is left deserted; yet he is not abandoned for this externality is mapped as an extra-proximity, utter and ungraspable closeness (“We are closer to him than his jugular vein” The Quran) ... similar to what we discussed at Cold Me about Survival Economy (live-ing, libban, or what is commonly called life) and (un)Life; (un)Life is external to survival yet survival is allowed to live by means of the very space that unlife makes accessible for it (either for the eradiation of survival or ‘luring it to something else’: see Holocaust of Freedom). What is given to Man is exactly what unlifes for him. According to Islam, Man is liberated in Ghiamat not by joining the divine but by being disillusioned from its own being which is made possible by the externality of God not the quiddity of this externality i.e. the Wesen of God (Behold the Outside, you are not able to explore it as such an openness unfolds as a reactionary ‘extinction’ by and through being, an inevitable self-destructive repercussion triggered by the affordance of capacity; but you can see how unfathomable it is; this is the way that ‘Return to God’ in Islam is depicted) Islamic commentators put it this way: in which religion does Ghiamat (the Insurgency) -- which is wrongly translated as Apocalypse (the moment of uncovering or revelation, apocalyptio) since even in Ghiamat, Allah is ungraspable / unrevealed to Man -- or the so-called Apocalypse promises such a brutal and at the same time glorious encounter of Man with what is radically external yet close to him/it (awakens this externality for Man and again, awakens Man to grasp the radicalness of this externality), the Unrevealable? Schelling’s obsession with Revelation (Philosophy of Mythology, Philosophy of Revelation) which represents the Judeo-Christian account of Revelation and is a pivotal quodlibet in non-islamic monotheistic religions, is completely rendered 902

obsolete in the Islamic account of Apocalypse (Ghiamat) and is regarded as heresy: “that which just exists [...] in order to see if I can get from it to the divinity” (Schelling). Such a statement is based on the primal prophetic promise of Revelation, the divinity must be eventually revealed / exposed to Man through transcendence and its anabatic movements. The true glory of the lord is exposed to Man when it is revealed [“God can be known” (John 1:18; 14:7; 17:3,6)]. In Islamic Apocalypticism, such a promise is absent and appears as Kufr; Motahari suggests that the glory of Allah bursts right at the moment when Man realizes that nothing of God can be revealed to him, according to Islam such a moment one encounters the utter mercifulness of God, for if God reveals himself / itself, all modes of survival and being are rendered impossible (nothing can exist anymore); if the God reveals itself everything is overkilled. According to Islam, the most merciful (supreme glory) moment is the moment when Allah shows Man that despite its utter externality to all beings, they exist just by the virtue of this externality whose radical sovereignty is delineated more according to the degree and radicalness of externality rather than its authority over being (According to Islamic literature, Allah does not need to force authority; authority is the consequence of this externality which maintains the survival of all beings). Islamic scholars: If God is external and sovereign, then how beings exist? ... the answer calls for an ungraspable generosity (not forgiveness) and Glory (both of which are purged of any quality, positive, negative, etc ... this Glory and Mercifulness are Un-qualities) surging up through beings as the only reason of their existence. Even the purpose of this Mercy and Glory will remain unknown, in the Outside, nothing of God itself will be revealed. To this point, applying the term Revelation (apokalypto) to Islamic account of Apocalypse is highly problematic. Even on a technical level, Apocalypse, which is constitutive of monotheism, is not designed for or capable of the particular functions that it presents on other monotheistic threads in the Last Day. Ghiamat (or Qiyamah), while holds the diametric discourse of the Judgment Day81 and its 81 Ardaviraf (Ardawiraf) Nameh written by the Zoroastrian mage, Wiraf, is perhaps the most influential book on monotheistic visions of Hell and Heaven. The book begins in flesh and ends in flesh, there is nothing of soul, the eternal torment and pleasure principles of the Hell and Heaven are unbalanced, the divine proportional harmony available in the realm of hammēstāgan (from ēstādan: equilibrium and balance) or a realm where all the dead rest together before being resurrected in the Judgment Day, unexpectedly counterbalanced by the extremely asymmetrical and perhaps dissociated visions of Hell and Heaven that Wiraf narrates. The conventional relief of a divine homeostatic balance that is sustained in the Judgment Day between dwellers of Heaven and Hell does not exist in this book. Wiraf begins his corporeal journey by stepping into the realm of Heaven, what he sees and hears is nothing more than a usually simple, modest, plain and quotidian life lacking the abundance and wasting joy available in later visions of Heaven. Compared to this excessively unostentatious place, Hell is the unbound realm where 903

monopoly of inevitability, as Al Faruqi points out, adds a new and radical twist to the Apocalyptic politics of all monotheistic threads; Ghiamat does not mean apokalupsis (involving the process of lifting the veil) it heralds Ghiam or rebellion which is connected to Sura Al-Takvir (overthrowing) focusing on Ghiamat (Ultimate Insurgency) governed not by a climax-oriented plot – which is based on the consumption / depletion of the number of its possibilities -- but a series of participations, the chain of minor insurgencies bringing possibilities external to the capacity of the plot. Al Faruqi and Alameh Tabatabai both suggest the Quran withdraws from the concealing / disclosing diametric discourse of other monotheistic Books from the opening verse to the end; declaring itself as an active cipher; even it shows a radical cynicism (or even hatred) for the facsimile by twisting the very foundations of monotheism expressed in Bible or Torah, by progressively making itself unidentifiable, connecting what has already told to anonymous (both in the sense of an-onoma and a-nomos) lines which make its contents accessible by an ulterior structure. This deviation from the familiar path culminates in the nomenclatural system usually associated to the Last Day; Ghiamat (Ultimate rebellion, Insurgency, Standing to respect, Awakening in the sense of disillusionment) becomes the substitute for all other names in Apocalyptic literatures which frequently suggest tortures are unbelievably concrete and meat-oriented unlike the later visions of Hell in which soul abstractly burns, and the dead can never rest. Mehrdad Bahar’s accurate and brilliant edition and translation of Aradawiraf Nameh revives the original appalling effect of this book. To describe the Hell narrated by Wiraf, an insignificant image (among ghastly images of Kharfastrah-chewed bodies) of a torture may give us a clue: a Man held upside-down, every hole in his body stuffed by Xrafstra (Khrafstra: pest-legions: insects, rats, etc.) and Daivas (demons) drip semen in his mouth and nostrils. Such punishments are usually the consequence of minor sins (lie, deception, greed, etc.) not the major sins such as burying the dead, touching the dead, adultery, touching a woman in her period of menstruation or murder. The Question one surely asks at this point is what kind of sick sadomaniac God can order such tortures and according to which system of Law (which cannot even be typified as despotism) such an incongruity between the sin and its penalization on the one hand and an imbalance between Hell and Heaven on the other hand can exist? The answer gives a new dimension to the book, Wiraf as a Zoroastrian mage (certainly a puppet of the Z. crowd) programs a new thread of monotheism to plague itself but this time from the Outside. The book’s sole stratagem is building a process of exteriorization and senseless judicial system so brutal that intentionally leaves merely two options for Man, either participation in this infernal senseless (joining the Z. Crowd’s infested monotheism from within) or negative despair which eventually succumbs into a ferocious reactionary transgression against the whole system, a seemingly radical option that Wiraf seeks to lure people to it by confounding the linearity between Judgment and its metrons, ad baculum and materializing a strictly anthropomorphic Hell which is too concrete and revolting to be ignored. 904

revelation (with velum at the center), resurrection or judgment (functioning through metron). Unlike other modes of monotheism, the externality of Allah (which escapes oversimplification as Separation ... Aristotelian philosophy has shown us separation always presupposes a unity through a cyclic transcendence of separation/union which rotates or more technically refines itself towards Quiteness or Unity with the divine, a unity which is not present in Islam) is not the result of a primal moral collapse or original sin (the Revelation system of the Christian redemptive history); it is intrinsic to the existence of being; for Man, too, this externality has nothing to do with Sinfulness or the concupiscent nature of Man -- which in Judo-Christianity should be cleansed -- since in Islam the present condition of Man is all normal not sinful; in the islamic account, sin emerges as a consequence of mis-perception of this externality (more as a result of latching on to the quiddity of this externality, Allah). So far, Islam does not construct itself on a redemptive (that is inseparable from its consequent hope and boredom or redeeming despair, and modes of development which are steered by the conjunctive bonds between these two) / revelation-based system. The promise of Revelation presupposes a reward for a vigorous transcendentalism by losing sin and retaining unity; in Islam there is nothing of such a reward. In Islam chronologics is a heresy. Norman Brown is right to suggest that Islam is all apocalyptic but without a sense of ‘Time’ that can be grounded for the taxis of Grand History spectacles (whether Heilsgeschichte or Weltgeschichte). “Only moment is real” (Norman Brown) but Brown does not go further: moment is transient, its function is traced by its escapablity, momentary variation and atomic frequency, by its gradus sine vestigio; moment in its entirety is an uncogito with a pulsatory intermittent existence, ungraspable by Man and inaccessible by mapped courses of action. What is only graspable are trajectories of the moment, its tails which complicate and artificialize time according to their spatial multiplicity instead of the chrono-logics of Time. Too many traces left by the ever-escaping moment results in the loss of Time, untraceability of all narrative lines82 and temporal relations (= The Apocalypse), the fall of the Empire, the emergence of a sinister imminence (about to happen) not constructed upon on temporal relations / modes but loss of them. Such a constant imminence surpasses the necrocratic terror of death: “when the Omega is 82 Norman Brown writes, “the Quran breaks decisively with that alliance between the prophetic tradition and materialistic historicism -- ‘what actually happened’ -- which set in with the materialistically historical triumph of Christianity.” 905

always imminent and you cannot look backwards and ask what happened, the necrocratic fear of death is but a neutralized repression” Time is absent in the Quran, there is no occurrence of the word Zamaan (Time: chronos); this is one of the most famous problems of the Quran. Instead of using the word Zamaan, the Quran frequently conveys events through the word vaght, passing them through vaght and not zamaan towards Ghiamat. Vaght is about Where (i.e. Whereness), which also overclouds the quiddity of this whereness or spatial but unlocalizable ubiquity; it can only suggest an unchronologic Now (neither permanence nor discontinuity; all entities are regarded as events through a denudated space) as a ‘timeless where’ through which beings are suspended but not stopped; but “Where is Now?” The Quran never answers; ‘Now’ always remains anonymous; its ever expanding opening Where essentially based on its whereness (multiplicity, catadromic functions and spreading mechanisms) continues to be contagious, running as an epidemic (Where is intrinsically and autonomously contagious). All manifests of history (or even histories) are regarded as an infidelity towards this spatial Now (vaght) which is the most functional plane for utter submission (Islam) to the eternal externality of Allah; it is the only plane by which Being can be saved from complete extinction by its illusions foaming around a grand obsession with Unity. Abdoldjawad Falaturi is possibly the first Islamic commentator who has rigorously worked on Vaght in the Quran and the Islamic sense of time (See Experience of Time and History in Islam and his other essays). In the sense of Ghiamat, is it too early or too late? Only by your ‘participation’ with this spatial Now (Vaght), you can find out. We are always in a premature Ghiamat. For Christianity, Islam expands and inflames along the same chronopolitical dimension that the Apocalypse deploys its cremating machinery to incinerate the western sense of time, cleaving the bonds between modes of historicity and western chronologics; a plentitude along which the chronologics shrinks to momentary zeros taking virile and swarming forms to spread through this spatial Now (or irrevocable imminence). Islamic Ghiamat is the vertigo of moments. For Christian chronologics, the Islamic chronopolytics is a ‘radical disruption in spatio-temporal relevancy of events’ which is generally called the ‘Apocalypse’. If War on Terror, on the western front of itself, is haunted not by fin de siècle scenarios but by polytical manifestations of the Apocalypse and emphatic finality, it is because the western chronologics has engaged a world or a desert which lurks in time-lacerations, endures in offtime / offbeat irrelevancies to its environment and symbiotically grows along dimensions of 906

momentary imminence, history-corrosion and the collapse of spatio-temporal continuity to the outside; it is not the matter of the clash of civilizations but a radical Time-war. Each western tactical line should inevitably configure its internal composition with this chronophagic typhoon if it seeks to take part in War on Terror and afford the ‘conflict principles’ (correspondence with other warmachines in space and time) which every warmachine both upsets and affirms. This also includes Islamic warmachines diffusing through western chorological dimensions; they spawn anomalies which escalate the Time-war and diverge its chronopolytical lines; inciting minor Ghiamats (Insurgencies) in all the involved entities (Ghiamat emanates from participating lines not ascending through the eschatological finis). Such timelacerations and anomalies activated by Islamic chronopolytics come with sickening intoxications for both fronts but since for the Islamic front the Apocalypse / Ghiamat is an already-there and entities of the pax islamica are desert-nomads of this contagious Now (neuro-freezing imminence) migrating by its chronophagic typhoon, these terrors work far more effectively for the western entities of WoT: chronic insomnia, unremitting escalating / diffusive activities until total burnt-out, departure from chronopolitical origins, traumatic spatio-temporal incognition, offbeat combat skills and conflictual systems, etc. For western chronologic agencies in War on Terror, the Apocalypse begins from the other side of time. Comments: Islamic Chronopolytics I: The Heresy of the Apocalypse u/c: _incredible_ piece of writing, reza, unprocessably informative and mindtwisting! I would like to ask, first, given that I would assume most people do not have as sophisticated a grasp of these issues as you do, in what concrete ways is this chronomaly expressed in what we know as 'popular islamic militancy' and which we generally try to process through our inherited categories of judaeo-christian theology? I ask this because it's tempting to think that your analysis displays such exegetical finesse that these lines cannot possibly be followed or incorporated in popular movements (like average american evangelists probably don't read Augustine in detail!). But obviously you are saying the opposite, that they underly islam to the extent of determining the very meaning of its 'submission'. 907

Nick Land: Reza - since the restoration of the Caliphate - at least in its 'vulgar' (popular?) politico-military manifestation - seems to be a recognizably historical ambition, how does it connect with the achronicity of Islamic Apocalypticism, as outlined here? What is the temporality of Jihad? Also, what is at stake in the term (Islamic) 'Chronopolytics'? What is the implicit reference to multiplicity pointing to? "Islamic Apocalypse is an anti-absolute polytics" - us infidels need more, how can 'surrender' to a unity of any kind, even a nonontological one, support this description? (it reminds me (disturbingly) of Levinas and the 'Absolutely Other' - how can a declaration of 'nonabsoluteness' be sustained within the context of an overall monotheistic commitment? (assuming only Allah and Allah alone could conceivably occupy this 'slot')). If responding to these questions could prove injurious - please ignore. Reza Negarestani: Hi guys, thanks ... wonderful questions; i'll return to these issues in the next few days; isp companies are in a some kind of tax strike here (protesting against filtering laws and high tax, etc.) ... they activate their machines for 1 hour in a day. Nick, most of your questions will be answered in the next pieces ... esp. the third chapter: Time-anomalies and Jihad, so be patient ;) ... plus, don’t worry they don’t cause ‘so much’ trouble :) us infidels need more, how can 'surrender' to a unity of any kind, even a nonontological one, support this description? just for now, the answer lies in the meaning / horizon of Unity in theologic glossaries and Unity as the translation of the word Tuhid (which is absolutely a wrong translation when you come to technical aspects). But guess i have expressed what i had in mind very poorly (you are right) ... actually decided to delete this line but had no time to remove it ;) (so just ignore it for now) u/c: as I read it, simply an (impossible without dissolution) surrender to immanence, or horizontal kurtz-gradient, as opposed to a surrender to transcendence, or vertical ascension...? 908

Nick Land: Reza - love these multi-parters - need to re-read this one a few times before fine tuning the interrogation ;) (and how 'orthodox' is the mysterious Jay on these issues?) u/c - as was no doubt obvious, i was quite tuned to your first wave of q.s (pop issues) - not sure that a subtilization of all these points serves more than irrelevant PC purposes if it loses track of the concrete planetary fall out ... There's an interesting - but probably impossible - topic based on the implications of a simultaneous discussion of the current state of so[c.i.a.l.]ism with Chinese characteristics staged out of the PRC and Islam Today from Iran (won't insult anybody by adding 'Blairism Now live from the UK') - actually be fascinated to do this (which of these dynamically mutating ideological formations is most thoroughly and uninhibitedly 'discussible' right now?) but the gloss has gone off suicidal romanticism from my PoV - just to say, not taking anything for granted about the precariousness of certain lines of inquiry ... (and 'glad' it's Reza in the hot seat) ... ... by 'ideology' i mean anything suggestive of electric cattle-prods ... u/c: what you're suggesting re the impossible topic sounds intriguing but speed of delivery made it maddeningly difficult to decipher, maybe you could give us the slow version....as for the other issues, urbanomic would be more than happy to provide speakeasy space if it helped. Nick Land: u/c - comment really came out of neural stress based on simultaneously wanting to grill Reza hard while recognizing that the topic he's on now would be the equivalent of me launching into 'Maoist crimes against humanity' or some such - guess I share Reza's ambivalence though, being a fairly sound 21st Century Chinese Marxist (if you ignore the Lemurian Qabbala and time-travel experiments) Reza - having ever more infidel twitches, since I see the entire Abrahamic tradition as fairly consistent in certain respects - particularly (and IMHO very irritatingly) insofar as it entertains a conception of divinity that is superpersonalized, masculine (Marduk's traits show through very clearly), moody, meddling (interferes in human affairs with 'miracles' and punishments such as recent tsunami according to numerous Muslim authorities), talkative (inspiring holy books etc, with favoured languages, whether Hebrew, Greek or Arabic), evidently with strong moral opinions and sensitivities (doesn't like men sticking their wingwhang in certain places, phobic about pigs), egotistical (gets really annoyed when he ceases to be the focus of attention) ... etc 909

and these characteristics entirely dominate as far as the concrete impact of the religion is concerned, which can be huge (and hideous). Yet at the same time the theologians/philosophers and other sophisticates of the religion in question insist that this God is ineffable, ultra-transcendent, ontologically anomalous, 'absolutely other' ... etc Since there is quite evidently no connection whatsoever between the various incarnations of the Abrahamic God in scripture and vulgar belief on the one hand and in high-theory on the other, why don't the sophisticates cut the umbilical cord and admit that they are really talking about Aristotle's God or Azathoth (both genuinely indifferent to mankind), and certainly not the pompous tyrant sky-god of popular monotheism? Of course, in all cases the answer to this is that social solidarity trumps intellectual consistency, but it should then be acknowledged that the crudest anthropomorphic wife-beating-jerk-god will actually be the One to triumph (as is seen in all cases). All religions degenerate as they spread (even Buddhism becomes filled with exotic gods, demons and hells), it's just that the Abrahamic faiths start on such a totally disastrous foundation ('one day scheming tribal leader meets psycho sky-daddy (or his official representative)...') that IMHO they really stink to high heaven as they grow ... just 'splainin why the infidels won't be disarming anytime soon ... Reza Negarestani: for now: All religions degenerate as they spread (even Buddhism becomes filled with exotic gods, demons and hells), it's just that the Abrahamic faiths start on such a totally disastrous foundation Why disastrous? if you think strategically, you will see that it is perfectly the unfolding of what Ibn Maymun suggested centuries ago: “I don’t see monotheism as a direct path (Serat-o-Al-mostaghim) but a mother pregnant of its minorities eating their mother as they emerge. Minorities, multiplicative heresies (monotheistic polytics) and anomalies of monotheism are closer to radical infidelity than what people usually think. But didn’t convince enough about the infidel twitches. ;) My first question: what does separate infidels from monotheistic panoramas; surely infidels are phobic about monotheism (angelophobia instead of being phobic about pigs), talkative, feeding on anomalous egologics and moody too? Think ibn Maymun was right, the encounter with monotheism (either from the inside or the outside) should be strategic, cunning 910

... (over)reactionary responses to monotheism while abstractly stay away from it stinking core but concretely fuel its (monotheism's) passion for survival. Valkator: u/c said: "as I read it, simply an (impossible without dissolution) surrender to immanence, or horizontal kurtz-gradient, as opposed to a surrender to transcendence, or vertical ascension...?" Remember, that both of these 'developmental trajectories' are possible, but only apply to man. For man to 'transcend' or 'ascend' implies NOT a 'unity with Allah', but is always located 'within' and related to an immanent context. For instance, to grow 'close' to Allah means not that one unites with this Absolute in a 'transcendent' sense where man, then, exists 'outside'. Clearly, he does not, no matter what 'level' of immanence we're talking about. So, for man to 'rise' vertically, which 'appears' to imply a transcending of the manifested, existential, and horizontal realms, actually arrives at another immanent 'state' -- with Allah still fully and Absolutely Outside -- but NOT 'out there' in a 'sense' meaning. It would appear that any developmental pro-ject of man -- either horizontally or vertically (still INSIDE and Encompassed) -- ends in dissolution -- as all beings are transient, contingent, and pro-jected themselves. Though Ghiamat does not 'unveil', it does 'demonstrate' the 'uncontrollable' -- in any immanent context. No being can say 'I am'. Well, they can -- but ;) Nick Land: Reza "Strategically" for who? If God is the enemy, then his strategic advantages are my problems ... flexibility is for hurting your enemy efficiently, not for vacillating about who He is "a mother pregnant of its minorities eating their mother as they emerge" - you're right to see this as a fascinatingly suggestive phrase, of course, but: a) why a mother? seems improbable given the consistently masculine character of skygods (constantly repeating Marduk's rape-murder of Tiamat). b) what evidence is there for a dispersive trend within these traditions? Programmed by the original 'jealousy' of Yahweh, don't they all serve as wellsprings of intolerance attempting to eradicate all difference (whether as paganism, idolatry, heresy, apostacy, infidelity ...)? "angelophobia instead of being phobic about pigs" - actually, both angels and pigs are quite interesting, sure we'll get plenty of opportunities to investigate both 911

"moody" - but if God is moody, that's something else, right? "phobic about monotheism" - guilty as charged, without reservation. There's a lot to be phobic about, and anything less than raw animosity falls prey to The Enemy (whose relentless fanaticism requires an equally inflexible response) - I've heard horrible predictions that China could go Christian - visions like that make me fairly relaxed about global thermonuclear species annihilation, but hopefully Renomu will get to us first ... "reactionary responses to monotheism while abstractly stay away from it stinking core but concretely fuel its (monotheism's) passion for survival" - another excellent phrase, but it implies an interest in de-escalation - i've abandoned any illusions that Monotheism is going to calm down, negotiate or lose interest in survival - best to push it to the max and toughen up for an ocean of killing (but i've been reading a lot of West recently). PS. But returning to earlier topic ('discussibility') there's a positional dissymmetry that makes a mockery of debate - there are things neither of us 'can say' - if we were talking about Marxism in China i'd be totally in line with being "strategic, cunning" because that is the way to tune into a cultural complex positively subverting itself in a 'polytical' direction, avoiding pointless headbanging opposition. Is Iranian Islam changing along similar positive vectors? Of course, l defer to your judgement on that - and don't expect you to give it publicly - although the evidence from outside is meagre at best. Put into reverse, however, it would seem silly if you started spouting dialectical mumbo-jumbo just because that strategically and cunningly 'makes sense' over here. Likewise, due to the enlightened atheism of my home country's ideology, i can bask in the incendiary love of Iblis without any concern for the consequences ... PPS. One trigger for this firefight is that for me 'polytics' means precisely and entirely the repudiation of monotheism by whatever mean necessary, so there's bound to be a measure of controversy ... u/c: nick, I see clearly now where you're coming from with the escalation of my mild pop-god pondering to your heavily-camo'ed infidel assault. Have to say, well done for puncturing the air of pious politesse that is automatically activated from the foul depths of HumanOS when people speak in hushed tones of the sky-daddy. Difficult (in a hyperstitionally productive way? Not sure) to scope out the motivation behind Reza's squirming: "surely infidels are phobic about monotheism" seems like a 912

standard dialectical move (position A is just inverted position B, let's get together) and still think we need to tie this causally to concrete movements to demonstrate its relevance (if that's an issue). Nick Land: u/c - while not trying to implicate you in my polecat scratching, evidently just following up on your subtle suggestion ... Reza Negarestani: “Strategically" for who? For those who seek to subvert monotheism. If it doesn’t work for you or us, it doesn’t mean that it does not work at all. It is not supposed to be an appetizer for our anthropomorphic taste. We look for efficient, rapid and effective actions (whose effects can be grasped by our organic sensors) but unfortunately, we can’t find such tactics that at the same time kill monotheism and don’t rise from our organic unsophistication, naiveness. flexibility is for hurting your enemy efficiently, not for vacillating about who He is. If you are supposed to kill him, I don’t know how you are going to do it without knowing him, his tricks, those which are still unknown, shrouded ... and there are plenty of them for sure (ref. to one of the verses in the Quran). a) why a mother? Why not? My apologies but seems you are too obsessed with the symbolic (which is not separable from the crowd’s belief) representation of monotheism as a phallus. When there is no phallus, radical genital surgery is not a good idea ;) seems improbable given the consistently masculine character of sky-gods (constantly repeating Marduk's rape-murder of Tiamat). Ok, if you constantly insist on Enuma Elish I should add: Don’t forget that Tiamat and Apzu gave rise to the puppets who gave birth to Marduk; and don’t forget, they, Tiamat and Apzu, couldn’t afford the cacophonies of their own pets; they were too obsessed with their own affordance-based openness (little Borderless Void) and survival; they were first plotted to undo their Creation Project; but those poor sisters were a bit late. Haven’t you wondered that Tiamat did almost nothing in her battle; Tiamat and her fierce army were almost stupefied and paralyzed before Marduk (is a rotting but decorated phallus that much terrorizing?). We have 913

two conclusions ahead: [1] their self-sacrifice and defeat was exactly a hideous part of the Genesis Project they initiated by hypercampflaging themselves within the rotting Solidus and poisoning its sedimentary rivers (Dejleh and Forat, the two rivers of meso-potamia are the two rivers of toxic blood flowing from Tiamat’s wounded eyes; if they have not dried yet, the wounds are still fresh, there was more toxic blood in her body that anyone could imagine) [2] Tiamat and Apzu were too decadent and arrogant, too blind to see the autonomous power of insurgencies. They were slain in a War or an Assassination that they deserved. Surely, it is not far away from the monstrosity that West indirectly glorifies [3] (which is not really a conclusion) or maybe, they were so innocent (too immaculate in a Christian sense) to show the same kind of monstrosity which means nothing in a War (both happening in the battlefield and surprisingly in Apzu’s realm in the form of assassination). [Monotheism] eradicate[s] all difference (whether as paganism, idolatry, heresy, apostacy, infidelity ...)? And at the same giving rise to them! but hopefully Renomu will get to us first ... Don’t be so sure ;) best to push it to the max and toughen up for an ocean of killing (but i've been reading a lot of West recently). Or shifting its survival to feed something else? As you mentioned, it seems the war happens through Escalation and Diffusion; for Jay’s puppets, escalation is a good back-up but certainly, sometimes, it is too blind to escalate what, its own warmachines or the Enemy. However, escalating tactics usually support the War itself rather than the involved parties. Is Iranian Islam changing along similar positive vectors? I can only say: The underground voices say: Yes. But not exactly a ‘Yes’ that you have in mind. However, I can understand / estimate the amount of toxin this discussion has released on your nervous system, my apologies for that. West might calm down and be pacified if Jay doesn’t irritate him once in while ;) ... but still i can’t see ‘total indifference’ as a proper tactical or strategic response. 914

Nick Land: Reza - hey, toxin is good (you usually have to pay for it). just let us know when we're approaching ECP territory ;) even if things getting tonally stretched, all the topics coming up here are neceessary ones - Sumerian mythos for instance - with a lot of milage important thing is to realize that one pole(cat) of this board is so far into radical Iblis evil (blasphemies of the most polytheistic idolatrous kinds, consummated in pools of pork fat and raw alcohol) that no compromise is possible - you ain't dealing with tortured PC Christians here - but hoping that doesn't mean we can't also get the latest from the heart of Jihad - that's polytics, isn't it? "And at the same giving rise to them!" - heresy, apostacy, infidelity, OK, but paganism and idolatry - don't flatter yourself! "escalating tactics usually support the War itself rather than the involved parties" you're beginning to sound dangerously as if you've caught the West virus ... but aren't the "involved parties" two strains of the Abrahamic tradition (shame if they burnt the unholy fuck out of each other) "Yes. But not exactly a ‘Yes’ that you have in mind" - this i especially adore, even if i know it's unlikely i'll ever understand it love and kisses - Vauung Valkator: Maybe the old cliche`, "We have seen the Enemy, and the Enemy is us" needs to be resurrected? An interesting aspect of the 'phallus' within the anthro-mono-one-concept, is circumcision: 1. Desire of the male sky-god to also BE the Earthly or even Celestial Mother (literal union - BE-ing One within a FORM). 2. Subverting one's own polar Fire - diverting it into a Neurosis; being unable to meet the strategic assault of `nafs` by being tainted and controlled by their INNER 'leash'. I say 'inner' because even though the 'mark' is an outer, bodily 'cut', it is still firmly WITHIN the creative construct itself. WHO wants to be 'god', in this equation? 3. Even though 'tawhid' in Islam 'resembles' the Judaic and Christian conceptions of monotheism, it cannot properly be called 'the third manifestation' of an 'Abrahamic 915

tree of MONO-theistic faiths' derived from the 'phallus principle' arising out of a Sumerian -- and earlier -- cultural/spiritual context. Though the sky-gods come from 'out there' -- outside the Tellurian's sense perceptions -- these 'gods' are still 'Inside' the construct itself. We might also want to consider that, within Islam, no battle exists between Iblis and Allah -- as even Iblis is contingent upon this Absolute One -- but not a ONE in a numeric, manifested, immanent, or even a transcending 'unitary' sense. In Islam, man is no-THING. The question is, then, Who or What is Allah and why is he called 'the best of planners'? ;) Perhaps, Reza can differentiate the Tellurian-Omega state of animal-man from the HUman in an Islamic state of Fitra -- which are not the same 'ontological' conditions? Nick Land: Valkator - "even Iblis is contingent upon this Absolute One" - oh for God's sake ... (please don't let me interrupt you banging your head against the floor in the general direction of Mecca) IBLIS = 96 (just take a glance at the goddam Numogram, does 9::6 look like the 'absolute one' to you?) Reza Negarestani: u/c, Intentionally ‘reacted’ this way as this ‘infidel’ assault was potentially and heavily dialectical from the first place (don’t want to accuse anyone), no matter we claim it was not our intention. nick, I see clearly now where you're coming from with the escalation of my mild pop-god pondering to your heavily-camo'ed infidel assault. [...] Difficult (in a hyperstitionally productive way? Not sure) to scope out the motivation behind Reza's squirming. For example, isn’t it an initiative dialectical formulation? Everyone should be positioned clearly or the position of everyone should be located clearly before connecting these positions (I am here where are you?). However, be patient I wont close this discussion in dialectical loops (more materials later on the whole issue) ;) still think we need to tie this causally to concrete movements to demonstrate its relevance (if that's an issue). Yes, agreed, that should be another line of exploration. 916

Nick, you ain't dealing with tortured PC Christians here LOL ... no I never thought so. important thing is to realize that one pole(cat) of this board is so far into radical Iblis evil Ok, I’m a Maymunist advocate of monotheism among ‘many other things’. heresy, apostacy, infidelity, OK, but paganism and idolatry Should repeat one of Mark’s previous questions: who are pagans anyway? I mean the pagans of this century. heresy, apostacy, infidelity ... I see their activities or active parts but for the pagans I’m not quite sure. but aren't the "involved parties" two strains of the Abrahamic tradition (shame if they burnt the unholy fuck out of each other. Yes, exactly I meant the same point. Hugs, a humble puppet Valkator, Excellent reference. I was referring to the same verse. ‘Makr’ (what has been translated as Plan) in Arabic and Farsi means chaotic strategy with diverging probe-heads rather than a goaloriented deception. Nick Land: Reza - re-hugs "who are pagans anyway? I mean the pagans of this century" - 2 billion + Indians and Chinese among others who've fended off the montheistic onslaught so far ... gotta get some sleep - looks like this thread could really cook ... apologies if the time subtleties are getting lost - we'll have plenty of time to pick them up again ... Reza Negarestani: Nick, 917

Lol ... In Islam Iblis (Shaytan) will be eventually forgiven by Allah and will serve in Heaven as a pleasing / entertaining Angel for Humans, connect it to the Hulugu line I talked about (he constructed many magnificent mosques over what he had ruined before and became a faithful Muslim) and I bet you will get one of the most nauseating / hilarious scenarios. ;) Talk about Ahriman (Angra-Maynu, the carrier of Druj, the druj of Full-Death as in Avestan is called) whose origin is also pre-Zoroastrian, Shaytan is somehow disappointing. Ahriman surely is far more subversive, cunning and radical than the 'impersonated / prone to God's deceptions' Iblis (correct pronunciation is Eblis btw). 2 billion + Indians and Chinese among others who've fended off the montheistic onslaught so far ... Render off the chinese goverment and you might get another swelling monothiestic crowd in a short time. but that's a ghastly joke ;) Indians come on, the indians gave rise to the Zorostarian germ-cell of monothiesm; they have bred more monothistic spawns than anyone. but my question was who pagans really are and what they are capable of (their characteristics as well)? I think undercurrent’s suggestions / questions are worth pursuing in this thread before the discussion is sucked into ‘I’m a Satanist / Muslim, who are you?’ slapstick fights. u/c: don't take any notice of me, I have the feeling I'm participating in a qwernopocalyptic discourse whose rules I only partially understand... Nick Land: Reza - you're a bundle of laughs (my anxieties) right now not going to let you get IBLIS off the 96 (= Durga) hook, at least without a fight. Both India and China comments too pointed to dismiss or counter on the spot (went to both countries in search of hard-core antimonotheistic potentialities, can't pretend to have been comforted by the reality on the ground in either place - Bhakti monobollox in India, terrifying 'looking for the next thing' sentiment in China - but as i say, the true looming horror IMHO is a mass Christian conversion wave in the Chinese world - if there was anything however pitifully insignificant that could be 918

done to help obstruct it i'd pitch in 100% ... for me, that really would be the worst "a ghastly joke" indeed - if the commies spent more time suppressing Christians i could really get to like them) I'll probably end up making a last stand amongst a bunch of headhunters in Borneo just hope we go down fighting. Reza Negarestani: u/c, don't take any notice of me, I have the feeling I'm participating in a qwernopocalyptic discourse whose rules I only partially understand... Lol ... don’t worry, I’m not plotting to exploit you as my human shield. Nick, Reza - you're a bundle of laughs (my anxieties) right now lol ... this sounds a wonderful night and I’m going to enjoy it. not going to let you get IBLIS off the 96 (= Durga) hook, at least without a fight. “Durga manifested when evil forces threatened the very existence of the Gods.” Oh, sounds ‘Very’ evil, I see (the evil guardian of the bureaucratic indic pantheon) ;) ... should add Druj (Druh) and Drugh has nothing to do with Durga, although the Mother of Abominations affirms everything and everyone. if the commies spent more time suppressing Christians i could really get to like them They failed Jay in Kurdistan too, don’t count on them. And the last thing: I guess Valkator’s discussion deserves a more appropriate answer (contains v. interesting remarks). Ok, guys, good night ... am going to watch a couple of movie after a hectic week (Suspect Zero and von Trier’s Riget II) Nick Land: Reza - "Oh, sounds ‘Very’ evil ..." - it's a Chaotic Xenodemon thing, you bookish types wouldn't understand ... ;) "Valkator" - yes, see if you can drag him off his knees Reza Negarestani: it's a Chaotic Xenodemon thing, you bookish types wouldn't understand ... 919

Now, i irritated the nervous system of the beast and waiting to see what is the next symptomatic phase (someone needs these technical pseudo-medical reports for 'her' laboratory) ;) ... a chaotic xenodemon can be pacified too btw. Nick Land: Reza - "a chaotic xenodemon can be pacified too" - hmmmm Reza Negarestani: Forgot to say that my friends (one of them is a Basiji General -he is 39 -- in Kurdistan) noticed me that some of the recent Shabnamehs spread near Marivan border and also in Kurdistan have been signed under a non-iranian name: Jay. They are not sure if this is a western name because they have all heard the stories about a woman wearing Borgha (a cover for women’s face using in South of iran) named Jay who helped them in Operation Mersad (Eternal Light) in Mordad 3, 1367 (1988) by uncovering a few key information about the tactical movements of Mujaheddin-e Khalghs (pseudo-islamic commies who assembled a group after the Revolution). My father’s friends who were in charge of army (Artesh) battalions at that time told me that despite these hypocrites were Iranians but they were torturing and slaughtering more civilians than islamic Sepahies or Basijies, so Artesh, too, willfully (because Artesh was once considered as a decadent leftover of the last regime) helped other military units in Iran to utterly eradicate these crypto-commies. Mujaheddin-e Khalghs were a large army fully armed by Iraqi light and heavy weapons; they expected to conquer Tehran in a few days by passing through Kermanshah and some cities of Kurdistan where rebellions had intense activities, so they had actually planned to reinforce their army by people and rebellions as the march towards Tehran through these cities. What happened was quite different, people escaped them, rebellions didn’t join them and even Artesh’s powerful army divisions joined the battle. The Operation started by the Code ‘Ya Ali’, the mistake of Mujaheddins was their lack of tacticity, they moved their units through in-depth formation to attract people so they were easily overwhelmed by the united army, and after a few days (esp. after a tactical diversion led by Artesh) they were fully trapped and defeated (Mordad 5, 1367) Another subject attracted me here is the word Yatu (as I quoted one of these shabnamehs at the opening of this post), I guess I have heard a similar word before. Should consult my linguist teammates in the archeological project, they might have a clue. (btw, added this new piece of information to West post) Valkator: Don't worry, Nick. I have a good, sturdy pair of CCM shin guards that keep the knees well protected. >:) 920

I'm curious as to what constitutes a 'strategic opposition' when the 'enclosure' one erects is still inside the 'thought' itself? My bringing attention to the 'Iblis is not in opposition to Allah' was not to suggest a get on our knees position, or that Islam is the 'demonic, clad in chador'; as such a 'position' and 'intention' is ultimately pointless and useless for that which 'HAS NO NAME'. However, perceptions to this 'effect' are certainly not to be dismissed. 'Eye of the beholder' subjectivities do have a purpose. Afterall, what IS the significance of 'Be-ing in the desert with Set'? Along these same lines, I'd be curious as to what the 'Real' meaning of 'Salat' is -- and most importantly -- what the 'Real' actions of 'Salat' signify -- as its MIS-translation into 'prayer' - with all that implies in the anthro-mono sense - seems utterly wrong on all counts. Notice the following associations: Mer/Ma ka'aba="mother" stone=magnetic center 1. What maintains and increases a magnetic center? 2. What does having a magnetic center signify -- both in the 'outer' planetary environment and 'within' the human body -- BOTH still INSIDE? 3. If both of these 'centers' are understood as 'transducing energy units' -- what is being transduced, and WHO is doing it? For what purpose? Now, why would the Tellurian-Omega-type be compelled to 'eradicate' the ka'aba -in both its outer 'world' and 'inner human' centers? Reza Negarestani: Valkator, do you mean Salavat or Salat? of course, both are from the same origin; but if you mean Salat i have some information for you. Valkator: Reza -Salat. You can send me the info via email or post it here. Whichever you prefer. :) Reza Negarestani: ok, will email it to you tomorrow. btw, is this your email address? 'pathofice ...' 921

and do you have Adobe Acrobat on your machine? (i'm going to use it for embedding Arabic fonts) northanger: reza - very interesting post. forgive me for being off topic. i was wondering if the number 120 wais significant in the Qu'ran. i did find something related to Surat Al-Naml: it is the 27th Sura with 93 verses, etc. Valkator: Reza -Yep - 'pathofice' is my email, and I do have Adobe so there should be no problem opening it. `Val` Nick Land: Valkator - thought-provoking remarks "I'm curious as to what constitutes a 'strategic opposition' when the 'enclosure' one erects is still inside the 'thought' itself?" - hoping to spiral to a position where this q. can be 'properly addressed' - problem at the moment is that its presuppositions are so remote ('deconstructionist'?) that it is hard to locate a region of contact - try to rearticulate this objection on the Numogram, and you'll probably see the difficulty. Iblis (= DURGA = PEST = 96) 'opposes' by way of envelopmental incursion from the Absolute Outside (the Trackless Gulfs, unmarked even in the Book of Paths), so 'enclosed' thinking (imaginable only within certain peculiar Hex spaces, and then without 'ontological' security) can only be assumed as a mask (even as 'hypercamouflage' - but of course, here too, radically alien strategic agendas pass each other without cross-communication in deserts of unending night) Reza Negarestani: Valkator, The renegade Zoroastrians have shown us, enclosure of this kind if developed strategically can be subverted by the radical openness (butchering lines of openness or openness as 'being opened') from within and without; on the other hand, openness in its accepted function (being open to) has its own dangers [see sorcerers and necromancers series] Surely organic survival autonomously finds its own region of contact in its expedition to 'accommodate' the Outside not radical communication with it (another danger of 922

sorcerous levis-function to the outside). Strategical account of this communication is to attract something other than organic survival economy locates these regions, although in participation with the organic affordance (a participation which is inexorable). Also I should add the radical outsideness as mentioned in the text is not radical exteriority in terms of distance (remoteness in terms of contact) but functionality. If the Sun is external to man (its functioning is the undoing of man), it doesn’t mean that it cannot be appropriated and enveloped by terrestrial agencies as something extra-proximal; as I’ll discuss in the piece about Salat the origin of the proto-Semitic word Alah (with a single ‘L’) connects it to the middle eastern sun gods which, of course, are very different from sun gods in other cultures. Northanger, you are tempting me to buy an ABJAD nummificating CD of the Quran ;) Yes, ‘120’ is frequently used in the Quran (however, I should find my papers to help you). Also note that 12 is the emphatic finality of Islam (Mahdi, the 12th Imam as the harbinger of Ghiamat who is absent yet present see the previous piece on Takfiri and the notion of absence – Ghiab -- in Islam) ================================================= Hey everybody, just discovered something in Abjad version of the numogram; it is a connection with the structure of verbal infinitives in Arabic language (excluding exceptions); but not sure how I can express it clearly. ================================================= Nick Land: Reza - stop teasing! northanger: "‘120’ is frequently used in the Quran" - reason i asked is an interesting proposition presented in this post (by the infamous Hugo, no less): http://www.gnostica.net/pipermail/enochian-l/2005-January/013388.html "It seems to me, and 'purists' may scoff, that the Aires are 120 in number, and not 30, solely." 923

it is a given (if you are an enochian purist) that there are only 30 Enochian Æthyrs. when i suggested to someone that there could possibly be 6 additional æthyrs - let's say i wasn't given that much wiggle room. this is highly off topic. i'm researching this right now and will post on my site. however, any input that you have i'd love to hear. and yes, you really must stop teasing everyone Reza Negarestani: ok, ok ... let me consult with a linguist in Arabic first. ps. gematria for NELAPR mentioned in previous enochian post: AQ 120 = NORTH = PACIFICA = ENGLAND = MOLOCH GON1 18 = FIFTY-FIVE = TZAPHKIEL = THE CIRCLE OF CTHAH WAS FORMED IN A NAME, SHAPE AND NUMBER GON2 18 = WILLIAM BURROUGHS D26 CI = TOCZ = ALCHEMY = NICK LAND in other systems, 120 maps to ECHIDNA STILLWELL, CONVERGENT TWINNING, CARRIER PRODUCTION, RASULON : MOSADDEQON, NORTHERN SUMATRA and RA-HOOR-KHUIT HATH TAKEN HIS SEAT IN THE EAST AT THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS "Also note that 12 is the emphatic finality of Islam (Mahdi, the 12th Imam as the harbinger of Ghiamat who is absent yet present" - who is the 11TH IMAM = 120? 121 = 12TH IMAM 122 = GHIAMAT The Numerical Values (Gematria) of Letters of the Alphabet and the Numerical Miracle http://www.animal-cruelty.com/fakir60/gematria.htm Example 3 Surat Al-Naml (‫ )النمل‬opens with the two letters ‫طس‬. The Serial order of the Sura in the Mus’haf is 27 and we have found that the frequency of the letter ‫ ط‬in the Sura is 924

also 27. ‫ س‬on the other hand occurs 93 times in the Sura. 93 happens to be the number of verses in the Sura. Thus, the total frequency of ‫ ط‬and ‫ س‬is 120, which is the total of the serial number of the Sura plus its number of verses. Finally, the Jum’mal of the word Naml (‫ )نمل‬is 120. Valkator: Reza -Exactly what I was suggesting, as any strategic 'opposition', or even 'defense' against the Outside follows a course which will see 'the thing' either fractured from the 'pressure' that the Outside exhibits 'externally' (I acting/defending against the whole) -- or 'exploded' due to internal 'combustion' heating to the point that the 'enclosure' cannot hold the growing 'frequency' within (the Whole exploding through I -- because one IS the Outside looking 'in', but hasn't attained to this SELF Recognition). In either case, the METAmorphosis/Mutation occurs and 'immanence' is asserted in its appropriate 'dimensional' context -- or RE-asserted. It all depends on how one 'gets there' and what one 'is' -- or isn't, as the case may be. The sinister 'strategerm' of the Z-crowd is not so sinister when the 'I' that cannot be named is REALIZED as the Outside and has 'his' say so in the matter...by not saying a-Thing. Then, there is no-Thing as 'it' always 'is' -- even as it must assert it 'isn't'. In the context of Islamic Chronopolytics, the 'sinister'strategy is, in essence, no strategy at all...which makes it 'appear' that much more diabolical. The sovereign holds all the cards and 'Man', in his Tellurian nature who 'must'(compulsion) reach the Omega 'point' of 'victory', is still grasping at straws and playing chess with 'someone' he 'thinks' is actually playing too. Reza Negarestani: Sorry Val, seems the text on Salat is spreading in different directions ... will try to complete it in the next few days. northanger: "When Islam begins to breed all its minorities" - breeds all its minorities? what do you mean by this reza? Nick Land: Valkator - getting a Sufism vibe from your contributions, but guessing that must be way too easy ... u/c: Reza, something interesting occurred to me : As the compounding of interest is a motif of K+ period-doubling time, I wonder what we can make of the islamic 925

prohibition on charging interest, in relation to your exposition of these chronopolitics? Is this a calming or warding-off mechanism, or what? Reza Negarestani: u/c, check your email. northanger: meant to post this awhile ago: AQ 318 = CHRONOPOLYTICS = VENUS TRANSITS = INVISIBLE INVADER thought this was an interesting conjunction of terms: CHRONO - of course, VENUS-SUN conjunctions create a pentagram (invisible over time) http://www.mooncatsastrology.com/webpages/venus-cycles.htm POLYTICS - the elements of hyperstition? unreal (invisible) fictions http://www.cold-me.net/polytics/index.html http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9912/msg00122.html Y2K is not only everywhere computers are, it is everywhere silicon chips are: it is a molecular bug, infecting even the tiniest interstices of the technical environment, an _invisible invader_ into technical systems that have themselves tended to shrink out of human sight. It is a global problem that can only be tackled locally. Valkator: nick -Ibn Arabi is quite an interesting `fella, eh? In all seriousness, though, there are some interesting threads of thought that come through in many 'sufi' individuals that I've found agreeable. Nick Land: Valkator - Sufis definitely seem cuddliest Muslims as far as unreformable infidels are concerned - that's probably why Salafists want to kill them ... Templexity. Part 1. Nick Land (January 20, 2004) In Peter Vysparov’s construction of the Cthulhu Club System, the central region of the Numogram is labelled the ‘Time-Circuit’ or the ‘Domain of Chronos.’ Despite 926

misgivings about mythopoetic arguments, it is worth briefly rehearsing aspects of Vysparov’s discussion. According to the Greek myth, Chronos was the son of Uranus and Gaia, last of the Titans and God of Time, married to the Goddess Rhea. Revolting against the tyranny of Uranus, Gaia provided Chronos with a sickle, with which he hacked the sexual organs from his father, killing him (and producing various fall-out entities – Erinyes, Giants, and Meliae). Chronos also fell under the prophecy that he would suffer an analagous fate at the hands of his offspring. He thus devoured the first five (Hestia, Hera, Demeter, Poseidon and Hades – order (to me) uncertain (Hestia first daughter)), but Zeus escaped and poisoned him. The five consumed children were regurgitated as their father died. Vysparov seems to have been convinced that these six offspring of Chronos – three of each sex - could be rigorously allotted zonal ‘houses’ on the Numogram TimeCircuit, consistent with the Pythagorean gendering of numbers. If he ultimately succeeded in establishing these co-ordinations his results do not seem to have reached us. Vysparov also emphasized that this ‘founding’ myth is one of time disintegration, not time persistence. The ‘Domain of Chronos’ is a burial complex, ordering the world through the death of integral time. Whether beginning from Kant’s identification of time with the content of arithmetic, or Einstein’s definition of time as a (fourth) dimension, attempts to model time seem to necessarily call upon the number line. The most elementary – and notationally efficient – chronometric and calendric systems count time by addition of unit periods, from caesium atom half-lives through clock ticks to day counting and annual datechanging. Whatever the scale, the procedure remains the same: the apparently basic arithmetical operation of additive succession, +1, +1, +1, … Of course, mathematicians have known for well over two millennia that the number line in no way compels such an assumption. Step-by-step additive progression by units is merely one arithmetically arbitrary mode of numerical accumulation. Nevertheless, it can at least be argued that this pattern of counting presents the overwhelmingly prevalent articulation of chronological common sense. Echidna Stillwell refers to Vysparov’s ‘Time Circuit’ as the ‘Hex.’ She demonstrates the arithmetical consistency between this region of the Numogram and the Chinese 927

Classic of Change, or I Ching. This intermapping is locked into place by two basic bino-decimal echoes: 1) The six-step cycle of digitally-reduced binary magnitudes, repeating the series 2, 4, 8, 7, 5, 1. 2) The 9-twinning of these repeating stages. (To quote Richard Wilhelm’s commentary: “The following lines, provided they differ in kind, correspond: the first and the fourth, the second and the fifth, the third and the top [sixth] line.”) Stillwell cites the Nma version of an almost universally familiar story: “A poor mathematician from the great landmass came to the court with a game he had invented, now called ‘chess,’ and the king was so enthralled by this diversion he asked the visitor whether there was anything he could offer as a token of appreciation. The cunning mathematician replied: ‘Your majesty, perhaps if you were to place a grain of rice on the first square, two on the second, and continuing thus, doubling the number on each successive square until reaching the final [64th] one, it would at least spare me from the danger of starvation on my return journey.’ Shocked by the modesty of this request, the king readily agreed. It was in this way the kingdom passed for the first time into the hands of strangers …” This tale, attributed variously to Indian, Chinese and Persian sources, with minor variations in each case, is now to be found mostly in schoolrooms, where it is used as an aid in the teaching of binary exponentiation. The topics it raises, whether concerning mathematics, games and power, number and trickery, numerical isomorphy between the chess board and the I Ching, or other matters, exceed the scope of this discussion. Two points will suffice for now: 1) The utter obscurity attending the origins of this tale provides highly suggestive support for Stillwell’s ‘ethnomic’ hypothesis, with its argument that numerical potentiality is capable of generating spontaneous unlocalizable cultural syndromes. 2) Binary exponentiation has a ‘mythic’ dimension, now largely supplanted in modern societies by ‘Moore’s Law’ of techonomic development. A privileging of binary exponentiation rather than unit addition is entirely consistent with the prominence of the number line as a model of time. The basic ‘time unit,’ however, is now conceived as the ‘doubling period.’ This approach integrates an intriguing diversity of problematics: 928

1) The I Ching, where time progresses through doubling and bino-decimal cyclicity. There is nothing exclusively ‘modern’ about the extravagant power of time as an exponentially accumulative trend – modernity lies rather in the evasion of disaccumulation crisis, which in the time of the I Ching is described as an inevitability of periodic catastrophe. 2) The Numogram Hex, rigorously echoing the I Ching, although with certain supplementary complexities (exceeding the scope of this discussion). The Numogram also ‘positions’ the sphere of duplicative time within a greater – and for now obscure – time terrain. 3) Qabbalistic tradition, within which binary exponentiation has ‘always’ provided the key to certain crucial combinatorial calculations. Combinatorics, qabbala, and binary exponentiation share a common procedural reservoir. 4) Transfinite arithmetic, as consolidated by Cantor, whose Continuum Hypothesis proposes that binary exponentiation to Aleph-0 = Aleph-1 (the real number line). But this could go on forever … AQ notes: CHRONO = 127 (enough said) CHRONOLOGY = 222 (a little theatrical perhaps ...) CHRONOS = 155 (31 x 5: The pentanomic order is the strict complement of binary within the decimalized Oecumenon - more on this elsewhere) Comments: Templexity. Part 1. northanger: nicholas AQ 239 = TEMPLEXITY = GRAND RETURN = INTERESTING ----------------------GON2 74 = A POOR MATHEMATICIAN = DECIMAL REDUCTION AQ 251 = GREAT LANDMASS = FOUR-ONE-EIGHT AQ 384 = TOKEN OF APPRECIATION = MACHINIC UNCONSCIOUS = CHANGE IS GONNA DO ME GOOD 929

AQ 379 = CUNNING MATHEMATICIAN = HYPERSTITIONAL GAME AQ 214 = A GRAIN OF RICE = COMMUNITY = AGE OF KHATTAK AQ 343 = DOUBLING THE NUMBER = CCRU BEGINS WITH Y2K AQ 264 = THE FINAL [64TH] ONE = QWERNO-COUNT = WAR ON TERROR AQ 321 = RETURN JOURNEY = HASHISHIN SPIRIT = ORDER OF THE WORLD ----------------------GON1 107 = KINGDOM PASSED FOR THE FIRST TIME INTO THE HANDS OF STRANGERS GON1 107 = A DREAM UNTHREATENED BY THE MORNING LIGHT {Learning to Fly, by Pink Floyd} Nick Land: northanger - **** that was quick know this doesn't get far upriver, but needed to set up a few base camps for future templexploration northanger: nick - this is good, brings a lot of flow. three good mythology sites http://www.pantheon.org/ http://66.90.77.92/index.htm http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/ Nick Land: Northanger- you feeling diligent enough to ordinalize the Chronosspawn? Reza Negarestani: Nick + Northanger, Just returned home! I’m pretty tired. trivial information: Chronos, the origin of the word Chronos is Khron from Sanskrit (we have a similar word in Avesta); it means Abyss corresponding to both 930

mythological account of Chronos imprisoned in Tartarus and Chronos as Time. (Chronos as time cannot be separated from catadromic functions; ‘Cata at Cold Me’) Chronos’ activities around propagating species / breeding offspring are also originated from pre-Zoroastrian mythos. Angra-Maynu (as the prototype of Chronos [1]) undergoes a bloody / butchering type of parthenogenesis (see Meatology of the Redeemer). Chronos is also bi/asexual. [1] The Zoroastrian / Mazdaian accounts of Genesis are complex and v. interesting; will discuss them later. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Not an inquisitive / interrogative question, just for the sake of discussion: I’d appreciate more info about time disintegration, time persistence and integral time. What is this integrality; do you mean integrality in Time itself or according to an exterior plane? Also the excellent topic you raised, IMHO, needs some discussions about the Germanic Time with tidal / temporal functionalities and the Greek Chronos with catadromic disintegrating functions and descents (divergent ABYZmal polytics) but in most cases ‘Time = Chronos’; Nick, is this equation also available as a pivotal element in Vysparov’s discussion or in other words, is ‘time = chronos’? (it seems Deleuze and Guattari accepted this popular equation as an outset for their discussion about Aeon and Time). three good mythology sites http://www.pantheon.org/ http://66.90.77.92/index.htm http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/ Northanger, these sites are interesting but not very reliable: if you want something accurate in most cases, check this out: http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/ northanger: pythagorean tarot (highly recommended) http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/PT.html Reza Negarestani: pythagorean tarot (highly recommended) 931

Most of John Opsopaus' essays are fascinating. The website is old but sometimes they update it. Nick Land: Reza / northanger - you two both much more at home in this myth excavation space than me - i'm hanging on by my fingernails (wouldn't probably have gone there except for Vysparov's shtick) northanger - Pythagorean tarot - sounds v. interesting, but could take a while to hunt down in Shanghai (San Francisco this ain't) - know you don't usually 'do' 'users guide' type glosses, but any brief and intelligible remarks about the elementary orientation / distinctiveness of this tarot? Reza - it's a while since i've been near the D&Gon; texts, but remember the distinction dividing time into Chronos/Aeon (rather than opposing time/aeon). Doubt whether their writings of much importance to Vysparov, if only because his Numogrammatic work quite early compared to theirs (much already done by the early 1950s for e.g.). To my understanding, Vysparov is also identifying Chronos with a 'region' of time (that of the 'Time-Circuit') but his vocabulary viz time(s) of the Outer (triadic) zones and Ultimate Gulf is all over the place - sometimes he writes of (Warp) 'hyperchronic time' and (Plex) 'subchronic time,' sometimes he uses expressions such as 'Warp achronicity' or simply 'Warp-time' for instance, or what seem to be plays on language whose technical status is hard to decipher, such as 'time warping' ... don't think he ever completed a convincing theoretical systematization of anything beyond the Domain of Chronos, and even there he left plenty of holes (material for at least one more post though). Also on Chronos/Aeon - 'Aeon' in Vysparov's work linked to Atlantean hermetic historicism (think he might even read the D&Gon; as falling under this) - when he uses this word it seems less like an opposing term and more like a subregion of his 'Chronos' (itself much less polemically freighted, wider, more complex and more elastic than that of the D&Gon;). On Time Integrity … need to do some more digging around in Vysparov’s chaotic notebooks on this – I’ll get back to you on it. For now, basic sense seems to be that the Chronos myth shatters Chronos (into six) rather than installing it as a unitary sovereignty ... [sorry to just repeat the obvious and miss the whole point of your q., blame the sickness] 932

Reza Negarestani: Reza - it's a while since i've been near the D&Gon; texts, but remember the distinction dividing time into Chronos/Aeon (rather than opposing time/aeon). me too ... sorry for the mistake. but the chronos they demarcate, if memory serves, is the germanic Time with tide / temporal regions and pulsations which they oppose to Aeon. Is there any possibility to disentangle Time, not the germanic one but at least what Vysparov traces (with less emphasis on its chronic / aeonic spaces)? northanger: any brief and intelligible remarks about the elementary orientation / distinctiveness of this tarot? - where do you want me to post it? niki, are you sick? Nick Land: northanger - "where do you want me to post it?" - does that question suggest we're actually talking long, baroque and unintelligible to mammalian nervoussystems? (otherwise, why not here?) are you sick? - revoltingly northanger: chronocrators: time lords decennia: one of the greek time lord systems got some notes on this, can post AFTER writing pythy glossy thingy. :-) Nick Land: [foot tapping] northanger: lol The Pythagorean Tarot http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/PT.html John Opsopaus indicates "interpretive framework" for PT different from other tarots. PT utilizes traditional iconography, archetypal imagery and Pythagorean numerology and is influenced by "Greek cultural milieu", Mediterranean mythology, alchemy, Jungian psychology, other divinatory systems and traditional tarot interpretation. +distinctiveness of this tarot 933

In PT, the numbers are archetypes, as well as the symbols/images. Jung was convinced that number is the most basic archetype, and is the key to understanding the psychical + physical relationship. The west has focused on number's physical / quantitative / abstract aspects; the east has focused on the psychical / qualitative / affective (feeling-toned) aspects. And this is perhaps the major distinction with this tarot: "The Pythagoreans, however, viewed numbers as cosmic principles with both material and spiritual aspects. This perspective is the basis of the numerology found in many cultures. When the qualitative aspects are included in our conception of numbers, they become more than simple quantities 1, 2, 3, 4; they acquire an archetypal character as Unity, Opposition, Conjunction, Completion. They are then analogous to more familiar archetypes..." This distinction also parallels ideas presented in ueue's paper: +Notes on Badiou, D&G;, and the new antiliberation movement+: "Badiou declares the necessity of the 're-entangling' of philosophy and mathematics, and claims that philosophy .... has systematically excluded mathematics". If TIME=NUMBER, then philosophy's relationship to time is equivalent to PT's qualitative aspects, and mathematics to PT's quantitative aspects. +elementary orientation Pythagorean Oath: Nay! By him that gave our family the Tetractys, which holds the Fount and Root of everflowing Nature. (Ou ma ton hameterai geneai paradonta Tetraktun, Pagan aenaou Phuseôs Rhizôma t' ekhousan). Opsopaus states that Pythagorean numerology is the main organizing principle for his tarot. Notice the Pythagorean Oath: Rhizôma = Root (mass of roots?). How can we determine RHIZÔMA is the elementary orientation for this tarot? The back design of the Pythagorean Tarot incorporates three important Pythagorean symbols: the Pentagram, the Tetractys, and the Pythagorean Y. The numeric formula for the Tetractys = 1+2+3+4+10; and another Pythagorean oath = "by the square of four". The Tetractys represents the four worlds and, in fact, has a rhizomatic appearance. The Pythagorean Y represents a rhizome, or, a singular tetractycnode(=abstraction=pattern=recursive=soul) which is utilized by the [pentagram](=four elements=1+2+3+4=body). The Pentagram represents the perfect equilibrium of the four elements enlivened(=wholeness) by the everflowing nature(=Aithêr=10) which in turn harmonizes body+soul(1+2+3+4+10) and the tetractyc-net. 934

To be effective, divination follows certain proven rules. If we are aware that a tarot deck embeds intention, then Opsopaus' deep awareness of Greek thought, number, alphabet, etc., "infects" every cut of the deck. He has engineered a deck that deals with rhizomatic harmony and intersecting all planes of existence: +++The method of science may be contrasted with that of divination. In science one makes a conscious "cut" in the world, separating the phenomenon of interest from the rest of existence. In divination, on the other hand, one makes an unconscious "cut," by isolating a qualitative moment in time, which retains the fullness of its participation in both the physical and psychic aspects of all existence. Numerical procedures, such as cutting a tarot deck, rolling dice, or dividing yarrow stalks, are used to determine the kairos, the "key moment," for the constellation of a unique synchronous phenomenon. With proper preparation, so that an archetype is already activated by a sufficiently high "charge" of psychic energy, the divinatory act can create a "hole" in the "field of consciousness through which the autonomous dynamism of the collective unconscious can break in" (von Franz 227). (von Franz 44, 199) +++http://inside.bard.edu/irby/citer.htm Rhizome-- every point connected to every other point -- no points or positions in a rhizome, only lines (which do form intersections) --a rhizome can be broken off at any point and reconnected following one of its own lines --the rhizome is antigenealogical --has its own outside with which it makes another rhizome, therefore a rhizomatic whole has neither inside not outside --not a "calque" but an open chart which can be connected w/ something else in all of its dimensions, it is dismountable, reversible and susceptible to continual modifications --a network of trees which open in every direction can create a rhizome (often made into 'partial trees' that can be cut out artificially from every rhizome) --no one can provide a global description of the whole rhizome, not only multidimensionally complicated, but also because its structure changes through time -- not globally, but a potential sum of local descriptions --if not outside, can be seen ONLY from the inside (a myopic algorithm, any one only knows its contact points-- so each is only a hypothesis) blindness is the only way of seeing (locally) and thinking means to grope one's way. CHRONO = 127 = DECENNIA (greek time lord system) Antikythera mechanism 935

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism The mechanism is the oldest known surviving geared mechanism, made from bronze in a wooden frame, and has puzzled and intrigued historians of science and technology since its discovery. The most commonly accepted theory of its function is that it was an analog computer designed to track the movements of heavenly objects. Recent working reconstructions of the device support this analysis. The device is all the more impressive for its use of a differential gear, which was previously believed to have been invented in the 13th century AD. AQ 397= ANTIKYTHEREA MECHANISM = ENCHANTED ISOLATION = THE PLACE OF ENCHANTMENT Nick Land: Pythagoras is evidently going to get a thorough working over here - he intersects too many lines to ignore. "CHRONO = 127 = DECENNIA" - this (IMHO) is a qabbalistic masterpiece. northanger: nicholas - occasionally you say things like, "qabbalistic masterpiece" and i wonder, what is he thinking of exactly? couldn't help myself (and maybe answered this QM bizness): enneadic, aced nine, deca nine, need cain, de ancien, de canine, in decane, yadda. this was interesting: http://www.omakoio.gr/periexomena6_eng.htm the ennead, among other things, are the nine chief deities of the osirian cycle; they can create a 3x3 grid (The Ennead Matrix or The Decaplex): http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/ennead.html http://blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/2005/01/decaplex_develo.html http://home.hccnet.nl/m.houtman/site/pwisse/htm/diaenneadic_framework.htm Dia-enneadic framework for information concepts: A framework, or metatheory, is an artifact designed to control variety. Coordination of directions in information management (including communication management, vice versa) requires, first of all, a framework for information concepts. A framework is erected from semiotic enneads on the assumption of sign exchange. With two fundamental positions in sign 936

exchange, occupied by a producer and an observer, respectively, a dia-enneadic framework for information concepts results. AQ 142 = DECAPLEX = CRANIUM = END OF GOD = THE LINK = ACTIVE R1 = LEMURIA AQ 236 = ENNEAD MATRIX = COUNTER-COIN = HERU-PA-KRAATH = METATRONICS = SIX AND FIFTY = TOO HORRIBLE Valkator: northanger said: 'CHRONO = 127 = DECENNIA (greek time lord system)' nick said: '"CHRONO = 127 = DECENNIA" - this (IMHO) is a qabbalistic masterpiece' We would have to locate the 'transmitting station' of this forumula in what might be termed 'hyperdimensional' or 'hyperdensity' environments and then applied or Projected into a Tellurian environment (and all others needed to maintain one in stasis) for purposes which 'lock' or 'bind' BOTH the Tellurian 'target/object' and 'extraTellurian' 'subject'(or so they think) into their respective 'places/station' of self(ego). This maintains the 'feeding' relationship in a very strucutred and highly 'linear' manner. Every system which has been 'tainted' displays this 'linear' characteristic -Monotheistic 'linear time' with a 'beginning and end', 'evolution' along 'progressive' lines, and 'god' presenting himself as a 'unique One` which is not only Outside -- but with all 'others' INSIDE, being a form ONLY, and removed from this 'god' (self separated and divorced from Self, except for this 'One'). This obviously places the 'time lords' into a 'savior' position vis-a-vis all those locked into the Tellurian net. It's a very clever structure that those separated from the Outside (either because they cannot SEE or have chosen NOT to) have devised to temporarily forestall the obliteration of their temporal, transient Form -- even if this means taking everything with them in their self-imposed death sentence and rush toward remanifestation as a contracted, primal atom. The 'other side' of this polarity cannot be very impressed with this 'masterpiece' of numerology, so much as disturbed by having to observe all those trapped within its machinery run for the exits (entrances!) provided and showcased by the Warden himself. More salt, please, with that Messiah... ;) northanger: nixing time lord system fine by me. 937

The Book of Grand Summonings Reza Negarestani (January 22, 2005) A few sample pages from the abjad books of grand summonings (published during Qajar dynasty) which I recently exhumed from the family library along with old copies of books written by Avicenna, Farabi, Mollasadra and Ghazali The books contain numerous matrices, ciphers (Aramaic, Arabic and Farsi), magic squares and diagrams; unfortunately, I have not succeeded to decipher many of them. [Editor’s Note: This post contained a series of images that could not be reproduced here. But many may find the comments helpful so I have included the original post.] Comments: The Book of Grand Summonings Reza Negarestani: my scanner didn't work so i took thier pictures. Nick Land: Reza - aren't the anthronommoids a bit on the blasphemous side? (or is that the least of the problems we're looking at here?) Reza Negarestani: Yes, actually they are ABJAD diagrams for Iblis and other unknown demons among the Quranic Angels; as you can see the right figure carries the ABYZmal cartography of pestilence: The right hand upward, and the left hand downward (the seal of Ugallu, Pazuzu, Anzu, ...). Some figures in the book have swollen bodies, bloated bellies and confused or unknown gender. The first and the last pictures are also about summoning Jnun (packs of female Jinns): on Jnun see: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004335.html The books are syncretic; simultaneously adoring Allah and praising Iblis and pests. northanger: reza - is it possible for Summoning1 (1) left-img, arabic characters in the gut& throat; and, (2) right-img, arabic charcters for 4x4 & 3x3 tables. if you copy these in arabic and english, that would be great. is there anything in any of this (that you can discern) with the numbers 21 or 63? esmail: these books are now reprinted and available in Tehran, near the gate of Tehran university. 938

Reza Negarestani: these books are now reprinted and available in Tehran, near the gate of Tehran university. Esmail, yes, i have seen the books but they are not this one, the books i saw near Tehran university in my last trip (two/three weeks ago) were Kanisatan Al-Hussein (vol. 1, 2), Satar-o-Al-Oyub, and Do'aay-e Kabir which have been published around the 20s and 30s (1320-1330). i have them all; well, most of the ABJAD books look the same ;) ... however Majmao-Al-Ehzarat-e Kabir (this one) has phrases in Aramaic, it has written by an expert not someone who merely knows Arabic and Farsi; plus, those books are mainly similar to Fanditha tradition of magic in Maldive; this one however has references to Malek Tavoos (the diety worshipped by the Yezidians). Nick Land: Reza - "Malek Tavoos (the diety worshipped by the Yezidians)" - haven't you promised us a post on Mesopotamian 'Mithraism'? Reza Negarestani: haven't you promised us a post on Mesopotamian 'Mithraism'? sneezing, coughing, vomiting, etc. that means i'm too sick and you shouldn't remind me of my failures ;) ... i'm planning to write a full post on Mazdaism and mesopotamian Mithraism but first let me finish that post on Salat (plus many other marginal subjects) ... am waiting for an insignificant piece of information from someone in Cairo University ... then there are almost ready posts on Women in WoT, ABJAD-e Saghir, Necromancers and Sorcerers series (chapter six), and islamic chronopolytics II. so i'm fully in the field General ;) on my reference to Fanditha (in a previous comment): http://www.dhivehiobserver.com/books/dhon_hiyala_ali_fulhu_magic.htm http://www.maldivesculture.com/maldives_magic_fanditha01.html http://www.maldivesculture.com/fandit01.html Northanger, will do it. u/c: Malek Tavoos (the diety worshipped by the Yezidians) also, weren't we (a long time ago) going to talk about the interesting yezidi script? 939

northanger: "on my reference to Fanditha (in a previous comment)" - reza, what is the link to your previous comment. thank you. Reza Negarestani: u/c, also, weren't we (a long time ago) going to talk about the interesting yezidi script? oh, yes, yes (sorry for this long delay) ... will discuss it in one forthcoming posts on Mazdaism and mesopotamian Mithraism. Nick Land: i'm too sick and you shouldn't remind me of my failures - just keeping up the excited hype (treat it as a marketing ploy) ;) Reza Negarestani: well, i learned it from you ;) Nick, Did you check your email today (u/c's suggestions i mean)? i guess he (it) is still awake. Nick Land: Reza - I've trashed my keyboard at home (this on my computer at work) - try and relapce it this afternoon I'll try the u/c thing again later - see if i can get as far as 'the duck' ABJAD shields: A note on The Book of Grand Summonings Reza Negarestani (January 26, 2005) Following my answer to Esmail, I should add this book is one of the rarest ABJAD books consistently approaching its unconventional syncretism through Shia religion and not traditional ABJAD. One of the most significant evidences for such a claim is that in ABJAD books, Figures, Diagrams and Magic Squares are usually surrounded by circles or shields which are commonly known as ABJAD watchers or ABJAD shields. Most of the published ABJAD books in Iran although contain the names of Shia Imams but correspond to the cipherology of traditional Arabic ABJAD in which diagrams or figures are guarded by ABJAD Watchers, covered by either the letter Meem or the letter Daal (the first and the last letters of the name Mohammad); these traditional ABJAD shields are designed by two lines intersected and formed an acute 940

or obtuse angle representing the letter Daal (= 4). However, in Shia ABJAD, these shields are not pointed (consequently they are not in the form of the letter Daal) but curved lines (overrun by the letter Haa) diagramming the calligraphic element of the letter Haa (= 5) which is a fully curved letter (see the left figure: summoning 1). Haa (= 5) stands for ‘Panj Tan-e Aal-e Abba’ i.e. Mohammad, Ali, Hassan, Hussein, Fatemeh who are the pillars of Shia. Comments: ABJAD shields: A note on The Book of Grand Summonings Nick Land: ... so at least one of us has survived ... northanger: ... how are you nicholas? reza - i have more, do you want me to post them? AQ 63 = ABJAD = CARE = DEEM = HALF = HAND = HIS = LAW = OIL AQ 170 = ABJAD BOOKS = ANYTHING = BLACKZONE = CIPHERING = CORPORAL = DISAPPEAR = EYESIGHT = HIDDEN IMAM = HU JINTAO = JUVENILE = KARL MARX = KNOWEST = LIMBIC KEY = MISTMARE = MONTHLY = PERSTIT = SUFFERER AQ 202 = ABJAD SHIELDS = ALIEN SIGNAL = EARTH'S CORE = END OF AMERICA = INITIATING = JACOB'S WHEEL = MECHANOMICS = NAKED POWER = OVERCODING = PHASE-LIMIT = PSY-TRANCE = STRANGELY = UNASSUAGED = WAHHABISTIC = WICKEDNESS Nick Land: Reza - this Daal/Haa division has a Khattakite resonance ... (even tempting to imagine drawing the Ghiamat 'cut' along the schism - or is that getting too evil?) northanger - sick and spattered in machine-grease from cranking-up abstract machine parts in the Garage of Dread ... "Hu Jintao = Hidden Imam" - are you aiming to get everyone on our case at once? northanger: nick - um, delete it? Nick Land: northanger - see if we get electric cattle-prod noises from our Middle Eastern correspondent ... northanger: i'm sure if we put an ABJAD Watcher at the door nobody'll notice. 941

Nick Land: can't imagine infidel qabbalodelirium gets taken seriously in Qom (or Beijing) Reza Negarestani: Nick, so at least one of us has survived Although survived after a brief personal visit with the Old Ones but still feel terrible (posted this note to just say: i'm alive, nothing more) ... we can't escape these evermutating asiatic viruses. This Daal/Haa division has a Khattakite resonance Yes, exactly; a friend of mine in Cairo university also suggested a similar point. (besides, check your email.) Northanger, You forgot the most important one: ;) Oil = Jay = ABJAD Nick Land: Reza - Jay's still Madame Mystery (to say the least), but of course I agree she's Ms 63 (which is just about all i know so far - you managed to pilfer any of her letters yet?) ;) PS. MADAME MYSTERY = TELLURIAN OMEGA northanger: reza - "Oil = Jay = ABJAD" - oops. it's just the cognitive dissonance thing i've got going with Jay. makes me drop that one off every now and then. piet: since yall can't go any crazier than yalready are it won't hurt to engage this jugular juggler in convers@ion http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/telos/ http://www.talkaboutrecovery.com/group/alt.recovery.religion/messages/81785.ht ml On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:32:52 GMT, "Qolon" wrote: 942

NOTE: That this is essentially connected to the explanation of the parabolic discourses concerning the 'Kingdom of Heaven' As does the sartiric and dodecophonic entropicon of maudlinistic telehertz. Reza Negarestani: Jay's still Madame Mystery (to say the least), but of course I agree she's Ms 63 (which is just about all i know so far - you managed to pilfer any of her letters yet?) Some one has promised me to send me a few copies of those shabnamehs; meanwhile, we could decoded a few basic information about the name Jay (thanks to the archeologist friends for further info) [will write soon] Piet, since yall can't go any crazier than yalready are it won't hurt to engage this jugular juggler in convers@ion lol ... thanks very much for the link; sounds crazy enough. Nick, check your email again ... for Druj's sake download and install the msn messenger if you don't have one. northanger: i'm preparing a list of all the things reza has promised us. Nick Land: Piet leaves me (virtually) speechless as usual (qabbawallaby site looks promising - definite northanger territory) "for Druj's sake download and install the msn messenger" - go on, complicate my life ;) OK, I'm on it ... northanger: http://members.austarmetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/ Nick Land: DEATH = DECAY = DOOM = OUT = TIME (= 83). 83 = 23rd Prime. 23 = 9th Prime. The almost unbearable nummosystematic perfection of this cluster provokes tears and gnashings of teeth ... 943

northanger: "The almost unbearable nummosystematic perfection of this cluster provokes tears and gnashings of teeth" - nicholas, enlighten the rest of us who don't appreciate the mystery of prime, qabbalistic perfeconnection & gothic clusterf**ks like this one. getting on topic: reza, my first response to ABJAD squares & diagrams surrounded by ABJAD watchers and shields was how they relate to embedded patterns in western magic squares. how do new forms manifest? IMMANENT-IMPLEX remains within subjective mind as intricate-entangled, complicated-complex; an all-embracing AMPLEXUS twining-embracing-around -its triggered unfolding accomplished by ... DRAWING, ENGRAVING. Nick Land: northanger - post coming (following up on some of your Pythagoras lines, hopefully in productively irritating fashion) northanger: nick - what does "Cthulhu Fhtagn" mean? "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn." "In his house in R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." Nick Land: northanger - reminds me of that Old song, how does it go? Oh yes: "Ia! Ia! Nglmuthullai, Nglmhupputai, Nglukkhumunnittai ..." PS. CONTRA NUMEROLOGY = 360. PPS. Tried AQing those sentences you cite? - kindov weird ... PPPS. "Cthulhu Fhtagn" - Why not intimate to Reza and Tachi what the Old Ones have to say about them? northanger: Why not intimate to Reza and Tachi what the Old Ones have to say about them? - ok, but what the heck do you mean by CONTRA NUMEROLOGY? AQ 00836=BEHOLD IT IS REVEALED: ALIUS ALIA VIA AD ASTRA ASCENDIT 00836=LISTENING AND FIGURING OUT WHERE YOUR SPACE IS 944

00836=PH'NGLUI FHTAGN MGLW'NAFH CTHULHU R'LYEH WAGN'NAGL 00400=UNABLE TO DISTINGUISH 00400=COLD REPTILIAN PATIENCE 00400=EIGHTEENTH ENOCHIAN KEY GON1 00076=BALAM AQ'AB 00076=CALENDRIC SECESSIONISM 00076=IA! IA! NGLMUTHULLAI, NGLUKKHUMUNNITTAI ... NGLMHUPPUTAI, 00106=IN WHOM THE SECRETS OF TRUTH 6332 HAVE THEIR ABIDING {Eighteenth Enochian Key} 00106=IN HIS HOUSE IN R'LYEH DEAD CTHULHU WAITS DREAMING 00106=JIHAD: THE ABSENT OBLIGATIOIN 00106=NINE IS THE CHANGEFULNESS OF THE NUMBERS BROUGHT TO NAUGHT 00106=OCTAVE STRETCHING BREAKBEAT NESTING 00107=LET ME GUIDE MYSELF WITH THE BLUE, FORKED TORCH OF THIS FLOWER« 00107=PH'NGLUI FHTAGN MGLW'NAFH CTHULHU R'LYEH WAGN'NAGL EIGHTEENTH ENOCHIAN KEY O Thou Mighty Light And Burning Flame Of Comfort; Which Opens The Glory Of God To The Center Of The Earth; In Whom The Secrets Of Truth 6332 {ERAN} Have Their Abiding; Which Is Called In Thy Kingdom Joy, And Not To Be Measured: Be Thou A Window Of Comfort Unto Me! Move And Appear! Open The 945

Mysteries Of Your Creation! Be Friendly To Me, For I Am The Minister Of God, The True Worshiper Of The Highest! THE CALL OF ERAN http://home.no.net/karl24/erancall.htm 6332 Serpents. Becoming (that) autonomous oblivion within, (therefrom) invoking and becoming the dark mountain of the PeNI, which the beast says is available through his building of commitment. Nothing (none) is its form. The sunrise of the eternal becomes, is and is. The Ones sacrifice becomes more than the union with it, and the inner oblivion is (turned to become) the strength of the slaving servant. The kiss of continual oblivion by the axe provided by the Trinity; the cunning bolt's work in the celebration of the fall of mine. Knowing obediance. Knowing time. The 31 visits with friendlyness the needing serpents. 22 doughnut forms feels birth, and that becomes the kiss of the Trinitys strong Fire; which becomes the thruth herearound. Saying; ideal shall the 6332's comfort become. The One is absorbed into, lits up the towers of reflections. Shadows mingle and join the earth, mine attaining whirls around my arising. THE ERAN TABLE http://home.no.net/karl24/ERANtabl.htm The call of ERAN summons something quite different from the table, that energy is serpentlike and of some elder kind. It is not like the kundalini force, but sembles more the vulcanic and infernal fire of this earth and also draconic forces in general. It has not shown great intelligence so far, and makes therefore the use of the table natural, even if its not eruptive or too chaotic to handle,but simply to witness the great processing of the crude material returning to its origin, seems to be the main motive of this table. Gods in the image of Lucifer did once initiate the isolate intelligence, but it was the dragons that continued the movement and did the final earthing of consciousness. This table seems capable to bring the lowest of consciousness back to the darkness beyond. And this state when successfully achieved is not just blessed and blissed but extremely lucid and Holy.*This makes this table convenient to use in one of the Black Schools highest aims: ceasing to relate to anything. The unique One knows everything by himself. *The easiest way to execute this ritual is by using the Call, Calling Rraaoplai, all the rooms with their interconnecting names, and the four guides. 946

AQ 00172=TEMPORAL 00237=IDIOT CARRIER 00172=ATTITUDE 00237=LAPIS LAZULI 00172=BLACK MAGICK 00237=MITOCHONDRIA 00172=DAMNATION 00237=NIGHT LETTER 00172=FAR NORTH 00237=OVER THE CLIFF 00172=FIFTY-ONE 00237=THE CALL OF ERAN 00172=IMAGE OF GOD 00237=WORSHIPPER 00172=RRAAOPLAI 00219=POMO DICTUM 00172=U UMLAUT 00219=INTOLERENCE 00172=WRITTEN 00219=MATERIALISM 00237=US MILITARY 00219=ANGLOSPHERE 00237=ELDER FUTHARK 00219={infamous bp phrase} 00237=ENOCHIAN KEYS 00219=FOR GOD'S SAKE 00237=GREAT ANGEL HUA 00219=THE ERAN TABLE 00237=HOLD CURRENT 00219=VERMOMANCY Nick Land: northanger - sometimes you frighten me northanger: as do you me. notice eighteenth key = 1:8? Nick Land: northanger - trouble is, among the bursts of shocking cosmic illumination are gnostic elements such as "00237=ELDER FUTHARK" - how many lifetimes (the pitiful nick puppet asks) would be required to thoroughly hack such pronouncements? 947

"*The easiest way to execute this ritual is by using the Call, Calling Rraaoplai, all the rooms with their interconnecting names, and the four guides." - 'nuff said. northanger: niki, you don't know what an ELDER FUTHARK is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_futhark_script The Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes, formerly used to write Germanic languages, mainly in Scandinavia, and the British Isles. In all their varieties, they may be considered an ancient writing system of Northern Europe. The Scandinavian version is also known as Futhark (from the first six letters, ??????), and the Anglo-Saxon version as Futhorc. The three best known runic alphabets are: • the Older Futhark (ca. 150–500) • the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400–1100) • the Younger Futhark (800–1910) The Elder Futhark (named after the initial phoneme of the first six rune names), sometimes also called proto-Nordic (urnordiska), consist of twenty-four runes, often arranged in three rows of eight. The earliest known full sequential listing of the alphabet dates from ca. 400 and is found on the Kylver Stone in Gotland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_futhark_script The Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes, formerly used to write Germanic languages, mainly in Scandinavia, and the British Isles. In all their varieties, they may be considered an ancient writing system of Northern Europe. The Scandinavian version is also known as Futhark (from the first six letters, ??????), and the Anglo-Saxon version as Futhorc. The three best known runic alphabets are: • the Older Futhark (ca. 150–500) • the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400–1100) • the Younger Futhark (800–1910) 948

The Elder Futhark (named after the initial phoneme of the first six rune names), sometimes also called proto-Nordic (urnordiska), consist of twenty-four runes, often arranged in three rows of eight. The earliest known full sequential listing of the alphabet dates from ca. 400 and is found on the Kylver Stone in Gotland. AQ 00379=ANATOMICALLY CORRECT 00379=HYPERSTITIONAL GAME 00379=NORTHERN HINTERLAND 00379=TWENTY-FOUR RUNES There are 24 Enochian Seniors and 24 Elders mentioned in Revelation 4.4: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=revelation%204&versio n;=31 Revelation 4:4. 1After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. 4Surrounding the throne were twentyfour other thrones, and seated on them were twentyfour elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. Nick Land: northnager - "you don't know what an ELDER FUTHARK is?" Vauung tries to keep me away from wacky stuff ... PS。 What's the new 5-digit format all about？ northanger: wacky stuff? then what am i doing here? i should have been long gone. Reza Negarestani: i'm preparing a list of all the things reza has promised us. ok, before answering your questions, add the following topics to your list: 1. a technical response to u/c's post about escaping faciality and Francis Bacon (from horror movies to geophilosophy). 949

2. An update version of A Good Meal. 3. Mutant Dead God (Merhige's Begotten again) 4. Hollow Earth and Doom 3 5. Some funny stories about Hulagu ... Nick loves this for sure. 6. Archeological investigations about Ka'aba (will add it to the post about Salat) northanger: 8. a few copies of those shabnamehs 9. decoded a few basic information about the name Jay (that's a bogus list you got there) ah! just remembered the diamonds of chaos by Llee Heflin: http://www.lleeheflin.com/939393/diamonds1.html http://www.777lleeheflin.org/939393/diamonds2.html Reza Negarestani: northanger, Fortunately you missed some of them too :) northanger: no i didn't i'll go collect the breadcrumbs and remind. url relevant: hey northanger (nor thanger, nort hanger, north anger?), have you seen the runeytunes over (see below) lots of big number jugglery goin on, they've recently spawned a host of msn groups (such an arabian thing to do) Nick Land: URTP - ??? Oh, i see - eeuuuw! piet: northanger, have you visited http://Mkzdk.org yet? northanger: URTP=111, i do recall the 13 moon calendar and the movement to change to change to this calendar (as a matter of fact, was checking my diary for the original link that talked about it). 950

PIET, vaguely remember Mkzdk.org. probably saw it years ago. why do you bring it up? piet: why did you bring lee heflin up? ophef = hype/commotion or as verb simply 'lifting' or liquidating a business northanger: why did you bring lee heflin up? - i was reading a paper on frater achad's tree of life physics - reminded me of the diamonds of chaos: http://www.amhr.org/aa/Achad's%20Physics.html ophef? REVISED BULLWHIP LIST 1. a technical response to u/c's post about escaping faciality and Francis Bacon (from horror movies to geophilosophy). 2. An update version of A Good Meal. 3. Mutant Dead God (Merhige's Begotten again) 4. Hollow Earth and Doom 3 5. Some funny stories about Hulagu ... Nick loves this for sure. 6. Archeological investigations about Ka'aba (will add it to the post about Salat) 8. a few copies of those shabnamehs “ABJAD shields: A note on The Book of Grand Summonings” 9. decoded a few basic information about the name Jay “ABJAD shields: A note on The Book of Grand Summonings” 10. "Malek Tavoos (the diety worshipped by the Yezidians)" - haven't you promised us a post on Mesopotamian 'Mithraism'? -- weren't we (a long time ago) going to talk about the interesting yezidi script? === oh, yes, yes (sorry for this long delay) ... will discuss it in one forthcoming posts on Mazdaism and mesopotamian Mithraism. 951

“The Book of Grand Summonings” 11. i'll get back to you soon about the flag and Kaveh Qabbala 101. Part 4. Nick Land (January 28, 2005) Against Numerology Consider first an extraordinarily direct numerological manifesto: “When the qualitative aspects are included in our conception of numbers, they become more than simple quantities 1, 2, 3, 4; they acquire an archetypal character as Unity, Opposition, Conjunction, Completion. They are then analogous to more familiar [Jungian] archetypes... ” It is hard to imagine a more ‘archetypal’ expression of numerological ambition than this. Yet rather than meeting this claim with docile compliance, the qabbalist is compelled to raise a number of awkward questions: 1) How can a numerological coding that proceeds in this fashion avoid entrapping itself among the very smallest of Naturals at the toe-damping edge of the number line? If ‘4’ symbolizes the archetype ‘Completion,’ what to make of 127, 709, 1023, or similar small Naturals? Do they also have analogues among the intelligible archetypes? How would one ‘qualitize’ (2^127)-1, or a larger number (of which there are a very considerable number)? 2) Is an ‘archetype’ more basic than a number in its unsymbolized state? Does ‘qualitizing’ a number reveal a more elementary truth, a germ the number itself conceals, or does it merely re-package the number for convenient anthropomorphic consumption, gift-wrapping the intolerable inhumanity of alogical numerical difference and connectivity? 3) Why should a number be considered ‘quantitative’ in its Natural state? Is it not that the imposition of a quantity/quality categorization upon the number requires a logical or philosophical overcoding, a projection of intelligibility alien to the number itself? Quantity is the decadence of number (while quality is its perversion), so - since arithmetic provides no basis for a reduction of the numerical to the quantitative 952

what is the supposed source of this (numeric-quantitative) identification (other than a disabling preliminary innumeracy)? 4) If ‘1’ numerologically evokes ‘Unity,’ why should UNITY not qabbalistically ‘evoke’ 134 (= 8, its Numogrammtic twin) with equal pertinence? Can any expressible ‘archetype’ avoid re-dissolution into the unfamiliarity of raw number pattern? Numerology might assimilate ‘2’ to opposition, but OPPOSITION = 238 = 13 = 4 (twice 2, and the Numogrammatic twin of (‘4’ = COMPLETION = 212 =) 5), while even if numerological ‘3’ as CONJUNCTION = 237 = 12 = 3 finds itself qabbalisitically confirmed (at the extremity of its decimalization), this is not, perhaps, in an altogether comfortable mode? Numerology may be fascinated by numbers, but its basic orientation is profoundly antinumerical. It seeks – essentially – to redeem number, through symbolic absolution into a ‘higher’ significance. As if the concept of ‘opposition’ represented an elevation above the (‘mere’) number two, rather than a restriction, subjectivization, logicization and generalized perversion, directed to anthropomorphic use-value and psychological satisfaction. Archetypes are sad limitations of the species, while numbers are an eternal hypercosmic delight. Nevertheless, qabbalism is right up against numerology, insofar as it arises ‘here,’ within a specific biological and logocratic environment. The errors of numerology are only the common failures of logic and philosophy, human vanities, crudified in the interest of mass dissemination, but essentially uncorrupted. The numeric-critique (or transcendental arithmetic) of a Goedel (or Turing, or Chaitin (or Badiou?(??(???)))) can be rigorously transferred to this controversy, demonstrating - within each particular milieu - that overcodings of numerical relation by intelligible forms ‘archetypes’ or ‘logics’ - are unsustainable reductions, reefed on the unsurpassable semiotic potency of number. Goedel has shown that there is always a number, in fact an infinitude of (Natural) numbers, that simulate, parody, logically dialectize, paradoxically dismantle, archetypally hypervert, and in whatever way necessary subvert each and every overcoding of arithmetic. Number cannot be superseded. There is no possibility of an authoritative ‘philosophy of arithmetic’ or numerological gnosis. Qabbala assumes that semiotics is ‘always already’ cryptography, that the cryptographic sphere is undelimitable. It proceeds on the assumption that there 953

cannot be an original (unproblematic) coding, providing the basis for any solid definition or archetypal symbol, since the terms required for such a coding are incapable of attaining the pure ‘arbitrariness’ that would ensure the absence of prior cryptographic investment. There is not - and can never be - any ‘plain text,’ except as a naïve political assumption about (the relative (non)insidiousness of) coding agencies and the presupposition that communicative signs accessibly exist that are not already ‘in code.’ Since everything is coded, or (at least) potentially coded, nothing is (definitively) symbolic. Qabbalistic cryptocultures – even those yet to come – ensure that number cannot be discussed or situated without subliminal or (more typically) wholly unconscious participation in numerical practices. Logos, including that of numerology, is also always something other than itself, and in fact very many things. Qabbalism thus operates as an inverse or complementary Goedelian double-coding. Where Goedel demonstrated that the number line is infested by virtual discursive systems of undelimitable topicality and complexity, pre-emptively dismantling the prospects of any conceivable supranumerical metadiscourse, qabbala demonstrates that discourses are themselves intrinsically redoubled (and further multiplied) by coincidental numerical systems which enter into patterns of connectivity entirely independent of logical regimentation. The supposed numerical de-activation of the alphabet, marking semiotic modernity (the era of specialized numerical signs), has an extremely fragile foundation, relying as it does upon the discontinuation of specific cultural procedures (precisely those that withdraw into ‘occultism’) rather than essential characteristics of signs themselves. The persistent numerical functionalization of the modern alphabet – with sorting procedures based on alphabetical ordering as the most prominent example – provides incontestible evidence (if any was required) that the semiotic substructure of all Oecumenic communications remains stubbornly amphibious between logos and nomos, perpetually agitated by numerical temptations and uncircumscribed polyprocesses. At the discursive level, any ‘rigorization of qabbala’ can only be a floating city, with each and every definition, argument and manifesto continually calving off into unmasterable numerical currents and alogical resonances. How could qabbala be counterposed to a code, to meaning and reason, when CODE (= 63) finds duplicitous harmonics in MEANING = REASON = 126? If qabbala positions itself discursively AGAINST NUMEROLOGY (= 369), the echoes of its novanomic signature perpetuate themselves even through such unlikely terms as SIGNIFICANCE (= 207) 954

and SIGNIFICATION (= 252). Pronouncements that begin as projected logical discriminations revert to variations on triplicity and the number nine, performing a base qabbalistic subversion of philosophical legislation and its authority to define (or delimit connectivity). No polemic against numerology – whether conducted in the name of qabbala or of Oecumenic common reason – will transcend the magmic qabbalistic flux that multiplies and mutates its sense. Perhaps dreams of numerological archetypes even sharpen the lust for semiotic invention, opening new avenues for qabbalistic incursion. But this at least is certain: Numbers do not require – and will never find any kind of logical redemption. They are an eternal hypercosmic delight. Comments: Qabbala 101. Part 4. u/c: quick first response (maybe confused, trying to work through similar "issues" myself): If qualitisation depends on intuition, then since (as persuasively researched by Ifrah) 'intensive' intuition of number only reaches four, qualitisation is bound to founder at the same place (Even 'completion' is somewhat dodgy IMO). Numerology seems to consist rather in the production/exploration of intensive or qualitative numerical assemblages and connections that go _beyond_ any such 'natural' predilictions, a perversion of sense by number rather than a reversion to prenumeric intuition. Given something such as MEANING=126=REASON, since no 'demonstration' is conceivable of such number-patterns being independent of anthropic/interpretative affect (insofar as 'pattern' only exists in its recognition), can't any account83 of the existence of pattern-tracking systems assembled for 'delights' sake, freed from rationalist justification, be accused of being mere anthropology, or at best an undirected transcendental inquiry? Nick Land: u/c - think i'm in total agreement with first point (can't see how numerology could imaginably stretch to even moderately sized (non-minute) Naturals). 83 although numerology seems as an activity indistinguishable from any 'dispassionate' account of itself, giving weight to the 'delight' thesis. 955

Let's bracket 'hypercosmic delight' for the moment - think it will come back on atheistic strategy discussion that you've triggered (with a lot of unlife in it, IMHO) Not sure i'm reconstructing this right, but think there might be a kind of inversion confusion - the whole MEANING = 126 issue arose through qabbalistic subversion of the neat definitional positioning of the qabbalistic approach i had been attempting (before being forced to retire in confusion when numerically mocked by all the terms involved) - just trying to positivize the abject humiliation of my own philosophical pretentions u/c: it's not "my position", I'm just trying to see whether/how popular-numeracytype accounts can escape from such anthropological/transcendentalist accusations (imo this cognate with Badiou's dismissal of AO/ATP as 'phenomenological pottering', despite my disagreement I feel compelled to search for a rigorous response). Doesn't really matter which way you invert it... (Obv, agree that numerical concupiscence as trigger is not something to be dismissed lightly) thistle: Agreement, here, for the most part. Various numerologies impose rather arbitrary constraints - necessarily so - through which number is translated into a typically more humane discourse. The complexity of the number system allows certain programs to achieve phantom integrity. "Rigorization of qabbala": It may be that any semiotic coding of the number line will eventually brush us up against ontological extravagance ("a commitment to a wealth of entities that are utterly counterintuitive"), but this is only doubtfully demonstrable, only intuitive. u/c: AO/ATP? Nick Land: u/c - not attributing any 'position' to you - in fact lost entirely in solipsistic delirium between my own ramblings and the qabbalistic slidings that run way with them in all directions. "numerical concupiscence," on the other hand, is your own line of exacerbation looking for a piece of numbo 'as' no doubt ;) PS. beginning to have bad feelings about this badiou dude 956

PPS. can tell from your remarks there's something interesting brewing up on the popnomo front thistle - elaboration of both paras of your first comment would be welcome. They're quite dense (and suggestive). AO/ATP - Capitalism and Schizophrenia parts I & II (Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaux) u/c: wait til you read the Dedekind chapter, it's great :) I think (speaking unphilosophically for a short moment) getting involved in philodebate wd be a mistake, one just has to take the good bits (excellent clarity on numbomatters). The 'being' side is great (apart from apparently otiose ontological assertions), the truth side rather dubious (but IMO similar to hyperstitional position : through fidelity to a substantially unknowable universally-addressed fiction, it becomes an effective truth...sounds familiar...). Hm...anyway the nummificator was interesting in that the more material that was ammassed the less interesting it got (contrary to expectations) because for every delight-sparking result you could see 54 results that you'd be hard-stretched to make anything of. Suggesting that the fascination is in inverse proportion to systematisation and mysticism thrive only on an incomplete (not to say flaky) semi-systematisation? thistle: Nick, I'll attempt. Arbitrary constraints: If qabbalistic programs are hermeneutic gaming, they seem more weighted to the side of gaming than hermeneutics. If qabbala is gaming (playing on the surface) rather than hermeneutics (investigation of the depths, of all "archetypes," "natures," of the intensely familiar), then the rules of engagement should be front-loaded, and all interpretive results emitted from the game should be mindful of the arbitrary constraints set down at the beginning. This does not mean that game rules cannot be reverse engineered from hermeneutic numerologies but the recognition must be made that all attempts to reduce numerologic noodling to archetypes is futile because the archetypes themselves are subject to Frankensteinian decomposition and admixture. Phantom integrity: Certain numerological programs will maintain a sense distinguished meaning among the qualitative interpretations of their numeric elements, but this occurs only at a certain scale. (Of course, this general statement could be made of many physical sciences.) Outside this scale, with larger numbers as 957

you suggest, the weird properties of numbers, er, multiply, enforcing contradictory equivocations. Various numerologies could be investigated to see what number they generally "hold up to." For instance, AQ might be "good" or "pure" or "integrated" within a range of 1 to 1031 or somesuch, where GoN might operationize between 345 and 291 (whatever). General boundary markers could be determined where a given numerologic program transitions from "good" to "evil"--evil, of course, meaning where things become more interesting. Within these boundaries, the numerology operates with a phantom integrity, suggesting deep meanings and correlations, whereas outside these boundaries, the meanings and correlations become increasingly difficult to parse or become more subversive. Ontologically extravagant: (This phrase is taken from the Mereology page at plato.stanford.edu. The borrowing is perhaps inadvisable.) But the nondemonstrability of the ultimate futility of any and all numerological programs, this is intuitively correct, but it would take some doing to formalize the proof (presuming one wouldn't ransack it from the beginning by applying numerological noodling). u/c: nondemonstrability of the ultimate futility of any and all numerological programs, it would take some doing to formalize the proof should be taken up as a serious research strand! thistle: Nick - lost entirely in solipsistic delirium between my own ramblings and the qabbalistic slidings that run way with them in all directions. ----u/c -Numerology seems to consist rather in the production/exploration of intensive or qualitative numerical assemblages and connections that go _beyond_ any such 'natural' predilictions... ----Yes, numerology taxes/exercises decisiveness by opening up a horrific labyrinth of possible productive lines. Like I need to tell you all that. u/c: if only someone had put a warning label on the kool-aid, I would be happily reading Zizek now. 958

Nick Land: thistle - permit me a preliminary and inadequate remark (prior to 'full' digestion of your comment) - think assimilation of any gematria (whether AQ or some inferior distraction ;)) to 'numerology' profoundly mistaken - of course, a gematria will tend to focus on small numbers for 'anthropolgical' reasons, but its applicability in principle is unlimited (you could AQ the WWW every day, without difficulty in principle, ignoring issues of technical complexity). The same applies to such decadent gematrias as GoN (whatever that's up to now). Numerology, on the other hand, is intrinsically incapable of dealing with large numbers - due to strict limits on the 'domain of significance' imposed by the human nervous system (hence the tree of life as a decimal bedrock of integrable meaning). Numerization and numerology are not only distinct, they are opposed, with the latter recuperating the former, returning number to what it is dissolving. Why should AQ (for instance) ever reach a limit? It could always brutally decimalize through digital reduction. Gematrias tend to cope well with large numbers, since their typical (ignoring freaks like Nash qabbala) crunching of place value tends to rapidly crush numbers into a comfortable domain. thistle: Aha, yes, I guess you've caught me. But you'll never keep me! I'll strike again! Ha, ha, ha! Or something. I wasn't quite clear on your distinction between numerology and gematria, thinking you were taking the latter as a branch of the former rather than a distinctive approach. This was coordinated in my understanding of the post by a peculiar reading of "qabbalism is right up against numerology" where "against" was taken as meaning "beside" or "in the vicinity of" rather than "in opposition to." Okay, okay, okay. Nick Land: thistle - hint of panic in your last post makes me feel right at home - yes, everything is going totally to hell ... u/c: I, too, skated right over the opposition between gematria and numerology - not sure I have a handle on what 'numerology' is in that case (sure I have been using the two interchangeably, in fact) thistle: It would seem then, Nick, in your formulation, that numerology plugs meaning into number by affixing certain discursive terms to numbers (1=unity, 2=opposition, 3=conjunction, 4=completion). Gematria investigates preexisting word-word equivalences by first reducing individual letters to numbers, then adding 959

these letter-numbers together. But doesn't qabbala shuttle between these two practices (among others)? Is decimal reduction (= 300 = 3 + 0 + 0 = 3) then the domain of numerology or gematria? piet: At the discursive level, any ‘rigorization of qabbala’ can only be a floating city, with each and every definition, argument and manifesto continually calving off into unmasterable numerical currents and alogical resonances. Precisely, that's a beaut and exactly why I claim all figuring futile yet figuratieve vingervlugheid (aptness with metaphor in order to tempt the solarly volatile meaning into hankering down and adding its photonically fanned bits and bites to weaving true worth and weight towards freedom and mobility = eyefeed of occultivation. can't ever get it right at once Precisely, that's a beaut and exactly why I PROclaim all figuring futile yet 'figuratieve vingervlugheid' (aptness with metaphor .. . . in order to tempt the solarly volatile meaning into hankering down and adding its photonically fanned bits and bites to weaving true worth and weight towards freedom and mobility = eyefeed of occultivation . .. .in other words, in order to escape the endless coding, ignore the beckoning symbolsystemflaw/niches that won't let up obtruding into and distorting moderate effective restraint regarding them) essential and a way one sees one's way winding towards generation of truely profuse too but lots less lost and idle 'stuff' specks of dust, spectacles of sparks, spatters and spickles of unspeakables, all ready to enchant exactly in the measure one refuses to be sidetracked and distracted by mere code and boring symbol Numbers do not require – and will never find - any kind of logical redemption. They are an eternal hypercosmic delight. Today I scolded a dutch anarchastrospher webwriter for using the 'moses' table smashing' (plutonic illuson with cool and collected saturnalian law') metaphor without switching from the figurative (favoring, selective) into the literal (grounding) mode. I didn't do so without adding such a back- and underside to his rant so as to allow him to let go of his monolithic way with law (where it stands for a mere, yet at the same time deified ((hiding the step from 1 to two (((hence all others))) here)) means). Dust specks, innumerable and innumerably combined, ditto composed, composted and compartmentated in organic descendants of their usually slower, more reliable and deliberate akinaccountancy . .. it's not the smash (act, put on) that counts, it's the 960

result(ing substance, lightened up, sensitized, subtleized suscepti- and sensibilitated material aggregation and interactibility quotient that matters most on surfaces struck by the type of celestial beckoning that has us wander) Numbers do not require – and will never find - any kind of logical redemption. They are an eternal hypercosmic delight. lets asssume numbers are/stand for dust and are indeed numb dumb notseekers, nutsy perhaps but far as yet from nati, nazi and all that social trouble, whatever . .. . . ..if dust is oxidized matter than reduction could stand their redemption resulting in far from unlight, delicately lit, delighted, much lighter in 'soortelijk gewicht', alightable and open to as well as already opened by light, all it takes is a baptist who takes his task literally enough and another combative bataillan bites the dust .. . .. Nick Land: thistle - you get it exactly (hadn't realized i was being so obscure) - on final q.: had considered DR to be definitely on the side of gematria rather than numerology, but now you've clearly raised the question, actually realize it's not so obvious, in fact subtle and tantalizing ... (DR compression functioning as adjunct to numerological recoding?) piet - hi, your lucidity always much appreciated northanger: nick - still processing this, but --AQ 69 = SIN = WAR and cur, among other things. reza should appreciate this - POLEMOS means WAR. AQ 158 = VERSUS = AHATHOOR = ASHEMOGHA = DEEP PAST = DEEPSHIT = EMPRESS = FASCINUM = FORBIDDEN = GAME OVER = HUSSEIN = INFINITE = INTEGRAL = LOATHING = MOHOMMED = POLEMOS = PROMISE = SHOOT ME = SWEETER = THYSELF = TRACTOR = VERSUS = VORTEX = WRETCHED D26 DK = SPENGLER nick - HYPERCOSMIC DELIGHT is such a trigger word for me ... i went orgasmic. piet: EARLIER OMISSION EMITTED IN CAPS 961

.. . . ..if dust is oxidized matter than reduction could BE SAID TO stand FOR their redemption resulting Nick Land: northanger - "SIN = WAR" = CUR = KALI nightmare bitch-goddess, flipside of HOLY hell queen 96 (Iblis-Durga), extremely fierce and intercoiling. (Cur/Pest duo long-term intimate acquaintances, so these numbers very special to Vauung) northanger: so vauung doesn't get confused-KALI, nightmare bitch-goddess, flipside of HOLY hell queen 96 (Iblis-Durga), extremely fierce and intercoiling. Nick Land: northanger - Kali/Cur/Sin ... (the names can slide about ...) u/c: Kali/Cur/Sin ... (the names can slide about ...) Mcauley Culkin? northanger: NIC'S UR-KALI (or: KALI INCURS; I SURAL NICK), nightmare bitch-goddess, flipside of HOLY hell queen 96 (Iblis-Durga), extremely fierce and intercoiling. AQ 207 = NICKL+RISAU = THE OLD ONES = (UN)CURSING Nick Land: northanger - "NICKL+RISAU" - this surely utterly ridiculous piet: http://www.schuledesrades.org/palme/gzsw/ka_05_02.htm got a grasp of grammar? northanger: 'NICKL+RISAU' - this surely utterly ridiculous - yes & no. what kabbalah & gematria can generate (in one sense) are lines of access. ie: nickel is one of five ferromagnetic elements; valued for the alloys it forms; 65% of nickel consumed in the Western World is used to make austenitic stainless steel; US & Canadian coin; most of the nickel on Earth is believed to be concentrated in the planet's core. ferromagnetism is a phenomenon by which a material exhibits spontaneous magnetization--one of the strongest forms of magnetism. 962

the Werner Risau-Prize is awarded by the Max-Planck Institute for "Outstanding Studies in Endothelial Cell Biology". many of Werner Risau's (b. 1953 – d. 1998) papers are cited in stem cell research. "Werner had some very strong (usually correct) ideas about the mechanisms of angiogenesis, often in contradiction to established dogma ... his intuition is proving to be correct. One of Werner's hallmarks was his ability to conduct science in a collaborative manner, often involving several investigators and laboratories to solve an important problem. His dedication to deliver high-quality research has been a consistent feature of his scientific career. Many researchers, both established experts as well as young newcomers to the field of angiogenesis, have benefited enormously from Werner's concise and clear, yet critical and creative reviews". --http://atvb.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/4/829. Werner Risau keywords: morphogenesis, endothelium, angiogenesis, blood-brain barrier, stem cell. of course. NICKL & RISAU are silly. but a quick+dirty search unearthed some, possibly, hyperstitional possibilities. UK Patent Application http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/patents/ukpatent.htm NON-METALLIC, MONOATOMIC FORMS OF TRANSITION ELEMENTS. This invention relates to the monoatomic forms of certain transition and noble metal elements, namely, gold, silver, copper, cobalt, nickel and the six platinum group elements. More particularly, this invention relates to the separation of the aforesaid transition and noble metal elements from naturally occurring materials in their orbitally rearranged monoatomic forms, and to the preparation of the aforesaid transition and noble metal elements in their orbitally rearranged monoatomic forms from their commercial metallic forms ... For the purposes of this application, the following definitions shall apply: transition elements ("T-metals") means the metallic or cationic form of gold, silver, copper, cobalt and nickel, and the six platinum group elements, i.e., platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, and osmium; and "ORME" means the [O]rbitally [R]earranged [M]onoatomic [E]lemental forms of each of the T-metals. AQ 161 = ALEISTER = AMDRANISA = BEEZLEBUB = SERAPHIM = STEM CELL = TALISMAN = TAQIYYA = TERRIBLE = TUKKAMU 963

AQ 208 = AGAROSE GELS = MESH-NUMBER = MONOATOMIC = NECROMANCER = RESURRECT = THE HANGED MAN = WHITE MAGICK AQ 225 = ENDOTHELIUM = FOURTH DEATH = GOD THE FATHER = GROUP WORK = KARKHE RIVER = LORD OF LIGHT = MAGNANIMITY = RA HOOR KHUT = TELECOMMERCE = THREE FOURS = VIROTECHNIC AQ 232 = ABDUL ALHAZRED = ABJAD WATCHERS = ANGIOGENESIS = ANTI-OEDIPUS = CIPHEROLOGY = LATENT DUTY = LUX FLAMMUS = PRIMA MATERIA = PSYCHONAUT = SET SEQUENCE = SYNCRETION AQ 234 = SACRED CALENDAR = FIVE FIVE FIVE = MULTIVERSE = NINE NINE NINE = SHIA RELIGION = SUPER ALLOY = TECHNO-FUNGAL = THE BLANK SPACE AQ 249 = AFRO-FUTURES = AMPHIBOLOGICAL = DEMONOGRAPHY = DIPOLE MOMENT = FLAMING SWORD = GOG MAGOG HILLS = OUTSIDENESS = QWERWOLVES = RESTRICTION = TIME-SORCERY = WAR IS OUR GOD AQ 250 = MATERIAL EFFECT = A PERFECT CIRCLE = CYALIS THELEMA = CYNOCEPHALUS = FIGURE IT OUT = FORTH-SPEAKER = JESUS CHRIST = LAVENDER MIST = PANJ TAN-E AAL-E ABBA = PATER NOSTER = PERSEVERANDO = THE ANCIENT ONE = WERNER RISAU AQ 251 = A SEASON IN HELL = ADEPTUS MAJOR = BLACK BROTHERS = FERROMAGNETIC = FOUR ONE EIGHT = I AM LIFE I AM DEATH = MAGICKAL GROUP AQ 278 = UNEXPLODED BOMB = ENOCHIAN ALPHABET = HALTING PROBLEM = INTRINSIC LINK = MAGNETIC MOMENT = MOLECULAR EARTH = PARANOID STREAK = SHEMHAMPHORASH = THE ANCIENT ONES = TRIANGULATION AQ 280 = HUMAN USE-VALUE = CRYPTOGRAPHY = MORPHOGENESIS = MYSTIFICATION = NUCLEAR WINTER = QABBALA UNSHELLED = ROYAL ARCH DEGREE = TYPHONIAN O.T.O. = WEST IS BAD NEWS 964

AQ 290 = [OS][IR][RU][PT][RH][PD] = I SHOT THE LEMUR = OUTRAGED DENIALS = ASTRO-ANALYSIS = GROWTH FACTORS = HOLY DAIMON ANGEL = JEAN GABRIEL C.IALIS = NORTHANGER ABBEY = SHEMHAMPHORASCH AQ 316 = BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER = SACKCLOTH AND ASHES = TESTICULAR CANCER = THE ENGLISH TAROT = ZONING OUT INTO AQ 346 = TOTALLY ARTIFICIAL = EMBRYONIC STEM CELL = ULTIMATE NAKEDNESS = VAULT OF MURMURS Tachi: Northanger - quick question: what point are you trying to make with all these associations? Totally unsure I can make any sense/use of these lists of words and numbers. Are we supposed to 'see' something meaningful in there, and if so, by what account other than as a coincidental semoitic grouping? Nick, Thistle .. interesting discussion re. difference between numerology and numerization/gematria. My take on this difference is quite crude but basically I see the latter as part of the former - gematria is used in all types of numerology, but this doesnt mean all gematria are necessarily numerological. Since gematria are basically systems which map, pair, two different codes - numbers and letters. But numerology proceeds to assign metaphysical, semoitic value to numbers whilst gematria in themselves do not. Interested in your comments to refine my somewhat simplistic view. What do you say Northhanger? Northanger: Northanger - quick question: what point are you trying to make with all these associations? Totally unsure I can make any sense/use of these lists of words and numbers. Are we supposed to 'see' something meaningful in there, and if so, by what account other than as a coincidental semoitic grouping? - not making points (don't get it / don't use it). anyhow, issues previously discussed on several posts re: alphanumeric qabbala. me, mostly too lazy to enter all these words into nummifier. since, a word or two seems to send nick into a strange but joyous paroxysm - wonderful. plus, three main thinkers on this blog are doing something interesting with _number_. yadda yadda. ps. (forgetting the obvious). look waaaaaaay up on top of this page & um, read that too. 965

pps. been typing up Scholem's chapter ten "Gematria" from his "Kabbalah". stepping back a moment, gematria has a long history & understanding its traditional sense may help. John Opsopaus' short article can get you started http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/OM/BA/SNHIG.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria http://members.optusnet.com.au/fmet/main/isopsephia.html in Sheinkin's "Path of the Kabbalah" he states that K "represents the secret, mystical part of Judaism" - it is a religious tradition & "the Kabbalistic path is the basis for all the later Western paths; all are in some sense derivatives of it" - see Colin Low's big pic diagram - http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/bigpicture/bigpicture.htm (not too sure how he rates on the persian aspect of things) rephrasing your question: what point were the persians/greeks/jews trying to make with all these associations? -- there were interested in the divine. again Sheinkin: In Judaism there are two Bibles: the written & the oral. The oral Bible has two apsects: common knowledge & secret knowledge. "Why the secret knowledge? This question leads us to another fundamental Kabbalistic principle: that the Bible or Torah represents, in modern terminology, 'an owner's manual to the universe'". now, residing in the big pic. we return to alphanumeric qabbala: what are they trying to accomplish here? ppps. in light of badiou + paul. Sheinkin's first chapter identifies the person and the time in which Judaism + Christianity were split in two. makes badiou's focus extremely interesting. Tachi: being "interested in the divine" - what kind of qualification is this? "we return to alphanumeric qabbala: what are they trying to accomplish here?" indeed Nick Land: Tachi - there are 'strategic' questions about how to line up these terms (don't mean anything particularly melodramatic by that, if it sounds pretentious). Obviously there are alternative approaches that could be pushed, but i'd definitely aim to 'devalorize' numerology as much as possible, so treating it as a degenerated 966

offshoot of qabbala rather than a general category is more acceptable in this respect. In same vein: northanger - stripping-out or inverting all theomystical content from 'kabbalah' in order to isolate a submathematical and atheopolemical 'qabbala' is an analogous 'strategic' decision - Qabbala is finely tuned to infuriate the hell out of God (or simply to perform the dead reckonings of calculative unbelief for the serene secularists amongst us (e.g. u/c)) A note on the economic side of The Chronic Reza Negarestani (January 29, 2005) This is a very brief and technically shattered note on an incisive question raised by Undercurrent on what has already been entitled The Chronic. I think the true part of the answer should be opened and investigated carefully in the next chapters of the Islamic Chronopolytics series. This is just an introductory note for later answers, so it is not devoid of rushed and confusing remarks. Round 1: u/c: As the compounding of interest is a motif of K+ period-doubling time, I wonder what we can make of the islamic prohibition on charging interest, in relation to your exposition of these chronopolitics? Is this a calming or warding-off mechanism, or what? R: Well, for starting a discussion I should say that there are no such prohibitions as you read or hear about on technical / financial / economic / banking levels in Islamic countries. I do not know about all Islamic countries but at least know enough about such prohibitions in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to give you an ‘unsatisfying’ and ‘inaccurate’ answer: Modern banking in Egypt almost follows the western patterns so it is not in our Islamic category in this respect. Saudi Arabia is fundamentalist and uses these prohibitions against charging interests, Riba (both Riba al-Nasee and Riba al-Fadhl) etc. Iran is fundamentally something else: 967

In Aug. 1983, after some disastrous failures in Central Bank (based on revolutionary anti-capitalist / anti-market / anti-foreign investment laws which actually cut off the country from the western world), an Usury-Free Banking Act which included less prohibitions against charging interests was finally ratified and accepted by the parliament but it did not went into effect until 1984. The main goal of reducing these prohibitions was to reach a dynamic economy affording the cost of the War and filling the gaps it opened in various levels of society; using the monetary tools to support the islamic objectives of Iran both inside and outside the country (in Lebanon for example) and preserving the value of Iran’s national currency and balancing it according to the huge public sector debt consists of interest-free loans owed to the Central Bank, or low-interest-bearing obligations to the nationalized banks. In 1984 laws of charging interests and investment, there is a highly ambiguous point; the law neither defined usury / interest (Riba al-Nasee and Riba al-Fadhl), nor did it distinguish it from normal bank interest (bahrih). Interest was replaced by profit and loss sharing arrangements between the bank and its depositors and borrowers according to a pre-scripted formula. No party was to be a debtor or creditor, but only a ‘partner’ in joint projects. However, lacking the experience of working with this kind of obscure Islamic system of interest, or as what here mockingly called ‘Islamic Riba’ the banks network and central bank at the center of this network lost both their former economic vibrancy and profitability as the result of working in this both quasiislamic and obscurely twisted western economic trend towards interest (running at an interest rate collar i.e. oscillating between maximum and minimum interest rates through the combination of caps and floors). Remaining Islamic in name (also keeping certain prohibitions) and working with mutilated western / capitalist economic mechanisms in regard to interests, the banks lost even their primary designation. The interest rate merely renamed to ‘provisional (interim) rate of profit’ and the interest charged to bank debtors turned into ‘minimum expected rate of profit on granted facilities.’ But due to: (1) the imbalance between ex-ante interest and ex-post profit (both in some way still restricted by Islamic prohibitions towards a fully western trend of charging interests; and as a result of ignoring the ‘profit-loss’ homeostatic stability (or as one may put it, 968

an excessive risk-free profit, arbitrage as Ilinski84 elaborates it, system) of a bank in a period of time [A Year]), (2) the incompatibility between ‘islamic’ mechanisms of charging interest and the slump or boom years in economy and finally (among many other factors), (3) the huge waste on annual budget on powerful economic entities like ‘Seda va Sima’ (TV & Radio), ‘Azad (free) University’ and those educational and research centers doing double-work (in terms of their redundancy) on ‘Islamic propagation’, etc. (all receiving a significant share from the annual budget), the islamic banking system has been totally incapacitated and cannot direct micro-economic entities according to the economy of the State or transfer the power of the State’s economic ownership to micro-entities (including families, organizations, etc.) that means the maneuverability of the Islamic State on the economic front has been sabotaged by its rules from within (endogenously prepared into an unstable position from the beginning i.e. prior to its installation and even its functioning as Didier Sornette in his Econophysical work85 points out about the underlying mechanism of majority of economic crashes), 84 Kirill Ilinski in Physics of Finance: Gauge Modeling in Non-Equilibrium Pricing (John Wiley & Sons, 2001) explores the connectivity and multiple links between the mechanism of interest rate and charging interest in finance to ‘Time component of connection’ in spatio-temporality. Interest rate, Ilinski insists, is the translation of spatio-temporal connectivity in physics. The risk-free profit can be minimally formulized as: 𝑁𝑃𝑉(𝐹) ≡ 𝑃 = 𝐹 (1 + 𝑟)−𝑇 (r = interest rate; “F is amount of money is to be received in T years’ time”; “NPV(F) is the sum of money P (principal) which, if invested today, would generate the compound amount F in T years' time”) 𝐷𝑇 = (1 + 𝑟)−𝑇 Dt or T-year discount factor, or the discount procedure “plays the role of a ‘parallel transport’ of an amount of money through time (though in fixed currency).” (Ilinski) What makes the interest-rate a preferred feeding ground for capital is its foundational characteristic to render a specialized Timehorizon/connectivity for currency which has chronopolitical tendencies of its own, more working with time and its spatio-temporal relations rather than economic factors. 85 Didier Sornette, Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems, Princeton University Press, 2002. 969

exhausted by the islamic political / economic prohibitions (which are inevitability combine with the western trends but in a very twisted [potentially rich in giving rise to unreported and cryptogenic economic diseases]) which are superficially political but subterraneously ‘polytical’ as they release insurgencies (disloyal to both the State and themselves) running at the edge of terminal multiplicities, epidemics. One of the symptoms of this incapacitation for the state’s economic power, its authority of imposing prohibitions, feeding and being fed, and banking system is the emergence of private ‘homemade banks’ (as in the case of homemade semi-automatic weapons); the statistical reports (2002) show that there is one interest-based homemade bank among 18 families (considering the fact that Islamic countries are entirely family-oriented and local reports always cover up what is happening beneath the surface), and 6 families are connected to such homemade banks which evade homogenization; moreover, there is no relevant distribution of connectivity among these micro-economic swarms (which are expendable yet never exhausted or grow old and decrepit), consequently, they never take the network dynamism that is essential for invoking ‘developing structures’ (from which the State can be fueled) and centric spaces which consolidate these entities or distribute them over economic factions (what usually happens for private banking). In the wake of the economic poverty in recent years, economic decline of the State, sudden contact with global currents, low rate of income, etc, these homemade banks have become so popular, quite powerful / insurgent economic entities that recklessly undermine the State’s economic power and authorship, as well, the social economic grid from which they emerge. People usually receive a profit 3.5-4 times more than the bank’s ordinary rate of profit. These homemade banks are more profit-based than the traditional usurybased systems in Arabic countries; hardly you can find a homemade bank giving loan but you can invest money in these homemade banks and harvest a profit 3.5-4 times more than bank’s rate of provisional profit. However, the true power of these epidemic homemade banks is still not clear, and their catastrophic influence on the State’s economy (oscillating between Islamic economy / prohibitions and western capitalism) requires a deserving investigation. Homemade banks (which are also very popular in Saudi Arabia) re-invent capitalism from the other side of the Capital in Islamic countries, and in connection to the Islamic State and its intrinsic / internal economic incapacitation (that is to say including its prohibitions); but what they propagate is not a “capital-feeding-itself” but an autophagic capital, diseased in terms of awakening anomalies and new lines of collapse. Round 2: 970

u/c: I knew that the prohibitions on interest had many bypass-routes, my initial question was about the meaning of the prohibition itself rather than its application (why does the prohibition form a part of submission). R:Yes, I know; it was just an introduction on these prohibitions in islamic countries. Don’t know if you are familiar with the Quranic account of interest (riba); this is a very crude / typically Islamic paper (on Allameh Parwez book) but is a very helpful introduction on some of the Quranic elements of these prohibitions and why they are supposed to ‘maintain a dynamic but tranquilized capital’; guess these introductions are necessary before we start our actual discussion on currency / Interest / Islam which sounds very crucial: QURAN’S SYSTEM OF ECONOMICS (Introductory) Is Islamic banking a challenge to ‘western-style’ capitalism? Comments: A note on the economic side of The Chronic Reza Negarestani: u/c, sorry I was going to post this sooner but I’m lazy as a primitive amphibian these days (+ don’t forget the Old Ones’ plague) ... this version contains some updates (statistical updates and marginal notes) But as mentioned, I’ll try to open your question as a fundamental part of the next chapters in the chronopolytics series. northanger: 00515=©EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT 00515=©RECTITUDE OF THE MOTHER EARTH 00515=QURAN’S SYSTEM OF ECONOMICS ©The Path of Venus Over the Face of the Sun, Carlos Barrios, Mayan Ajq'ij http://www.greatmystery.org/carlosbarrios.html Nick Land: worth noting that this topic cuts through the whole Abrahamic complex - Christians took this prohibition seriously until the Renaissance for instance, fundamentally stalling the emergence of capitalism. Since interest is in a real sense the most pure expression of capitalism, the forbidding of usury/riba hugely important IMHO, even if it only serves a symbolic role (financial jugglery can usually get around formal bans on interest, changing it into 'profit sharing' or some other mathematically indistinguishable but legitimate alternative) 971

u/c: reza:don't worry, no-one is more lazy than undercurrent ;) good point nick, given that there are always routes around, it is more of a prohibition on the "social existence" of self-feeding currency than on the actual process. "Mathematically indistinguishable" interesting from a pop-numeric point of view. northanger: hey, RIBA = 66 Nick Land: u/c - spoke to a Chinese Malaysian about this issue - as a functioning economy (even a 'tiger') Malaysia's banking totally takes the piss in terms of exact isomorphic replication of Oecumenic financial norms ('Islamic banking' not even compulsory there anywhere) - she described the whole topic as 'a fraud' without any real content, but doubt whether that would hold in more backward (theocratic) economies (Pakistan, ME) Reza - found article on Quranic economics absolutely preposterous (poor Pakistan to have such 'experts'). The way you + u/c have set this up in terms of chronopolitics seems exactly right read somewhere (lost ref.) that the problem theologically seen with usury is that it extracts profit out of time itself, with time 'belonging' to God (so it represents a direct economic exploitation of the divine) piet: 15=COUNTER-COINAGE Ulrich von Beckerath wrote a big article (published in 3 languages, geneva 36) on the overlapses between insurance and coinage, credit, etcetera; at my site and at reinventingmoney.com Reza, regarding note 1: chronicoprolithical goldfever smeerpoets nick: prep us to rise and contra dick tory When Allama G. A. Parwez (1903 – 1985) published his well-know revolutionary book – Nizam-i-Rabubiyyat – in 1995, the traditional group of religionist caused a terse and strong commotion against it. Since this monarchical system and capitalism are the two aspects of the same coin these two are supplementary and complementary to each other -the capitalism is thought to be exactly at par with Islam. The Quran’s System of Economics Allama G. A. Parwez had presented uproots the capitalism. 972

Nick Land: piet - to repeat, poor Pakistan ... piet: work I sorta sighted sited and above here, halfassedly cited uses the history of economics/coinage in persia by the way .. . crazysytes has seen fit to enhance my introductory pages northanger: piet. spot on. PRIME AL 418 = COUNTER-COINAGE piet: poor pakistani proofreaders aint makin any moolah or how does that slipslapslop spell anywise? prime al = 15? hey no rite hinger, you posted http://home.no.net/karl24/paths16.htm nice colours here and there but . .. . a rite is an empty gesture that vainly and with painstakingly choreographed dignity substituting for the patience that ends the weightwait quickly suffers the illusion one can spruce up lock- block- and emptying product . .. with it. with it . ..? northanger: "prime al = 15?" - i was trying to figure out how you got 15 = COUNTER-COINAGE. i'm using GemCalc which has a Prime AL table -- have no idea what it is. http://mysticalinternet.com/software/cag.htm no rite hinger?? piet, if you find yourself inside a box, how would you escape from it with as much velocity as you could muster? u/c: with time 'belonging' to God LOL! these theo-cases certainly have humour, if not modesty, on their side :D 973

northanger: and i hate those who get a sick kinda pleasure watching people squirm in front of the roman lions. Nick Land: Loved those Roman lions - evidently didn't keep them mean and hungry enough Reza Negarestani: Nick, found article on Quranic economics absolutely preposterous (poor Pakistan to have such 'experts'). lol ... I described this article as 'crappy' (which of course is very polite) in my original response to u/c. However, it introduces the economic verses of the Quran. BTW, Parwiz book is sometimes engaging; this is a very poor review on his work. Haven't found an English translation of the book but I guess there should be one. Yes, this Time / Interest issue is absorbing me right now; IMHO, Ilinski (Physics, Geography, Economics), Sornette (Geopathology, Economics), Mirowski and Bernstein are four key economists in regard to this topic. (also should mention Schumpeter's work on interest) northanger: going to new york on monday. going to go to the ny public library and snub those silly lions. http://www.nypl.org/pr/lions.cfm patience & fortitude are dubious qualities. i'm going to stick a piece of paper on the left lion saying NICK. i'm going to stick a piece of paper on the right lion saying REZA. and snub them both! hateful creatures. Nick Land: Reza - yes, it's crappy for sure, but also 'interesting' in a ghastly way. Found this section quite revealing: "10. Allama G. A. Parwez (R) had also told that ‘Interest’ -Riba -was not the name of any specific form other than the capitalism. Riba is actually a Quranic term for capitalism. When the Quran said ‘if you do not refrain from Riba, consider it as a proclamation of war against “Allah and his Rasool”’, it was actually meant that the Economics System of the Quran and the Capitalism (Riba) were diametrically opposite to each other. After the incoming of Islam, maintenance of Capitalism (Riba) is a rebellion against the System of Islam. Riba (or Capitalism) means interest on the 974

capital what ever be its form. Therefore, every kind of interest, profit and loss sharing – Muzaarbat, or Muzaari’at (share of land-produce or mortgage of land) are all but the different forms of Riba and are equivalent to mutiny against the Islamic System." - made me want to rush off to buy some Citibank stock piet: happy weighting to you and mind the bux shut through the billy gates of heathen http://www.sweetsassyass.com/sassPoetry.html this place has a bad case of linkrot since last visited over a year ago. this internet knot has gone from gorgejazz to gordian Reza Negarestani: Northanger, and snub them both! hateful creatures. lol ... why? --(moved from the wrong thread)-Nick, ... i have read the original passage in Parwiz book. northanger: why? why? you know why. gang of 666 just got one more i see. reza, i have a question? piet: first part of public insurance and compensation money ... on this System by Ulrich von Beckerath, Berlin, 1938 ... let us confine ourselves to Iran ohich during ... had for some time seriously considered migration to Persia. ... members.tripod.com/~poetpiet/guest_appearances/ public_insurance_and_compensation_money.htm - 61k - In cache - Gelijkwaardige pagina's the 'ohich' is a scanning mistake that slipped past my eaglin' I in 99 or so Nick Land: northanger - no doubt after a good snubbing they'll see the error of their ways 975

northanger: shit piet needs to (1) get off tripod, (2) stop reminding me off somebody i know, (3) send the last link again reinventing money: the emergent path toward peace, harmony, and equity. Nick Land: "the 'ohich' is a scanning mistake that slipped past my eaglin' I in 99 or so" - sorry piet, but that totally ruined the whole experience for me ... Reza Negarestani: northanger, reza, i have a question? what? plus, i have not forgotten the piece on Kaveh ... will email it to you in the next few days. northanger: ok you're a sorcerer, right? AQ 353 = REINVENTING MONEY = CHARACTER OF THE DAGGER = NOT TOO COMPLICATED = TERRESTRIAL ORBIT AQ 357 = ULRICH VON BECKERATH = CYBERNETIC CULTURE = SIGNS ARE ARBITRARY = VENUS OUT OF ORBIT = SECURE THE OBJECTIVE PRIME AL: http://members.a.o.l.com/esotericnumbers/private/matrix2.html piet: THE MIRE *A TRACT of SOFT WATERLOGGED GROUND, A MARSH, BOG, MUD and SLUSH! IT CAUSES "WHATEVER" to STICK FAST! THOSE who do NOT HAVE SPIRITAUAL TRUTH are said to be "IN THE MIRE"! INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, "PIGS LIKE THE MIRE"! COULD THIS BE INTERCHANGEABLE with THE WORD "PAGAN"? (Complements of S.M.M.)! Read #112, #165, #277, #133 #336, #305!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.mysticalnet.net/gematria/lookup.php?system=gon you owe it to your nick to put your glossflosses on stave off and stirskidaddlepaddle into my tripodian dire ire antidote gyre wire http://dialogic.blogspot.com/ free books if you review 'm 976

Thivai Abhor at http://dialogic.blogspot.com/ posts a reconstruction addie 'free books if you're kind enough to review 'm. Valkator: Neither the Islamic nor capitalist/interest Systems can be, in themselves, opposed to one another. Both are, inevitably, necessary 'economic' functions which operate Within the construct itself - and can easily be related to other, more fundamental, ontological concerns. The key difference between the two is that the 'pure Islamic system' operates so as to level (Tellurian desertification) the ability of any form Within to solidify as the Real. The capitalist/interst system revolves around this very understanding of the egoic self (little s) being permanent, separate, and isolate which seeks to usurp the 'position' of the Outside Self (big S) which cannot be equated with any one of the 'little I's' running around thinking they 'are' -- when they are 'not'. ;) In addition to Parwez's work, here's another book by Nabbani of Hib ut Tahrir fame which may be useful. It's in PDF. The Economic System of Islam http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org/english/books/pdfs/economic_system.pdf Nick Land: Valkator - while attributing an intrinsic doctrinal principle to capitalism is a very popular pasttime, i really can't see the plausibility. For instance (in your example) why does the operation of interest - simple exponential increase of money through time - 'incarnate' any doctrine of souls, individuals, permanent beings, or any other kind of metaphysics? Capitalist 'agencies' are extremely flexible, and get more flexible every year - if the Borg arrived on Earth they could quite comfortably 'do' capitalism by registering themselves as some kind of legal person - modern companies are complex collectives each counting as a single 'person' (while retaining many other stacked and overlapping identities) - ditto NGOs, governments - in fact identities are being utterly artificialized and mnultiplied to accomodate polyspecific functional circumstances - i have total confidence that the operative machinery of personal identity in communist or islamic societies are at least as rigid and densely coded as those in a modern (partially) 'capitalist' society ... so i just don't buy it ... especially since this mode of metaphysical categorization of societies so often leads to ridiculous 'social critiques' from powercrazed philosophers that are actually nothing more than flaky theories about 'the subject' ... 977

piet: subject here is flaky, any and all of 'm are by definition so I I don't see how you couldn't call the best theorizable practise to flake, frict fract n cleave those that can most profitable be so treated (be(c)leaved ((into being leaf)) and unfoldiated, rock to wit if you're speaking of a move that moves ((extremely stable and substantial subjects)) from lowest to highest state/activity = highest to lowest potential) flaykey northanger: GON1 89 = STIRSKIDADDLEPADDLE = ICY CATARACT OF DEATH http://www.mysticalnet.net/gematria/lookup.php?system=gon this thing won't upchuck contents for glossflosses Valkator: nick said: " I have total confidence that the operative machinery of personal identity in communist or islamic societies are at least as rigid and densely coded as those in a modern (partially) 'capitalist' society ... " -- two sides of the same 'coin' -- as was stated. "so i just don't buy it" - See?? Nick Land: Valkator - i'm old enough to remember this symmetry lark being attempted viz communism/capitalism - 'US and USSR both a bit extreme old boy, sensible thing is to find a balance [in the social democratic sludge where the Europeans hang out]' - don't think that nonsense aged well, and can't see why this is different. Think it's what analytic philosophers call a 'category mistake' - capitalism (in the sense of runaway techonomics, or self-reinforcing antitraditionalism) is not opposable to any specific traditional culture (ie Islam), but only to traditional culture in general, to stable codes and authoritative communities - after all, traditional (pre-renaissance) Christianity was equally 'anticapitalist' in word and deed, except then it was 'the satanic jews' who exemplified the enemy (usury + decoding) rather than 'satanic jews and crusaders' as now ... maybe soon it will be 'satanic jews, crusaders and jihadis' with spiritually pure Bahai's or followers of the next loopy prophet really furious and blowing themselves up all over the place ... ;) Valkator: nick -- 978

You're assuming that the system 'connections' I'm talking about are based on a linear relationship. The functionality of the systems, though operating according to split polarities we Within perceive as linear and 'oppositional' are, at their 'root', pro-jects from the Outside -- no-Thing. Mathematic variables and philosophical 'larks' only go 'so far'. Also, the 'three-way' you mentioned of cap/euro-soc/com are all on the same polar 'side', while the Islamic system, as I'm fairly certain Reza will demonstrate more of, is operating on a different polarity and is not geared toward achieving economic 'utopia' or 'revealing' any-Thing. Gotta get Outside the box. ;) Nick Land: Valkator - but why do goals matter? 'capitalism' has no explicit goal at all -perhaps its greatest strength Islam dream of the heavens and ends up in a latrine - seems to me its the latrine that matters (that's what the rest of the world has to live next to) PS. 'Latrine' shorthand for jihadi-breeding festering socioeconomic backwardness, misogyny, political tyranny, bigotry and impotent hatred - moderated wherever some fresh air of capitalism creeps in (Malaysia, Dubai, Turkey ...) PPS. on the positive side, it makes the world exciting for keyboard apocalypticians ... Also, the Abrahamic Monotheisms are essentially one religion (psycho sky-daddy worship) with minor variations - when empowered they all behave analogously (as misogynistic anticapitalist tyrannies, check latrine list) - so why fetishize the latest strain of the disease? piet: 'capitalism' has no explicit goal at all -perhaps its greatest strength --- hey nick, all the more and better to afflict and effect results, losing no time, it's impulsive, spontaneous, reflexive reptilian (brainstrat(e)) refusal to submit, soulsearchingly agonize and deliberate about outcome and -put that puts out, sink in the slumber of satiation, the sleep that enriches - zippety zap flash the stash flippancy has and takes no time to explicate; transactions reciprocal at most and best, never reaching for the multiple (chains weaves and cycles, instead, the relentless search is on for market segments and niches, opps to sell the patch that looks better than the hemorhaging wound - case in point: after the death of Theo van Gogh a hype of orange bracelets to show your longing for unity and tolerance broke out and caused 979

spasms of transport from raw material mining refining all the way to the refuge heaps that refuse to be contained and stop sloppiness of meanwhile failed success stories) for depth (like ledgerism.org does). This reminds me of the blindness of justice with the scales suggesting she goes by pure weight dry, wet, live or dead don't matter, all bringers of surplus samples honoured since the most telling and impacting aspect of trade is it's weight and transport potential divided and diminished by the effort said transport costs to transport Nick Land: piet - think i'm on board for this (got a bit lost (as usual) after the first few lines) Piet: I wrote: the sleep that enriches . . addition/insert starts here: (distillates 'credit' fed capital, ((greenery fed prey)) into the venom to do it all over a( )gain) . .. .zippety zap flash the stash flippancy since in my understanding economics starts with conditioning of the soil (doing a demand in return for holding us all up, absorbing and suffering from our impact, the offer that is offensive)I offer a correction to a quote at mmothra: Chthonic is the soil, the fertilizer, and the dark, primitive unconscious material that can turn the beast into a god. corrections (methinks) in caps: Chthonic is the soil, the fertilizer, and the dark, primitive PREconscious material that can turn INTO the beast (and in the event of selfconsciousness rising) into a(n occasional, few and far between) god. I wrote: doing a demand I meant replying to a demand, a silent demand doing a supple ply to answer mute demand = chtonitectonic request for a return of the favor to keep the school of hard knocks open 980

http://mmothra.blogspot.com/2005/01/chthonic-from-beast-to-godhead.html might as well add another correction: .. . . deliberate about outcomes and -puts that put off and out, preferring instead to sink into the slumber of satiation, Nick Land: piet - dunno, this 'soil' stuff doesn't really work for me ... (try cash, silicon, genetic manipulation, and a thriving arms industry) [can't get blogspot, so the inaccessibility of mmothra's material is a constant source of torment] PS. isn't 'Mmothra' the coolest word ever - even if the gematria is fairly uninspiring? northanger: you must be kidding nick. piet: 151=WARWICK 7=NICK'S AGENDA 7=PIECE OF CRAP 7=POETPIET 7=YOUR STRENGTH IS MY STRENGTH Nick Land: the sickness spreads ... [even if degenerate gematrias are being employed] northanger: you're a cwazy wabbit, nicky. you got everybody counting. Nick Land: piet's just hot for that Texan gunslinger thang northanger: wanna know when i knew gw was going to win the election? Nick Land: piet - should have guessed that as a smoked-up transcendental Joycean glossozzlist you'd be good at every mode of schizossiciationism .. northanger - go on, but better be quick if you want an awed response tonight [crashed] piet: cashed 981

didn't know they read shakespeare's lovesick reflections on usuriousness (no not Michael Hoffman's recent 'Merchant' comments) all the way out in china (he probably wasn't even born yet back then but his this could have been one of his c(l)ues): http://www.rotten.com/library/imagery/subliminal/currency/ northanger: on tv before the election, saw gw wearing a long-sleeved bluejean shirt. i thought he looked kinda sexy. Nick Land: Northanger - you saying lurch didn't? ;) northanger: nick - lurch? Nick Land: AKA John Frickin' Kerry (You've seen the Addams Family, right?) northranger: frickin' englishman. lurch not sexy. Nick Land: John Frickin' Kerry goes into a bar and sits down (wobbling a bit). The guy next to him turns around and says: 'hey man, why the long face?' northanger - "lurch not sexy" - ehem, hence the name 'Lurch' perhaps? Kin gofhe: why is it everytime i make a slight and entirely inadequate effort, everybody lightens up and starts jokin around? I feel like the king of hearts uncomfortably often (anybody see that movie? Its first scene is priceless: a wooded hill with only a bell tower sticking out above the canopy (set in france). piet: Reza mentioned Didier Sornette and his Econophysical research recently -In an effort to get this topic afloat again I went looking and found this: 2000-2003 Real Estate Bubble in the UK but not in the USA In the aftermath of the burst of the ``new economy'' bubble in 2000, the Federal Reserve aggressively reduced short-term rates yields in less than two years from 6.5% to 1.25% in an attempt to coax forth a stronger recovery of the US economy. But, there is growing apprehension that this is creating a new bubble in real estate, as strong housing demand is fuelled by historically low mortgage rates. Are we going from Charybdis to Scylla? This question is all the more excruciating at a time when many other indicators suggest a significant deflationary risk. Using economic data, Federal Reserve Chairman A. Greenspan and Governor D.L. Kohn dismissed recently this 982

possibility. Using the theory of critical phenomena resulting from positive feedbacks in markets, we confirm this view point for the US but find that mayhem may be in store for the UK: we unearth the unmistakable signatures (log-periodicity and power law super-exponential acceleration) of a strong unsustainable bubble there, which could burst before the end of the year 2003. So, . .. land cheapening UK-side yet? In Holland prices were steadily driven up by aggressive govt buying (to appease the cry for 'more nature') and abruptly dropped by half when they stopped (not sure when but more pressing problems arose). Land prices are however still hugely inflated for reasons to do with the tidal wave of bits the west generated and everybody thought allowed to tie at least only slightly more tangible token to (add some to their tally too). Dealing with you guys helps me to formulate what I (in the name of harmony) am up against and/or in danger of. The giant gulf between word and deed makes people likely to look for short cuts. -------------------not published ----------------A decent woman's last resort (fat bank account) has become staple standard and prime criterium for the host of her superficial sisters .. . who not only make much of themselves but can be made many of .. .anytime, unlike those that are to have some taste constellation that ... .. ) -------------------end of not published ----------------password guessing games (northanger is guilty of it when in 004765 he wonders about the sura with 93 verses since his ilk has made much of 93 with, however, not quite yet, and along this course of enquiry, never quite yet of course, the breakthrough results hoped for. Most movie magic relies on the formulaic and decryptive, granting it the keyposition it won't let go of and do without in any case. Summons, writs . . .what did I say about babylike being yesterday? 983

http://www.theinsider.org/mailing/article.asp?id=00243 'FINANCIAL UNIFICATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST' - This tiny article refers to IMF documents using the term 'common currency'. What?!?!?!? They are reviving the old canard that started with 'marche commun' in my father's days. People are gonna confuse this megalomania with the community and complementary currency initiatives which stand for causes and goals that are diametrically and dia- everything else, from lect to log and beyond) opposed to them. Nick Land: piet - [testing] "the tidal wave of bits the west generated and everybody thought allowed to tie at least only slightly more tangible token to" - the Internet boom? piet: yups, I was believin in George Gilder fairytales at the time .. .meanwhile I found out that technical feasibility is not therefore an easily followed example, not even for the very mindset that needs little models of its salvation and came up with this one in the first place (nor even under a benevolent dictator with well neigh divine powers as famed, prayed to, invoked, called, summoned and whateverelse and other vocally demanded breastsubstitute/follow up you have heard of but never seen nor been taken possesion of by, luckily). The closest we never came to being completely subject to an all-seeing eye was in the earliest mother-and-child dyad. But this is also when the infant first enters the realm of visibility through the projection booth that lack of motor coordination builds. The outer limits and limbs of our uncoordinated body mass in infancy can only be grasped, often as reflected back by the mother's breast, in the completely projective, identificatory, hallucinatory manner to which we are born. -- The portrait under surveillance with text by Laurence Rickels and Portraits by Penelope Gottlieb - artUS 5/6 2005 The Hitler Conspiracy: The Russian Roots of Nazism Hitler's Secret "Protocols" P.2 General Vladimir Biskupskil, who went on to collaborate closely with Hitler in the context of the Aufbau Vereinigung in postwar Munich, played a leading role in the Ukrainian Volunteer Army. "Conservative revolutionaries" in Imperial Germany and Russia established detailed anti-Western, anti-Semitic ideologies in the months leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution. The largely internally-orientated voelkisch model focused on alleged Germanic racial and spiritual superiority through a heightened 984

capacity to negate the will heroically, whereas the more externally- fixated Russian version offered apocalyptic visions of concrete political struggle between Russians at the head of all Slavs and perceived Jewish world-conspirators. Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.1 Like the mystical inclined author Sergei Nilus, who had played a crucial role in popularizing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Vinberg viewed Jews as a satanic force. Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.2 Hitler asserted that "liberalism, our press, the stock market, and Freemasonry" together represented nothing but "Instrument[s] of the Jews" Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.3 By the time of Ludendorfrs death, Deutsche Gotterkenninis had become for Nazis a legitimate Weltanschauung. Ludendorff's vision of a totalitarian society unified in the face of external and internal threats was nearly identical to the Weltanschauung of Nazism. all of the above by Eric Wijnants, a man I cheer on for not all though many of his efforts: http://sociologyesoscience.com/peoplingearth/ Indigenous Populations: History's Revenge in the Age of Globalization , P.1 P.1, Mutual Contact P.2, Violent Occupations P.3, Broken Treaties and the Sex Trade P.4, Disease and Changing Worlds P.5, Controlling Landscapes P.6, Administering People P.7, WWII of Indigenous Populations P.8, Enter the 21st Century 985

hey reza, you will enjoy this one I think: http://sociologyesoscience.com/pop_archeology/ ! Case Study: Archeology of the Middle East Today P.1 Levantine Neandertals and the Skhul/Qafzeh humans, Figurines in the Middle East, Mesopotamia, and the Bible as narrative. Nick Land: this has to be our best death-fugue ever piet: yeah, supecially since I am being impolite to what seems to be a lady (rather crazed with teckey tick tock tokenismayhap but in part surely feminine, I mean feminoun Nick Land: piet - you're disturbing the absolute zero. Didn't anyone tell you we're in the middle of a die-in performance art piece to protest against Bu$hitler's zionazi KKKapitalism and the crushing of the iraqi people under Hallibrutal "democracy"? Tachi: some interesting dialogue in here between nick and valkator, until piet popped up with self-indulgent monologues. (still don't get it why people continue posting without any sensitivity to feedback) IMHO there is no 'outside the box' - there is just the box, and capitalism has no pole whatsoever. think what nick is rightly referring to as the only possible opposition is what capitalism rips up in the process of its planetary trajectory. totally cracked up at the phrase "psycho sky-daddy worship", nick. since time is very scarce for me these days, hence my absence from the blog, keen for some quality .. bit crappy having to wade through so much sludge to get to something informative, thought-provoking or genuinely funny. i'm not advocating blog-policing but you know what i mean. "jihadi-breeding festering socioeconomic backwardness, misogyny, political tyranny, bigotry and impotent hatred" ... more! northanger: ooh. tachi, you've hit my underdog button. i shall go to pletter-pensievepoet-piet's website & decypher the off-topic babblings of the undecipherable. i shall find true revelancy in self-indulgency. something to amuse myself for a few weeks. either that or deal with undercurrent's growing lending library. 986

for to babble is to incessantly deal in inconsequential talk: blab, blabber, chat, chatter, chitchat, jabber, palaver, prate, prattle, small talk. Slang : gab, gas, yak. the etymology of babble is BABELEN = AL QAEDA = I CHING. http://www.panikon.com/phurba/alteng/b.html Babble - "To Talk Senselessly, Ramble On; Senseless or Irrational Talk." Babble, as a verb, comes down from the Middle English "Babelen" from the Old French "Babiller." The word ultimately comes from the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, where God divided the people's languages so that they could no longer understand one another. Tachi: Against polarity. No coin, no two sides, no binary dialectix. Against the "unsustainable world of PC-eurocratic illusionism" too. But what would you say re. the 'un-PC amerocentric world' ... if one can reasonably be identified with any clarity? In a world where an impossible polarity is relied upon to justify one's own position (put down the other side), and where a position is demanded, ... where can one stand? piet: Tachi accuses me of 'self-indulgent monologues.' True to a certain extent; I apologize for posting Eric Wijnants, Dan Winter and even a little bit for info on the media flurry examining bonafides of calling western submission to industrial strenght warmachinery eichmannesq. That said, I obviously spice my contribs here with plenny of links (to other people's work most of the time, even when the link happens to go to my place as I host a few things on my site that happen to be quite relevant to economics .. .and beyond) but I realize very well it is futile to try remind/correct you on my part and gets annoying and in the way of anybody wishing for more "jihadi-breeding festering socioeconomic backwardness, misogyny, political tyranny, bigotry and impotent hatred" ... that is indeed, not 'nice' and I though I think it is too late and therefore my work in vain (at least for the time being) I refuse to believe that. As for polarization; one can not do without (crazy word that .. . northanger has gone from the 'numbogroomer' to bartleby's cross-lingual etymology pages, that 's a hell of an improvement I tell ya), only nobody escapes the fact that one's skin has an in- and outside, it takes learning to deal with it, wonderful examples such as exist in 987

homeopathic dosage only deserve hiliting. If you can't deal with binary instability and dynamic you are fated to keep score of less and less instead of accouting for more and more. ps: achesis, you are welcome anytime. Tachi: Piet - there is no outside and inside, in the sense that warrants hermetic identity. The skin does not delineate a internal space; one can actually follow the contours of the skin to the internal organs .. its not a matter of not being able to deal with binaries, but in not believing in them. They are a convenient way of navigating through time and space, though ultimately reality is more complex. At least three ... look, assuming for a mo it can be directed somehow, where would you rather find the rub is (and radionically speaking, the rub sticks ((and being stuck builds breakthrough pressure; unsubtle example: terrorists set up one way circuits (((binary extremism, get your throat cut and you're a nogo))) and hope to carry their putrid juice destillates onand into the id (p)reservation) between organs or between rocks? I bet you haven't yet been able to extend your metavision 'ha! organ mere inskin' into it's overtone and provisioning thing: 'ho how skinful these rocks' (given ((rough up soak and weather)) time) = single cell protoplasmic (primal, primary and precedential) organ material piet, haven't got a clue what you are barking on about, honest. piet: I wouldn't have bothered to answer (since you can't be bothered to read) but happened to open a file with a relevant passage (perhaps you could try understand the last sentence for starters), you can pomo all the words you want but you can't pomo an electric circuit buddy and don't tell me hermeticism has nothing to do with charge: Simple Radionics by Robert Dawn: A Guide to Finding Balance and Protection Radionics has almost always been somewhat of a jealously guarded mystery, and most people, including myself, have either had to pay a lot of money for very expensive instruments, and then learn how to use them, or have had to join a very tight-lipped and exclusive clique of professional practitioners. In addition to the normal “trade guild” tendency toward silence, the military, intelligence, and mind-control applications of radionics have also greatly contributed to the suppression of the simple basics of this vibratory science. 988

Very simply, all matter (and Creation itself) is a fabric of energy in various frequencies.86 In order to access any level of activity -- mental, emotional, or physical -- one simply needs to tune in to those frequencies. Psychological activities, states of mind, and conditions of the body can be balanced, enhanced, and protected using the most simple of equipment, and just a little know-how. If certain, simple-tounderstand, basic precautions are followed, as in any activity, radionics can be easy and safe and effective. To show you how to do it, is the purpose of this site. You will find simple and inexpensive designs and circuits, and information how to make and operate them. Additional sources of information and equipment are listed as well. Basic Cautions Never Be Afraid, Always Be Sensible Compensation Rates are used for creating the phase-inverted waveforms of negative conditions, such as diseases, in an effort to compensate for and bring to zero energy those conditions. Compensation rates must therefore be used with great care and constantly monitored. It is always better and safer, whenever possible, to “dwell upon the opposite virtue.” Instead of trying to compensate for tiredness or hate, for instance, it’s always better to use the rates for vitality or love! You can never go wrong with a positive rate! If you absolutely must use a Compensation Rate, say, for a bee sting or some other crisis, here’s how: subtract each digit of the C.R. from 10. For instance, 7 becomes 3, an 8 becomes a 2, and so forth. Zero and 5 stay the same. Check and re-check carefully to see that it's right. Use it only for short periods, and check it often. Use only Positive Rates and you’ll never go wrong!!! 86 The modern “vortex” theory of science has gone well beyond the conventional atomic, and even the once-fashionable (among PHDs) quantum theory speculations. It is not necessary to invent or name particles and forces in order to understand, describe, predict, and make use of natural energies and forces. Keely and many others have recognized the basic simple polarities and operations of Nature as being more than sufficient in and of themselves to create useful transformations. So has Wicca, and so have most cultures throughout time. The only real “witch doctor” in the 20th Century has been in the West - the “commercial superstition” passed off to the public as “science” and ”medicine.” 989

Making Claims: don’t. DISCLAIMER: THESE DESIGNS AND IDEAS ARE PURELY THEORETICAL, SPECULATIVE, AND UNPROVEN. YOU ARE WELCOME TO TRY THEM, BUT YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK. Electrical Precautions. Every circuit has two ends, a positive and a negative. You have to know which one is which BEFORE you connect it up. ps: Rober dawn is a bit of a muddle head (but we go back aways), they exist on my side of our divide too see. Nick Land: PP - glad the recent wave of derision hasn't driven you away in disgust ;) Do you have any Eurocratic-pacifist buddies who would actually fight back against the tide of abuse, or is that a contradiction in terms? Compensation Rates stuff is pure (arithmetically exact) AOE Angelology, but I guess you know that already. Tachi - 'Polarization' isn't especially about occupying a pole - except for purposes of tactical exacerbation. It certainly isn't amenable to dialectical resolution, except in the most brutal Kantian fashion (shattered against an implacacble futility). Khattak whose age we inhabit - volupts in the intensity of polar difference itself, as legions of raging war-puppets drown in blood, flame, wrath and senseless slaughter ... For 'polarization' substitute 'Gog-Magog' at will ... piet: Looking for a buddyable enough neighbourhood so my books can get some reverent use out of chancers by and purposeful scholards. This looks good to me: craigr.com/images/Warwick%20View%20from%20Mound.jpg Is that little shack for rent? I am perfectly capable of doing some derision of my own: http://mmothra.blogspot.com/2005/02/reductionism-versus-holism.html check the 3rd comment (corrected / improved / extended version of the 1st) . .. whoops, forgot you can't see it; I'll mail it you 990

Nick said: "Do you have any Eurocratic-pacifist buddies who would actually fight back against the tide of abuse, or is that a contradiction in terms?" Read something really odd about Paul v Buitenen in a weekly, he's the man championed as the independent voice in Brussels (transparant something or other dot this or that; he showed the EU Commisioners up to be petty pocketers and obscurantists a while back); the counterbureaucrat attacked the dutch corporate moll intrigette Neely Smit-Kroes, got rebuffed and behuffed ('where is the proof?'), shut up, sat down, opened a bible?!?!?!?!!? as for pacifism, I been busy following a deluge of publicity for Ward Churchill author of 20 well referenced works amongst which 'Pathology of pacifism' dunno if that answers your question. Nick Land: dunno if that answers your question - sort of cryptic as usual - but that's cool gripped by one of those gotta-kill-a-leftist-and-gnaw-on-his-liver moods that arrive pretty regularly these days - just hoping you might know some promising morsels up for a interchange of pointless shrieking (if they're dragged out of a coffee shop all smoked-up and defenceless so much the better) anyway, we're just about to go over the cliff, so it will probably have to wait 991

Unto the last man Reza Negarestani (January 29, 2005) This is not hyperstitional but I couldn’t resist the temptation of posting it here: Yesterday, I found an Ad’ieh in the street, where I was supposed to wait for my friend. If you remember Ringu (the Japanese movie based on a novel by Kôji Suzuki) you can guess what an Ad’ieh should be. The theme of the movie is based on the old Middle Eastern practice of (un)Cursing. For example, you love or hate someone, you write a text concerning your plea and the Ad’ieh associated to that plea (Ad’ieh: benediction, communion, an address for summoning) you entitle it as an AD’IEH and cite the number of copies (typically 10-30) that a reader should write. Finally, you should place it somewhere you have not visited before (the place is usually located by chance). Now, the first one who finds the text must copy it according to the number cited in the Ad’ieh and spreading the multiplied copies; each copy should be read or otherwise the reader (the copier) will be cursed – the penalty is usually the curse of death. Therefore, the reader participates to find ‘new’ preys (new readers) and the chain continues, each reader propagates the virus randomly, (un)cursing new people and no one falls into the category of victimhood. The question that remains: what about the last readers who cannot find anyone who hasn’t read the text yet (as usually an Ad’ieh cannot be read twice)? They are potentially cursed, sentenced to death. Comments: Unto the last man northanger: what did the Ad’ieh you found say? AQ 72 = AD'IEH = ARPA = BLOG = COME = IMAM = K-OS = MEEM = SAY = VALA AQ 207 = (UN)CURSING = THE OLD ONES 992

Reza Negarestani: what did the Ad’ieh you found say? it was written for a sick girl. i remember, once, writing Ad'ieh was very popular here but now, it's very rare. Nick Land: Reza - why do you think "This is not hyperstitional"? Reza - why do you think "This is not hyperstitional"? well, compared to the recent hyperstition blitzkrieg on the blog, i thought it is not fully hyperstitional :) northanger: reza reza reza! i remembered something. the VERY FIRST THING you promised to do and have yet to do :be right back!: Reza Negarestani: here you go! i'll get back to you soon about the flag and Kaveh. best, reza northanger: AQ 260 = THE FLAG AND KAVEH = HOOR-PAAR-KRAAT Reza Negarestani: found article on Quranic economics absolutely preposterous (poor Pakistan to have such 'experts'). lol ... I described this article as 'crappy' (which of course is very polite) in my original response to u/c. However, it introduces the economic verses of the Quran. BTW, Parwiz book is sometimes engaging; this is a very poor review on his work. Haven't found an English translation of the book but I guess there should be one. Yes, this Time / Interest issue is absorbing me right now; IMHO, Ilinski (Physics, Geography, Economics), Sornette (Geopathology, Economics), Mirowski and Bernstein are the four key economists in regard to this topic. (also should mention Schumpeter's work on interest) oops ... this doesn't belong here! Nick Land: Reza - yes, it's crappy for sure, but also 'interesting' in a ghastly way. Found this section quite revealing: "10. Allama G. A. Parwez (R) had also told that ‘Interest’ -Riba -was not the name of any specific form other than the capitalism. Riba is actually a Quranic term for capitalism. When the Quran said ‘if you do not refrain from Riba, consider it as a proclamation of war against “Allah and his Rasool”’, it was actually meant that the 993

Economics System of the Quran and the Capitalism (Riba) were diametrically opposite to each other. After the incoming of Islam, maintenance of Capitalism (Riba) is a rebellion against the System of Islam. Riba (or Capitalism) means interest on the capital what ever be its form. Therefore, every kind of interest, profit and loss sharing – Muzaarbat, or Muzaari’at (share of land-produce or mortgage of land) are all but the different forms of Riba and are equivalent to mutiny against the Islamic System." - made me want to rush off to buy some Citibank stock PS. Reza - think we've slid into the wrong thread Reza Negarestani: PS. Reza - think we've slid into the wrong thread yes, noticed that. ... i have read the original passage in in Parwiz book. Nick, posted your answer in the right place. northanger: Reza - yes, it's crappy for sure, but also 'interesting' in a ghastly way. Found this section quite revealing: "10. Allama G. A. Parwez (R) had also told that ‘Interest’ -Riba -was not the name of any specific form other than the capitalism. Riba is actually a Quranic term for capitalism. When the Quran said ‘if you do not refrain from Riba, consider it as a proclamation of war against “Allah and his Rasool”’, it was actually meant that the Economics System of the Quran and the Capitalism (Riba) were diametrically opposite to each other. After the incoming of Islam, maintenance of Capitalism (Riba) is a rebellion against the System of Islam. Riba (or Capitalism) means interest on the capital what ever be its form. Therefore, every kind of interest, profit and loss sharing – Muzaarbat, or Muzaari’at (share of land-produce or mortgage of land) are all but the different forms of Riba and are equivalent to mutiny against the Islamic System." - made me want to rush off to buy some Citibank stock Nick Land: "your answer" LOL northanger - has the slender thread of sanity finally snapped? 994

Reza Negarestani: lol ... what’s going on here? Has the old ones' plague impaired the last part of my brain or what? northanger: has the slender thread of sanity finally snapped? - yup esmail: writing Ad'ieh was very popular here but now, it's very rare. Reza, I am writing this comment to bring myself out of a similar curse. Also, recently I have received a forwareded email originally from bill gates, it asks me to forward the mail to 40 other people, and after 40 days . . . . Ad'ieh is very popular even now. 995

Xerodrome and Nomadology (selected works) Reza Negarestani (January 31, 2005) This is a list of selected works on Xerodrome and Nomadology (esp. Desert Nomads) for interested readers. I think this might be helpful for anyone motivated to rigorously pursue the desert-nomadology as well as issues discussed here regarding War on Terror, Mecca-nomics and Petropolitics and even Abdul Alhazred's Al-Azif. (Have collected these books from different sources: used-book sellers, friends, bookshops and of course, book-robbers.) The Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins, Alois Musil, New York: American Geographical Society, 1928. The Empty Quarter, John Philby, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1933. (One of the best books on Rub al-Khalie) Travels in Arabia Deserta, Charles Doughty, London: Johnathan Cape, 1936. (Highly recommended) The Arab of the Desert: A Glimpse into Badawin Life in Kuwait and Sau’di Arabia, H. R. P. Dickson, London: Allen and Unwin, 1951. Arabian Sands, Wilfred Thesiger, London: Longmans, 1959. Nomads of South Persia: The Basseri Tribe of the Khamseh Confederacy, Fredrik Barth, 1961. (Analyzing demographic processes that maintain nomadization in regard to its environment) The Kababish Arabs: Power, Authority, and Consent in a Nomadic Tribe. Talal Asad, London: C. Hurst and Company, 1970. The Politics of Stratification: A Study of Political Change in a South Arabian Town, Abdalla S. Bujra, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. The Arabian Peninsula: Society and Politics, Derek Hopwood (ed.), London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972. (Wahhabism, the cult of the desert) The Desert and the Sown: Nomads in the Wider Society, Cynthia Nelson (ed.), Berkeley: University of California, 1973. 996

Nomads of the Nomads: The Al Murrah Bedouin of the Empty Quarter, Donald Powell Cole, Illinois: AHM Publishing, 1975. In the Shadow of the Black Tents, Thierry Mauger, Jeddah: Tihama Press, 1985. (Nomadology, the Smooth and the Striated) Bedouins of Qatar, Klaus Ferdinant, London: Thames and Hudson, 1993. Oil, God and Gold: The Story of Aramco and the Saudi Kings, Anthony Cave Brown, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. Bedouin: Nomads of the Desert, Alan Keohane, Kyle Cathie Limited, 2003. (Photographic records) Comments: Xerodrome and Nomadology (selected works) Reza Negarestani: By the way, anyone interested to get a very brief summary of these books before buying or reading them, let me know. northanger: reza - i want the flag info first. interesting list by the way. like to hear more about the empty quarter. why is it empty? (The Empty Quarter, Nomads of the Nomads). also, the Rwala Bedouins seem intriguing. piet: if you want to appeal to youthful readers via fictionalized accounts you could recommend ggkay (song of narbonne is set on and around the iberian peninsula) tcboyle (water music wanders all through africa kmay (kara ben emsi of course) lfeuchtwanger (something something Toledo about the time a millenium past) LoArabia (his books are pricey now; must have not come out a long time). . ..by the way Reza, look at the 'blogs' entry I've helped it (go) to the dogs A dutch weekly carries an article on Negev bedouins harassed by Israel. No, make that terrorised. The picture shows one in front of a crumpled heap of metal rather than a shredded tent. Reza Negarestani: piet, if you want to appeal to youthful readers via fictionalized accounts 997

well, unfortunately, these titles are very boring for young readers and possibly even for philosophers; when it comes to reading archeology or ethnography, i always go for the boring ones. as you mentioned, the finctionalized account of Arabia and desert-nomads were and i think still are quite popular; who wants to read a full chapter on the wind models and the way they affect the migration of nomads in Rub alKhalie? ;) Reza Negarestani: ..by the way Reza, look at the 'blogs' entry I've helped it (go) to the dogs oh, thanks ... will fix it today or tomorrow (have a problem to visit the MT control panel; guess it's because of the slow connection.) northanger: what 'blogs' entry? piet: look at the 'blogs' entry still on the front page here I've helped it (go) to the dogs Reza Negarestani: Northanger, The Empty Quarter is Rub al-Khalie; surely you have heard all the stories about this desert occupied by Jnun (female packs of jinns) and 'Nasnaases' (a couple of hyperstition articles include passages about this desert ... also expect more information in the forthcoming post about Salat) but Rub al-Khalie is not actually empty; it is the home of the ancient Al Murrah tribe among many other tribes. Philby, the writer of this book is the second westerner who ever traveled there (forgot the first one). Although the book is full of errors about the Bedouin tribes of Rub al-Khalie but is full of geographical information, some folklore and discusses why this desert is unparalleled. Nomads of the Nomads is the first rigorous study about Al Murrah, the largest tribe of Rub al-Khalie. Cole who lived with Al-murrahs for years (was teaching anthropology in Cairo University) explains how the intricate knowledge of the desert have inspired this tribe, they way they merged with the Saudi State, semi-sedentarized but still are the true desert nomads of the globe. Also should add possibly this sorcerous tribe is the tribe that influenced Mohammad’s childhood. Rwala is the most important tribe in Jordan and Syria; the book superbly scavenges most of the folklores in Arabian deserts, ancient poems, etc. 998

piet, Done. northanger: ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE = PATTERN RECOGNITION piet - ah, i see. missed that one entirely. READING THE SANDS http://www.trackertrail.com/tracking/readingthesands/ The higher flights of desert-craft are as uncanny as the soarings of an Einsteinian brain.... In both cases the responsible factor would seem to be not instinct...but education. The habit, derived from generations of instruction..., of observing the material facts and applying a certain train of reasoning...can alone account for the miracles of the expert. And so in the Arabian desert the good guide is he who observes carefully, deduces accurately and remembers faithfully. --H. St. John B. Philby, The Empty Quarter, 1933 The Murrah, I learned, are so renowned as trackers that in Saudi Arabia today the generic word for any tracker, regardless of background, is "murriyah". Abdulhadi Saleh's corps is known as Al-Mujahidi al-Muriyyah, which means, loosely, "the tracker corps." In the early days of Saudi Arabia, when King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz used the Murrah to help bring law and order to his new nation, he is said to have remarked, “We have the telegraph overhead and the trackers on the ground.” By the time the king died in 1953, nearly every police, frontier and administrative station had a tracker posted to it—more often than not, it was one of the Murrah. Historically the Murrah are counted among the 20 leading Bedouin tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. They range with their camel herds over a territory of gravel plains and sand dunes that is larger than France, and that is also one of the least hospitable, most sparsely populated regions on Earth. Ceaselessly using the acute observation skills and faultless memory that survival requires, they have for centuries navigated their families and herds with pinpoint precision over nearly featureless terrain by day and night. thank you reza AQ 164 = AL MURRAH = ASIAN PEACE = ENCRYPT = ICE BURNT AQ 276 = COUNTER-COINAGE = LINES OF DESCENT 999

AQ 315 = THE TRACKER CORPS = NUMBER POLARITY AQ 185 = MURRIYAH = PLANAR GATE AQ 401 = AL-MUJAHIDI AL-MURIYYAH = ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Nick Land: Think this (St. John B.) Philby may be related to the soviet spy Philby Tim Powers has a strange (quite excellent) novel about it u/c: my reading list is already biunivocally correspondent with the whole natural numbers, thanks for this ;) thistle: OT, but what isn't these days? Sorry to post this here, but of interest to anyone taking the position that number has absolutely aggressively installed itself as the underpinning of reality (I'm not saying that quite correctly): http://www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~mwatkins/zeta/surprising.htm Better yet: http://www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~mwatkins/isoc/index.htm u/c: seems very O(n)Topic to me, anyway...looks amazing, thanks! ...and there's something for everyone here: "Bernard Julia of the Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de l' Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris has reinterpreted the (pure mathematical) Riemann zeta function as a (thermodynamic) partition function by defining an abstract numerical 'gas' using the prime numbers ([J])." abstract numerical gas !....swoon! Nick Land: Hi folks - major communication collapse here. My modem (at home) has decided to explode (or whatever) just in time for the Spring Festival break - don't know how long it's going to take to get back online - just about to post a paganism piece, so i guess it's revenge of YHVH Shit. u/c - as to your last message - swoon indeed. Wish there was some way i could convince myself i could get my head around it with enough effort - anyone have a smooth entry route into Zeta-functions? 1000

u/c: Well, I'm going to make an effort with at least some of this one - it seems head and shoulders above the usual run of incoherent mad-scientist-learns-HTML sites (but maybe I'm just being duped by the relatively calm design sensibility...) piet: smooth isn't the word with these crumblecrush krach mach models; crikey, how would you express continental shift, drift and sudden equilibrium punctuations other than crusty? Granted most tectonic subductions that feed seafloor into the heaters below are smooth and not drawing much attentiont to themselves . . .. Well, I happen to have seen a silly animation yesterday: shocking.com/~trinity/flashback.swf if you are a kaleidoscope freak this loooooong hippy flash is for you; 9 comments where I found the link futurehi.net/cgi-bin/mtcomments.cgi?entry_id=567 caution advisory, this is a hedweb (pharm) admirin' site http://www.imathination.net/imathination.htm The Zetatomic Helix Challenge has begun! - Follow the clues and visualizations, figure out what the hell I'm talking about, and win a prize! Otherwise, please check back in the future for the math behind the animations, to be posted at the conclusion of the challenge. http://www.imathination.net/sss_introduction.htm a pox on conehead kabouterisms that seem to make no other diff between smooth and choppy than in terms of bitframes --- as my most recent . . .eh bitacqaintance Cheney puts it in a letter to a Hartford paper editor: "I don't want numbers about numbers. I want numbers about people. I want to turn on the TV news and hear about today's variation in the average number of children in Connecticut classrooms. I want to know what percent of sixth-graders can, today, find Iraq on a map. I want to know this week's high school drop-out total. I'd like to see totals comparing East Hartford, Westport, and Norwich." http://users.adelphia.net/~gcheney/letters.htm http://www.imathination.net/_dz1_x_1-177_r_1_2_8f_clean_big.htm I like this one: shades of the Rodney Collin book cover that was a breakthrough screw for Dan Winter Tachi: Reza - great stuff. Any way we can maintain an updatable list - or lists - on the site, to which contributors can add? This would be good for many subjects. They 1001

could of course be edited as they grow. Thinking it would be one way of genuinely facilitating multiplicity. maetl: anyone have a smooth entry route into Zeta-functions? http://plus.maths.org/issue28/features/sautoy/ Reza Negarestani: Tachi, Any way we can maintain an updatable list - or lists - on the site, to which contributors can add? Apologies for the delay ... yes, why not? If you have a list please send it in. think del.icio.us is also useful for this job (btw, the sub-grouping problem was solved with all tags, categories, etc ... will put the link to the Hyperstition’s real-time archive on the sidebar soon) maetl http://plus.maths.org/issue28/features/sautoy/ thanks very much; see Automatic Ontology...in 3D! AT Undercurrent (http://blog.urbanomic.com/dread/) u/c: This page also has a really nice animation showing the Zeta at work: http://www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~mwatkins/zeta/encoding1.htm Reza Negarestani: u/c, Thank you. Well, the animations look cool but it takes me time to figure them out; think these formulae, diagrams and numbers should be followed rigorously or will turn into something like fractalmania of the 80s and 90s. u/c: hehe - yes, as I said elsewhere, pretty ironic that the neo-hippies love the 'look' of these abysmal numoscapes! Think the very general principle of zeta is quite easy to understand, but will report back if I manage to make 'sense' of the abstract-numerical-cloud idea. This should be a GAS ;) Weird how everything's gone quiet over here...seemed to be building to a manic crescendo just a couple of weeks ago....these are the engineering problems of plateaubuilding I suppose... 1002

Reza Negarestani: u/c, LOL ...Yes, I’ve already got the principle (have a mathematician friend who is a worm for this kind of stuff) but as you mentioned this cloud idea is a bit obscure. As you know I love the G word, so can’t resist these neo-hippie temptations. strange, every year at this time, blogs I read go into some kind of post-catatonic exhaustion: Nick’s command center is on fire (if not already evaporated); think he will get himself a new modem this week; I’m also v. busy for a few weeks, but will try to participate in discussions and update some of previous posts. This upcoming realtime archive gives us the opportunity to update articles; personally, I’m going to update the Takfiri piece (+ chronopolytics I, Pazuzu and Machines are digging). By the way, my next post will be a long answer to your article on faciality; am trying to find a way to smooth all jagged complexities as I guess it will become another incomprehensible 'Pestis Solidus'. u/c: well, I'm stuck inside while 100mph winds and rain fly around the desolate xeroscape outside, so I've got too much time on my hands (as if you couldn't tell ;) but winter here can wield a powerful depressive influence so I guess that's what UK and other northern hemisphere bloggers might be suffering from. Nick is entering the year of the rooster today, so maybe he needs a wake-up call. Nick Land: Apologies to everyone for (enforced) absence - been buried in a shitstorm of technological meltdown, New Year shutdown and generalized aggravation at least I should be able to comment now I've got the office connection back. Reza Negarestani: Hey, welcome back Col. ;) Nick Land: Reza - latest report from technohell - goddam computer going to be under the knife for several days (3-4?) so still going to be restricted to peripheral agitation from the comment boxes for best part of the week (if lucky, which given recent frickin saga i'm not counting on) Reza Negarestani: Sorry to hear that ... no problem, don’t worry, i have to be away from hyperstition agitations too (for a short time). any single clue what has happened to your machine? Nick Land: Software crunch, D-drive dysfunction, probably motherboard problems ... it's a goddam mess 1003

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February 2005 Megalithic Astropunk mark k-p (February 06, 2005) 'Levi-Strauss says he was most influenced by Freud and Marx - and geology....' Anthony Wilden, System and Structure: Essays in Communication and Exchange While it’s not quite true that esoterism is opposed to hyperstitional practice, it remains the case that the esoteric at best awaits a hyperstitional carrier and at worst is actually inhibitive of hyperstitional propagation. Need it be reiterated that hyperstition is to be located, not in the deliberately inaccessible territory of hermetic pondering, but in pulp? Far from being reducible to the popular, or worse still, the populist, pulp is essentially propagative. It lurks and spreads in the paradoxical spaces – dark but lurid, mass marketed but intensely intellectual - beyond the gaze of the media big Other and its ruthlessly imposed popontology of ‘commonsense’. Such spaces are rare to the point of near extinction in the hyperbright, hypervisibile malls of contemporary postmodern entertainment culture, where everything is not only known but knowing. Britain in the seventies, however, teemed with pulp. From New English Library paperbacks, to the last garish productions of Hammer studios, to the nascent market in video nasties, to children’s television, the combination of eastern-bloc-like cultural austerity, Glam, speed, the fag end of psychedelia and a still surviving rag-tag labyrinths of non-franchised book and magazine emporia were a fertile breeding and feeding ground for pulp production. So, to children’s television, and HTV West’s 1977 production, Children of the Stones. The thing that children who saw the serial when it was first broadcast are liable to retain most powerfully in their spinal cord body memory is the music: harrowing atonal chants reminiscent of Penderecki and Ligetti which made the looming closeups of megaliths scream with millennia-old panic. Like the young viewers of Dr Who, the audience of Children of the Stones was infected by sounds far more disturbing and deranged than anything rock has ever come up with. The serial was filmed in the parchingly hot drought summer of 1976 in Avebury, Wiltshire, which might have seemed a world away from the first flarings of punk in 1005

London. In fact, Children of the Stones goes alongside what is best in punk in its (literal) strato-analysis of the libidinal-material nature of power . Children of the Stones is about Petros, the black hole vampire-god of disintensifaction and intensive death, whose hunger for star-energy is similarly diagrammed in Burroughs’ Nova Trilogy. Children of the Stones belongs to a micro-genre connecting two British seventies’ obsessions, stone circles and outer space, that might be called megalithic astropunk. The other major work in this field is Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass swansong. The serial opens by (presumably self-consciously) echoing Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Children of the Damned, Quatermass II, The Wicker Man and The Stepford Wives, inducting its two lead characters , astrophysicist Adam Brake and his son, Matthew, into a near-closed community of ‘happy’ people. One of the great services such fictions provided was to make its young viewers intensely suspicious both of ‘happiness’ as an emotional state and of those who proffer it as a libidinalpolitical goal. In the case of Children of the Stones, the Grand Inquisitor Utilitarian-priest is Hendrick, the unctuous-charming Lord of the Manor. It is no surprise at all to learn that Hendrick, a semi-retired astrophysicist who has discovered a supernova, turns out also to be a white magician: a magus, as Adam describes him as the series comes to a close. Like many pulp master villains, Hendrick is not straightforwardly a malevolent monster, but a beamingly altruistic administrator of the pleasure principle, a manager of the hedonic calculus, even as he is an agent of (Burroughs) control. The price of such ‘happiness’ – a state of cored-out, cheery Pod people affectlessness – is sacrifice of all autonomy. Are we being asked, then, to side with human consciousness against the alien unconscious? Isn’t, after all, freedom from the passions a Spinozist goal? Yes, but freedom from sad passions is not the end of the story if it is at the price of a ‘happy’ passivity, a blank-eyed disengagement from all Outsides, as all (your) energy is sucked up by the ultimate interiority, the time-space implosion of Nova. Under such pressure, you become a stone. You become petrified. (Even when you are happy.) 1006

Children of the Stones is also self-consciously a mediation on mythic structure. The circle that encloses the village (called Milbury in the serial) is made up of 55 stones. There are fifty-three people living in the village before Adam and Matthew arrive. Hendrick doubles the Neolithic seer who bore witness to the death of the star with which the stone circle is aligned. To be in the village is to assume a role in an aeonic structure. As Matthew observes at the very end of the last episode, Time is itself a kind of circle. Matthew and his father’s flight from the not quite closed circle is in its own way an integral part of the cybernetics of the Petros-machine as is the other villagers submission to it. Control needs something to control, no circuit can function without an Outside, no circle is ever completely closed. Petros needs you. Gog-magog: the London and Marvel connexuses Mark k-p (February 13, 2005) [Editor’s Note: The post is exclusively pictures that can’t be reproduced here. The pictures are of carnivalesque figures in a parade and comics.] Comments: Gog-magog: the London and Marvel connexuses Reza Negarestani: while i'm writing something about faciality, i thought you might be interested in this: See the first picture (fig. 31): http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/medmuseum/galleryexhibits/artthatheals/13g aze.html Compare the role of line-borders around the eyes (based on the role of the Khattakite dam between Gog and Magog) -- which turn them into Possessing Gaze-machines -in these scrolls and Deleuze-Guattari's discussion about terresterial signifying despotic face and proliferatition of eyes by multiplication of borders. ps. those who would like to follow Mark's reference to Marvel comics, check GogMagog at The Unofficial Handbook of the Marvel Universe (http://www.marvunapp.com/) .... Always wondering how these mythoi engineer such fascinating anomalies in British / American comics. 1007

also check this thread at chaosium archive (an occult guide to London): http://pages.prodigy.net/gobackstage/chaos-digest/chaos-digest-v11n10.txt Tachi: Good to see you back Mark, and the site definitely benefits from your illustrative touch. Reza Negarestani: Hey Tachi, Good to see you back too; Nick and I will try to get this real-time archive off the ground soon. we are also working on the rest of your suggestions as well (intro, background info, etc.) ... by the way, i've signed up another del.icio.us feed for textual materials on different topics, so send me your suggested reading list(s). willow: anyone know what it means? Nick Land: Since K-P doesn't tolerate responses, this is a precious chance to fisk the Hollow Men Jesus-rant. "Nietzsche: "'Real are we entirely, and without belief or superstition.' Thus you stick out your chests - but alas, they are hollow!'"" So we need belief and superstition? That's hyperstition removed from the equation from the start (not that Nietzsche's quote has anything like this implication). "Is there anything more tedious than attacks on religion in general and christianity specifically?" 'Tedious' - yawn. 'Is there anything more tedious than defences of religion, especially Christianity?' Equally plausible, equally vacuous. Next. "One of the most refreshing aspects of Zizek and Badiou is their unashamed reclamation of aspects of the Christian legacy." 'Refreshing' - umm, like 'tedious' - random subjective judgement. Next. "... Christianity, as Zizek says, is too important to be left to the 'Christians'." Fair enough, as Satanists, agitated atheists, and just about everyone else whose been screwed over by this toxic shit would agree. "... The bleakest libidinal position of all, the attitude Nietzsche most abominated and feared, was that of perpetual critique, as practised by the Last Man. The 'Last Man' 1008

was the European at the end of history, listlessly watching 'the reel as it comes to a close', 'liberated' from the 'illusions' of any particular cultural group, and so free to choose the 'best' from all of them: a bit of zen buddishm [sic] here, a dash of steppes shamanism there, seasoned with some kabballah to taste." This is where things really get morbid. Anyone unbound from a parochial tradition (leaving aside the extreme improbability of such a condition, given the ruinous tenacity of enculturation) finds themselves in the 'bleakest libidinal position of all' excessively free, no longer coded and territorialized, cut off from the nourishing prejudices of their natality - this conservative refrain can be found everywhere that technocapitalist decoding is disdained, whether right and left, as the resilient battlecry of pure reaction. This is the petulent sob of a little European who doesn't want to imagine anything else is possible, a purely formal embrace of the historical and geographical accident of birth just because they are 'mine', a deliberate affirmation of prejudice and cultural chauvinism, eyes shut, ears blocked, nothing to learn except what the ancestors taught. Block out the world, it might communicate something new and turn me into a deracinated cosmopolitan ... Rhetorically it places itself among the new reactionaries of the christoanalytical left due to its fundamental anticommerc.i.a.l.i.s.m. What it hates above all is the possibility of 'shopping around' for religion - freedom, diversity, affect, flatness and cosmopolitanism, as opposed in every respect to the servility, monotony, sentiment, verticality and parochialism of a revived priestcraft (cast in the pitiful mode of a 'sophisticated' resignation to cultural fatality). Paganism - which no one devastated by the monotheistic catastrophe can ever truly reach - is of course more 'traditional' than the upstart usurper faith that now claims to monopolize 'our' cultural references, but leave that aside. This paganism is an offense precisely because it is not a slave cult, because its mode of religious engagement is immediate and horizontal, based on traffick and communication (even 'shopping around') not abasement before authority. Paganism delivers direct encounters with the sacred rather than 'faith' transmitted by priestly authorities. It intrisically complies with untotalized diversity (every people has its gods, try what works, try to be polite to them all) rather than the 'endogenization' of polytheism or 'jealous' intolerance and fanaticism of monotheism. There are a million reasons to celebrate paganism so: 'More on this soon'. 1009

"[F]ree to choose" - we really can't have that! This is the Alpha and Omega of the reactionary case (left/right, categories implode) - fear and hatred of freedom. "Yet what remained uncritiqued in this allegedly hyper-discriminating, hyper-critical stance was the position of the chooser, he who critiques. Who or what is this individual? Why, Oedipus, at last, of course, and, as Deleuze-Guattari point out in Anti-Oedipus, the simperson of Oedipus is our equivalent of primitive tanoos [sic] and despotic icons. Oedipus, who believes in nothing but his own subject position, the empty formal space of he who does not believe." The crux of the argument - if you're free you're Oedipus (and D&G; told us that's really bad, right?). Stop believing and you only believe in yourself. Dissociate from parochial chauvinism and you become 'an empty formal space.' Embrace your prejudices and servility, then at least you're an authentic slave. There's so much rotten here it's difficult to know where to start. The easy part is that it's all so unbelievably familiar, resonating with a vast archive of reaction including every conservative thinker of whatever stripe since the dawn of modernity at least - with Catholic intellectuals especially representative of the breed (Lacan, Zizek, Negri among them). 1) What has the individual to do with any of this? Critique proceeds from complexes of affect, semiotic materials and discourses, bioneurological systems, demonic influences ... none of which arise from 'the individual'. Even the most emphatically 'individualist' critique of the slave cults (Ayn Rand?) draws its resources from canonical principles or argumentation that have no genetic or logical dependence on the decoded individual subject (a 'simperson' of course, and we know how much conservatives hate artificiality). 2) "Oedipus ... of course" - if this was deliberate parody it would be hilarious. Start reading enough Christoanalyis and suddenly Oedipus is everywhere (didn't D&G; tell us that?). People shopping around rather than listening to their priest - Oedipus. Deracinated cosmopolitans disdaining the prejudices of their tribe - Oedipus. Trouble-makers getting off the couch / leaving the confessional - Oedipus. Anglobalizing decoding of the planetary commercium - Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus (please make it stop!). 3) "[H]e who does not believe" - back to the belief shtick, as if 'unbelief' were such an easy thing to achieve ('hang onto your parochial traditions real tight, otherwise you'll 1010

be catapulted straight into naked Oedipus'). But then it's not really 'belief' in any generic or philosophically interesting sense that's at stake here - the kind Pyrrho engaged with - it's big-B Belief, Faith, Jesus Love, Old Time Religion, with CR adopting its now standard role as pushing decaying priest toxins on anyone who'll listen (while shutting down response because authoritarian monologue is pretty much the whole point of such preaching, and always has been). "Nietzsche made two major errors in relation to Christianity though. The first was the one identified by John Gray ..." John Gray!!! OK, carry on ... "... in Straw Dogs. Unlike Schopenhauer, who rejected Christianity in the name of what were in effect other religious positions - Buddhism and Hinduism - Nietzsche, a little like the pantoGoth God-baiters of today, protested rather too much about his anti-Christianity and his rejection of religion. Nietzsche was the inheritor of Christianity because he believed in History as Progress. It would be the Anti-Christ ubermensch who would emerge as the redeemer." So Nietzsche was still ensnared in Christianity, which I'm sure would have surprised him (sarcasm off). "The second was his flattening out of Christianity into One thing. The 'ascetic ideal', the miserable devotion to 'self-mutilation' is no doubt an aspect of what has been called Christianity. But from the very start, in the conflict between Peter and Paul, between them and the Gnostics, Christ's legacy has been a site of struggle." Just so long as we keep it in the family. There's more, but it doesn't add anything. Anyway, typical slave cult stuff. Not content with it's own cramped servility, it has to lash out at anything that threatens to escape, while attempting to technologically entrench the monological mode to forestall retaliation. If you like snarky preaching, rooted in mainstream European conservatism and its complacent cultural chauvinism, you'll love CR. But 'K-Punk'? Maybe a name change is in order. Reza Negarestani: Nick, 1011

All I need is a broader path to damnation. As I discussed here, over at cold me and even at Dread, I think monotheism should be stormed from all sides. From within: the process has already begun and with the heresy-industry of Islam (already producing surplus value) developed and escalated through War on Terror and along the Gog-Magog Axis, Islam has entered a new phase in which heresy / apostasy have become inseparable and indistinguishable from the 'Islamic Fundamental Dimensions (Pillars?)' as Ibn Maymun predicted (what happens at this side of panorama – emergence of the Thing from within – I think cannot be so pleasant for anthropomorphic entities; it is slow, messy, complex and with too many diversions along the path and always an excessive amount of collateral damage ... Z.crowd needed a guarantee for the relentless eradication of salvation, of any kind). From the outside: I have been thinking about this for many years, how is it possible to engineer, develop or at least participate with a type of paganism that evades appropriation, cuts through all modes of pacification and never ceases to agitate? Think this might be a crucial question at this point that some truly hideous strains of monotheism (enveloped in heat-resistant, hardened, militantly improved but seemingly harmless spores i.e. the Cult of the Lamb, heavily Christian Buddhism, etc.) are going to spread over pagan continents. What happens here takes another path which leads to the victimologic core of monotheism soaked in organic cowardliness, self-promoting survival economy and necrocracy, something that doesn’t emerge from the foul body of monotheism that Z.crowd fermented to eat itself from within and ‘overlap’ the infernomatic insurgency of Tellurian-Omega over the Desertmonopoly of God. So how is it possible to come up with a mutant (counter)insurgent Pagan crowd resisting pacification? Has it something to do with politico-economic dimensions, ways of participation or communicating with (Un)Life? Nick Land: R - in full agreement on the two-pronged strategy, which needs vigorous thrashing through in respect to Gog-Magog. There are many ways this could be configured, but my preferred version right now (mapping West/Jay?) is raw techonomic decoding vs furiously uncompromising jihadi upsurge. In this respect, Xtianity and Oecumenic turn-the-other-cheek slave-cultism just gums up the machine. excrasez l'infame 1012

Paganism is mostly just heaps of intriguing corpses these days, probably not worth getting too excited about (vudu might have an interesting walk on part somewhee down the tracks) PS. 'endogenization' of polytheism remark response to your 'Hindu bureaucracy' comment - triggered the realization that culturally infolded paganism does indeed adopt a 'bureaucratic' interphase - between true dispersal and consolidated theotyranny mark k-p: I like 'responses', but this hardly constitutes a response. The reason why I stopped comments is that the facility is abused by unthinking kneejerk trolls. The position I have developed precisely has emerged from discussion with others, engagement with the world. Simply wandering around the globe confirming your own oedipal phantasms is not 'engaging with the world'. And quite honestly, if this is the best you can do, I suggest you give up. It's the same boring position that you've been pushing for years, Nick. If anything is the 'sob of a European', it is this. Anti-Christianity is the very mark of the European smugoisie. There are different types of Christianity - there is such a thing as liberation theology, for instance; Christianity is the fastest growing religion in Africa. I don't know how you square this with your caricature of Christianity as a slave cult. As for Satanists, please. Now their 'rights' are protected by law, surely even you must give up the embarrassing pretence that there is anything extreme about them. Satanism = selfishness and carnality. How radical. Lacan a conservative? Could you explain what is conservative about Lacan? Perhaps you could explain how your theory of shopping is more radical than Lacan's theory of the always-already dead god? You need to keep up, Nick. The whole point of Badiou and Zizek's take on Christianity is that their xianity it is a break from organic community, an unplugging. 'Anyone who does not hate their father and mother cannot come to me.' That is what Badiou's St Paul is about: breaking out of narrow ethnicity, but in the name of collectivity, not in the name of shopping. How do the Gnostics fit it into your picture of christianity as a slave cult? 1013

Your definition of freedom is beyond crass, but revelatory. The freedom to shop around. LOL. It's capitalist ideology, increasingly threadbare. Polytheism as one big store to wander around. But who is it who shops if not Oedipus? How does Spinoza - the ultimate monotheist in many ways - fit into your picture? Not at all, of course. For many reasons, but mainly because his notion of freedom couldn't be further from your adolescent laisser faire liberalism. What's punk about shopping, tourism and support for the dying US superpower Nick? Perhaps you could explain how your supine surrendering of all reason in the face of Bush's fundamentalist Christian regime is 'punk'? The only way to explain either is Oedipalism. It is some Oedipal desire to revolt against Dead Fathers (the old academic Left, which now exists only in your fantasms; Jahweh and his authoritarian dupes, which yes, are still powerful but have little to do with anything but the type of 'Christianity' you like - i.e. might is right US fundamentalism. What could be more like Jahweh than the US's idiotic war on Terror?) btw, I left comments open on this in the hope of discussing gog-magog, not to invite irrelevant trollism and ppl bringing agendas from other sites. But I've learned my lesson now. For those interested in gog-magog rather than resentimment, you can click on some of the images for links. Raven: What exactly _would_ constitute a response, then? A fawning panegyric? Who is the 'kneejerk troll' here? Parodying nick's post as a 'defence of satanism' when the one mention of satanism is a mention within a litany of those who have an aggressive 'interest' in christianity that is not revivalist (against your apparent suggestion that any aggression against christianity is merely an 'oedipal' reversal of the rationally-valid decision to submit to christ)? Most of the rest is just an ad hominem attack of the type you profess to deplore. True, there is liberation theology, but surely liberation _from_ theology is the ultimate goal? Why valorize and fetishise the means to an end, even going so far as to transcendently rule out such a vulgarly 'mechanistic' reading of the role of religion in favour of a reinvigoration of absolutist belief? What's wrong with treating religions like products or services rather than transcendent truths - What about Vudu and its 1014

'shopping around' for gods=rhythms=traits - has this CCRU staple been discarded now in favour of 'God is love'? Your glib dismissal of the globally intricated machine of capitalism as 'shopping' speaks volumes about the basic imbecility and futile ineffectuality of the CR 'position': as usual, you're not doing yourself any favours... it is hard to see how we can understand zizek/badiou's use of christianity as any _less_ of a cynical, arbitrary, opportunistic 'usage' of christianity than any other theoriticoconsumer choice UNLESS we subscribe to some sort of transcendent principle of spiritual heredity by virtue of natality or national-belonging (it's MINE or rather I'm ITS), and believe that somehow they have, and are offering us, proper access to community with this historico-religious spirit. In which case we're back with the Ahnenerbe, or any number of like-minded and ridiculous outfits. Although, maybe this would fit with KP's haughty disdain for anything from beyond the confines of golden-age-of-england TV reruns and the ICA bookshop despite his claim to have 'engaged with the world' in some fashion more profound than mere vulgar travelling. willow: terrific post nick. but you have to ask, why would anyone take kp seriously in the first place? he's just desperately taking on the style of zizek, badiou etc, like some teenager. oh look it's really radical to believe in boredom! it's the new thing. more on seventies tv programmes soon.. great post nick! Nick Land: mark k-p "There are different types of Christianity - there is such a thing as liberation theology, for instance" - Xtian lies plus soc.ialist lies, wonderful. "Could you explain what is conservative about Lacan?" - a new confessional for bourgeois sophisticates plus psychoanalytical mystification / second-coming of antimarket totalitarian politics "The whole point of Badiou and Zizek's take on Christianity is that their xianity it is a break from organic community" - hence their fondness for radical Maoism? betray your family to the secret police and enter the kingdom of heaven. For anyone with any understanding of what this soc.ialist hell did to China (30 million + dead), Badiou's oh-so-eurocool attack on Deng and defence of the cultural revolution is beyond disgusting. 1015

"Spinoza - the ultimate monotheist in many ways" - IMHO this is beyond ridiculous. Look at the reception of Spinoza (who introduced critical scientific methods to the study of religion) - violently anathematized by the Dutch Jews, then treated as a dangerous pantheist/atheist for at least a century "adolescent laisser [sic] faire liberalism" - excepting the subjuvenile (but so K-P) 'adolescent' that's a fine starting point. Both 'laissez faire' and 'liberalism' [in its european sense] mean freedom, but then i haven't been born again as a totalitarian soc.ialist. "your supine surrendering of all reason in the face of Bush's fundamentalist Christian regime" - this could actually be an interesting point with a bit of work. How exactly am I in any position to 'surrender' whether 'supine' or otherwise since I'm not an American, I don't have a vote, and I'm not in a WWIV conflict zone? Isn't the fact I'm still refusing the miraculous appeal of happy-clappy religion precisely a refusal to 'surrrender'? But there's an interesting pattern to Ccru fission here - I'll take the taxcuts and regime changes, you can have the conservatism and born again religion. "the old academic Left, which now exists only in your fantasms" - surely you jest! Guess academics are mostly 'laissez faire [Manchester] liberals' these days. "ppl bringing agendas from other sites" - so you do all your snarky atheist bashing at K-P behind your ROM defences, then come over here for some 1970s UK pop parochialism? "For those interested in gog-magog rather than resentimment [sic], you can click on some of the images for links" - those interested in ressentiment can head over to KPunk, but you won't be allowed to discuss it. Raven - great comments, this question especially: "What about Vudu and its 'shopping around' for gods=rhythms=traits - has this CCRU staple been discarded now in favour of 'God is love'?" has been pre-occupying me too. Willow - "why would anyone take kp seriously in the first place?" - amazingly, given the 'everything you love i hate, everything you hate i love' dynamic between us right now, i still respect roughly 50% of the K-Punk posts, and also know what KP was capable of before christonanalytic soc.ialism overwhelmed his appreciation of freedom 1016

willow: but nick, he's so sloppy! he's soooo grab this and that from the net - no wonder he likes the idea of not being a person, perhaps what he really wants is to not have to fact up to how mediocre he is, and how unlikely it is that he would ever be published outside of this vast vanity publisher Axiomatik: I'm sorry to say it, Nick, but Mark is right here: how could you think that your idiotic, Oedipalizing trolling constituted a *response*? I mean, you didn't even *agree* with him!! He's fairly obviously right about another thing, too: you really do need to "keep up" with what's happening. Nietzscheanism is so tired by now it's asleep; it's so old it's dead. Nobody's reading that stuff anymore. Frankly, it's kind of embarrassing that you're so behind the times that you didn't know this. In case you hadn't noticed, critique is old school; dogmatism is the shit again now. And again, you must admit that Mark is right: you haven't changed your position beyond all recognition for years now; isn't it time for you to get some new gear? You're just not ... protean enough, frankly. I mean, don't you follow even follow Parisian fashion? Don't you know that Badiou is the dernier cri of French philosophical haute couture right now? Sorry if it hurts you to hear this, Nick, but to be honest you're so ... 1991! Anyway, the good news is that it's probably not too late for you just yet: after all, Mark hadn't read any Badiou until a few months ago, and now he's a veritable Badioupropagandist and panegyrist. Back in August on his blog he admitted that he hadn't read any Badiou and that he was reluctant to because he didn't think that Badiou's use of traditional metaphysical terms like 'rationalism' and 'truth' was very hip. But now look at him! He moved with the times, man, and he already has a 'Cold Rationalist' clothing line up and running and everything! Hadn't you better do the same? I mean, it's not as if you actually have to *read* a whole lot of Badiou, much less understand it -- again, Mark has read almost nothing, but at least he knows where it's at! Nick Land: Willow - It's difficult on the web, I know, but still hoping to keep on topic (Christian revivalism in high-theoretical garb) rather than promoting a KP hatefest - naive as that may sound Axiomatik - Was I 'being' Nietzschean? Only out of ignorance and by accident, I assure you ... On the '1991' fashion awards point - I'd been assuming that the 'collective' hyperstititional turn coinciding roughly with the transition of Millennia was the key time ref. 1017

IMHO one of the principle areas of Hyperstitional application is the monotheistic conveyor belt, with it's inherent apocalypticism (right back to the 'Z-Crowd') and tendency to install itself as an effective cosmic-political reality despite its essential untruth (grotesque absurdity) - that's why attempts to redeem this historical vector on the basis of its own tradition are fundamentally inconsistent with hyperstition and require vigorous resistance. This might also explain why since KP discovered Jesus and the inner truths of the Christian tradition his involvement in hyperstition has basically short-circuited - in fact, become structurally impossible. The most hyperstitionally degenerate AOE myths ('the vanishing Cryos') have been pushed even further into intellectual corruption ('the reborn Christ') and then recycled as Cold Rationalist dogmas, with lots of attendant shouting Euclid: Axiomatik: I mean, you didn't even *agree* with him!! ROTFLMAO isn't it time for you to get some new gear? Welcome to 2005 fashion show! Mark has read almost nothing, but at least he knows where it's at! In a jumbo jet flying to Calvary? u/c: Axiomatik - ROFL "Keep it dusty" Glenn Fuller: hehe Badiou is such a bad deleuzian. 'Born again' Badiou-ists will be the next black. "Both 'laissez faire' and 'liberalism' [in its european sense] mean freedom, but then i haven't been born again as a totalitarian soc.ialist." Hmmm, a bit of a Bushism, no? 'Freedom'? I am no spectacular fan of K-Punk's Badiou/Zizek fanboyism, but I am certainly not a fan of deploying discourse that resonates with the refrain of the right-eous and the associated acts of global stupidity. 1018

Nick Land: Glen Fuller - suit yourself. 'Laissez faire' actually a taoist term (from Laozi, 'wu wei' or 'non-action'), but my problem with W is he's too much of a soc.ialist (US Federal Govt could be slashed by at least 30% while still cranking up WWIV to a whole new level). On Gnosticism - PKD is great, even (especially?) Valis, but I'm in no hurry to chain myself to the ceiling (http://www.ccru.net/occultures/bergman1.htm) PS. Superb Steyn piece to upset any Kumbaya tranzis still hanging out in the hell kitchen: (http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/02/1 5/do1502.xml) infinite thought: Was Popper a practitioner of the dark hyper-fictional arts... Do samizdata.net have a link to hyperstition yet? Just kidding. But why would Kumbayas (assume a witty abbreviation for evangelical Christians) support the UN? Or are tranzis and kumbayas (not to mention kitchen staff) all just basically the same? You know that radical non-Christian Badiou (and he really is, don't get fooled by what other blog-factions tell you) has more or less the same line as Steyn about the UN that if you conceive of the rest of the world as pitiful victims of course you'll end up fucking them. This is not meant to be a trollish post, btw Nick Land: infinite thought - someone would have to be WAY oversensitive to think that was a trollish post ;) I'd love a link from Samizdata - haven't started serious link-whoring yet - probably too many political chaotics here right now to justify a solid minarchist attachment, but i'm working on it. 'kumbayas' actually not witty abbreviation for evangelical christians (as you might have noticed, there can be a short attention span here as soon as the snarling stops for a few minutes, that conversation petered (or pauled) out) - they're the 'give peace a chancers' (guys who haven't read anywhere near enough Hobbes) 1019

Badiou blew it politically with me when he denounced Deng Xiaoping - i mean, that's like attacking Reagan or Thatcher, absolutely unforgivable leftist evil ... infinite thought: Did we not see, when after Mao’s death he seized power in a bureaucratic coup d’État, how Deng unfurled, during the whole of the eighties and up to his death, a completely savage and completely corrupt sort of neo-capitalism, all the more illegitimate as it maintained the Party’s despotism? Yeah, you and badiou definitely not reading from the same prayer-book! But suspect he's not a kumbaya either - thanks for the clarification. But surely these people died out in the '60s? Centre-left gvts are certainly not kumbayas these days the only people who are massively anti-war these days are the neo-nazi movements in central Europe (neither USA, nor Islam). Nick Land: infinite thought - "the only people who are massively anti-war these days are the neo-nazi movements in central Europe (neither USA, nor Islam)" - not sure if i can bring myself to believe this, but i'm gasping in awe that it is being said ... "surely these people died out in the '60s?" - this could be taken various ways, given ANSWER and that crowd are actually NKorea-loving Stalinists its probably right that the antiwar movement is 'just on the other side' (kind of mindless right wing slogan i'm sure you've heard before, but it still seems basically correct to me - seemed (at a distance) lots of the antiwar stuff in the UK was basically jihadism (surely i'm going too far for you now, right?)) - things typically take a long time to 'die out' (MKP has this 'dying out' theme too - and i never believe him either), that's why applied violence is usually required somewhere down the line ... (not that hippies and other daft fellowtravellers bug me particularly, as long as they're too stoned to speak and don't vote) infinite thought: You've been away from Europe for too long! The neo-nazi antiwar movement is a strange consequence of various ideological strains, but it seems to be predicated on the conviction that nations need to maintain integrity in order to operate precisely as nations (exclusive borders, help their own first, ethnic/religious purity, that sort of thing). At the recent march on Dresden, German neo-nazis held up large white remembrance crosses baring the legends 'Vietnam', 'Iraq' and so on, indicating their opposition to US-UK-Europe attacks on other sovereign nations.....which put them in a bizarre position vis-a-vis the official 'anti-war' allied bombing remembrance ceremony being held at the same time..... 1020

When I say that most are not as anti-war as this I mean that many uphold this common-sensical 'well, you know, we should invade if things are really bad' stance Blair didn't get the chop after all, even if he is 'massively unpoopular'. Erm, if 'applied violence is usually required somewhere down the line', and yet the anti-war movement was too Jihadic for you (despite it being in practice completely ineffectual and non-violent), surely you need to differentiate 'good violence' from 'bad violence'. I assume you're not condoning violence for its own sake....furthermore, aren't the Jihadists in many respects as Hobbsian as you are? I should really proofread before I post...excuse the poor formulations, typos, etc... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4261263.stm for picture of NDP and anti-war crosses piet: When freedumb is too dumb to (set) free it won’t last and probably already lost. Agendada Freeing dust is not necessarily and best not done to cause a dust up and/or places to be dusty; fresh rockdust is the best working, in the sense of longest lasting, slowest (almost imperceptible if you don’t sharpen your taste and senses way above average) releasing substance (vitally important, substantial drug) for terresurfacialife, it’s magic, it’s the instant that takes more than an instance to get going (hide inside everything alive) we just don't have a handle on dosage yet .. or anymore if you prefer the infantilized grandeur version. http://www. uoguelph.ca/~geology/rocks_for_crops Agrominerals of sub-Saharan Africa a 2002 book one can order or download as a pdf with a breakdown by country (Ghana has 4 pages of data devoted to it for instance) -- rocks for crops p van straaten 2002 ICRAF nairobi kenya 338 pp guelph Who says MarKeyPunkO isn’t messing with my agenda (rather than vica versa)? All that goes without saying and fear of future interference has aborted many a perfect moment already, not that most of them (momentae, minute and momentous both) ‘mind’, not free enough to change the course of free(to be)dumb. Did he post some petrified heros/petrifyers or is my sign of some significance (too)? For more thought on ex- vs inclusion see northanger’s post ‘decrypting poetpiet’ but skip the first few fault riddled and daft drafts Let's have the Hobbesian ‘haves’ have at the be and have noughts. 1021

let's organize fights where everybody wins! Let's fight rocks, they don't fight, we can't lose and they don't either cause they don't ever even begin to fight back. Now to nevertheless give 'm (rocks) the random chance at scoring (and us an ethic of fair fighting) we could get a quite challenging gauntlet competition with BIG prize money for the survivors. I admit this is more challenging (not to mention costly) than drawing a comic with animated and purchaseable personifications but plastic (‘action’ ((robot pre))figures) and pulp are not nearly ever in the same sense personalizable (I mean, as assimilable) as rocks, (unless you really wanna go golemmodifying on us, .. hey .. ..clay tablets were first medicine in this kind of sense, only afterwards used to keep score* when storehouse(( and thus supply line rhizorouser and tension ))builder, wellpaid, rainbow shirt wearing, cerebropatristically disowned disowner, the elite ‘joesieve’ ((who had it so tough he though nothing of making things tougher on sleepy steady state peasant existence, was buried by brothers only to rise high and free)), arrived on the scene) best prefigured by good draughtsmen, my favorite is Maarten Toonder by the way. *exclusive, yet (for check and controlsake) duplicated and .. .significantly .. . .sealed for a time, memory aids. As time went on these token records and receipts were exchanged (and failing to function) in varying magnitudes, cycles and directions while the stuff I am talking about is very much a tidal thing too, feverish and frantic speed of flashcapital vs the slow work of oxides on their way to reduction and refuelization via the compost. It’s you or me unless you agree to help me. Are we qlean quits now? Nick Land: infinite thought - "surely you need to differentiate 'good violence' from 'bad violence'" - comic obviously, but this is actually really interesting stuff (certainly from this weird neck of the woods) - guess you're astute enough to realize us libertarian types have been in a state of major delirious confusion since WWIV crossed the line (we've just been more discrete about it than the soft left). Exactly this issue and everything linked to it - how do you push for knocking out rogue fascist regimes providing future WMD for international terrorist movements without buying into big-government securocracy - produces an absolutely delicious neural schizifier. Cutting to the chase, think Steyn gets this pretty much absolutely right (government always fucks up, kill fascists whenever you can, cross cost-benefit analysis on basis of strict Hobbesian realism with just a pinch of Wolfowitzean panache, scrub out all 1022

utopianism (bye bye Badiou and co.), try to remain amused even as everything slides into hell). As for jihadis, at least they're relatively honest ... From my PoV, antiwar movement was quite effective, putting massive brake on Anglosphere political options viz knocking out fascist regimes (e.g. common wisdom that 'of course' attacking Iran/Syria/... is out of the question given the 'quagmire' in Iraq) This sovereign nations thing huge of course (especially here, hugely fetishized by the PRC govt) - goes back to Treaty of Westphalia (1648? - too lazy too google) and coterminous with modern international politics, so there's quite an earthquake happening (given that everyone with functioning sense organs knows unconditional state sovereignty ended with the 'Bush Doctrine') PS. on 'fascist' my usage based on Paul Berman and Christopher Hitchens, rather than ready to hand monkey turds, but sure effect much the same piet - "For more thought on ex- vs inclusion see northanger’s post ‘decrypting poetpiet’ but skip the first few fault riddled and daft drafts" ROTFLMAO infinite thought PS. can't get BBC here - perhaps single greatest delight of inhabiting this country infinite thought: Nick – Glad my ‘innocent’ questions amuse… I forgot about the BBC ban. You can get it in Iran – I suspect more ammunition for your hyper-con arsenal… ;) About your ‘major delirious confusion’ regarding the violence meted out by those biggovernment anti-market securocracies, surely you dissemble a little. If you agree with Steyn that ‘government always fucks up’ (and I’ll take your word for it that this is his position), don’t you need to ask why and in what way? Does it fuck up by killing too many civilians in un-media-friendly ways? Does it contradict itself too many times for even the least attentive of voters to get suspicious (it’s about terrorism, bin Laden, er, oil, women’s rights, er, freedom, er, the threat to us, to others, no, it’s a point of principle, etc)? 1023

Or don’t gvts actually operate in a more systematic way than this – attempting to remain in power, protecting the interests of those it financially best serves whilst trying not to invoke too much consistent rage in its electorate…… You know as well as I do that if the US + co. want to attack Iran etc. they’ll do it regardless of a bunch of whining civilians, which is why I don’t think the anti-war movement has nearly as much effect on policy as you do. I suspect libertarians play up the impact of these stances in order to feel ‘justified’ when occupations ‘succeed’. The only considerations invading gvts have are practical (enough troops, enemy power…only in very limited terms is it anything to do with PR). I think you have to come clean about your investment in superpower – if you really believe that the American gvt is on its way to some sort of anti-Marxist, pro-market, libertarian, withering away of the state then I suspect you run the risk of being consigned to the utopian dustbin along with Badiou (as you see it – I think it’s structurally impossible for Badiou to be utopian cos he has no real conception of history, by that’s by the by). If you don’t then you should abhor the rather oldfashioned empire-creating of an aging behemoth like the US. Furthermore, at the risk of sounding like a fucking liberal (I suspect it’s much too late), can you really not see any role for a MAD-type scenario, or for allowing countries to have heavily-regulated nuclear industry but no weapons? Can’t markets sort it out, or are there really naturally ‘bad guys’ and ‘good guys’ out there that must fight to the death in some kind of end-times scenario? I suppose it comes down to yet another naïve question: does pro-market liberal capitalism need war? If it’s so obviously the future, why can’t everyone see it? savonarola: Tickled to see that Deng Xiaoping's hypertrophic bureaucratization of China under authoritarian state capitalism can be so happily brought under the banner of laissez faire (skating gingerly over the facts of Tienanmen square, the work camps, the executions), that the touching, if a little repetitive, preoccupation with new and inhuman intensities can find a cozy home under the impeccable OFSTED heading of diversity, that Taoists can hold hands with Deleuzians in a festival of repressive desublimation and pagan inaction... But really, Nick, either (1) your love of Das Deng is founded on a somewhat belaboured subpolitics of acceleration (in which case, Junger is far more tonic company), a kind of communist manifesto without the communism, suggesting you 1024

quickly drop the cynical disquisitions on freedom and diversity or (2) all this TechnoSinophilia amounts to (2a) Hegel in China = a philosophy of history that has finally shed its fantasies of the yellow peril and the AMP (Asiatic Mode of Production) and embraced world systems theory (Wallerstein et al have been preaching the great shift for some time now, and The Economist is grudglingly tuning in); (2b) Hayek on MDMA, or how to get the listless youth to cheer on structural adjustment; (2c) a gross misrepresentation of contemporary capitalism and its effects on the Chinese peasantry, urban proletariat and environment (many continuities there between the worst of Mao, Deng and today's PRC). Since hyperstition, I gather, is not a mere apologia for wanton incoherence, and I suspect that your newfound concern for (but surely not belief in!) freedom and diversity is pretty epidermal, why not sing the praises of intensive acceleration and have done with these inept forays into liberal morality and political science? Might it be because if we're playing qualia the jihadis and red guards are sure to beat the cosmopolitan petty-bourgeoisie any day, hands down? No pagan supplement d'ame is going to change the basic (alas, Lacanian) equation: 'no authority = little intensity". Nick Land: infinite thought - "I think you have to come clean about your investment in superpower" - the 'coming clean' rhetoric definitely sounds 'fucking liberal' [in US sense] ;) (you surely can't be claiming i'm dissembling in order not to offend!) anti-utopians don't invest in anything except least worst alternatives - thing about the US, rest of the world is a reeking slum when it comes to geopolitical principles (PRC's buddies for instance, NKorea, Myanmar, Pakistan ...), so US (+ Australia) just has 'to do', because in the real world you can't denounce something without supporting something else. [Of course Bush is a bible punching soc.ialist, but then there's John Frickin Kerry and the dilemma is immediately over]. When China or India start behaving responsibly in the international arena or the minarchist colony on Mars revolts against excessive govt, I'll switch my allegience to them ... non-State actors and psycho rogue states (trust Kim Jong Il anyone?) make MAD absolutely impossible except for dupes "does pro-market liberal capitalism need war?" - wrong question IMHO, rather: does liberal capitalism always find itself immersed in wars (background Hobbesian hubbub) that force it to behave in a far more Hobbesian (fangy) fashion than its internal 1025

principles (civilized economic transaction between rational agents) adequately prescribe? - A. Yes, or at least, assuming the opposite is irresponsible naivety. Savonarola - think all your questions entirely pertinent, although attempts to multichoice my possible responses rather absurd. Trying to evalute the current PRC regime without reference to its history is another utopian error IMHO, 'progress/regress' are the basis of realistic judgement not conformity to some free-floating model of perfection. In this respect DXP probably counts as the single greatest leader in world history, whose Tiananmen screw-up looks fairly minor compared to the 30 million deaths of the Great Leap Forward and the hundreds of millions lifted out of crushing soc.ialist poverty after the 1979 turn around. Still, your "intensive acceleration" point is fair enough, it just so happens that there's a perfect conformity between economic freedom and 'growth' (intensive acceleration) - so i feel entitled to wear my teddy-bear ears liberal humanist hat every now and again because otherwise the only person i can talk to is Vauung ... (even if moral discourse is sheer bullshit, it's still a mode of diverting interaction) - also agree the Lacan equation interesting, but too dogmatically transcendental for my tastes. "Wanton incoherence" - at least infinite thought, savonarola - [squirming maundering infant in my lap compromising my response to your fantastically interesting comments - will attempt more appropriate response after shortish intermission] infinite thought: look forward - bedtime here, unfotunately, but back soon... infinite thought "big-government anti-market securocracies" - this seems rather quick, or at least, the three terms need de-synthesizing at least momentarily. Security issue in all itys dimensions hugely interesting IMHO (planning a post on it, so won't address it much right now). 'Big-government' meaning wars cost money? But US military budget is tiny (3.5% GDP) so big-govt politics far more a welfare state problem (i.e. a European one most prominently). 'Anti-market' also relatively intricate topic, probably better to kick it down the thread, except to note that relation of markets to security is not one of simple opposition. On ‘government fuck up’ Steyn did a fabulous column on the flight 93 event and spontaneous swarming vs bureaucratic 'defences' (apologies for lack of link, it was months ago). Clearly the military, for instance, is an inefficient bureaucracy, paying 1026

ridiculous prices for all its equipment and employing legions of useless pen pushers intense competition on the battlefield probably means it is a little less sclerotic than comparable civilian institutions, but only to a very limited degree. America's best 'homeland security policy' is the 2nd amendment and an armed citizenry. Your list of 'fuck ups' is not unreasonable, but i'm basically focused on economics and efficiency (US$ per dead terrorist and reliability of interception). Think contracting out violence to taut private sector operators will happen increasingly, but it won't be quick and it raises scores of interesting conundrums. In brief, libertarians get 'Hobbesianized' when they just sigh and pay out for the government to blunder around inefficiently and bomb people with golden toilet seats etc. It's the tax paid for living in a planetsized lunatic asylum. Find your discussion of government motivations a bit leftist in slant, sure their are corrupt corporate pork hunters of various kinds, but there's plenty of empirical evidence that the biggest corrupting constituencies are public sector employees of State bureaucracies and nationalized industries. The 'right' tries (should try) to be realistic about narrow motivations and control them through checks and balances, markets where possible, otherwise through consumer controlled bureaucratic systems (voucher schemes) or disintegrated authorities. Politicians seek power, pretty much everyone seeks money, activists seek radical chic (+ getting laid), State employees want to keep their jobs without doing any work, etc etc ... really don't buy Chomsky-style monolithic corporate power as THE decisive factor. Quite open to possibility of emergent purposiveness in institutions ('Governments want ...') but reluctant to accept it as a self-evident dogmatic truth. "You know as well as I do that if the US + co. want to attack Iran etc. they’ll do it regardless of a bunch of whining civilians" - this way to fast - what is "US + co."? What is 'to want' (sure 'they' 'want' it already, but enough to create an international political shit-storm? maybe ... Whining civilians are voters, and even whining foreign civilians can be a major pain in the ass in various ways (funding or becoming terrorists for instance, or voting out friendly governments). US govt bureaucracies have massively fragmented agendas (CIA and State Department basically siding with the Euroweenies during previous admin. for instance, though Bush seems determined to clean them up now) "if you really believe that the American gvt is on its way to some sort of anti-Marxist, pro-market, libertarian, withering away of the state ..." relax, definitely don't think anything like this. What is American capitalism doing? that seems to me more the 1027

issue. Is it gaining a tighter grip on the State, overcoming the political influence of New Deal populism and trending towards a more dynamic business climate? Some 'positive' signs IMHO (tax cuts, social security privatization ...) other deeply troubling ones (medical porkeroo, corporate welfare, wobbliness on international trade ...). Since in my 'right-wing marxist' analysis economic growth just IS social change in every respect that matters, cranking up GDP is the sole index of real importance (conditioning all the rest). Obviously want maniac supply-siders running policy as far as politically feasible. "I think it’s structurally impossible for Badiou to be utopian cos he has no real conception of history" - hope this topic will come back - strongly disagree, after reading his political writings, which seem drenched in utopianism (i.e. claim we should demand big dreamy things from 'society'). "you should abhor the rather old-fashioned empire-creating of an aging behemoth like the US" - US is 'Hegemonic' not Imperial (alternative is ANARCHY = FASCISM). For anyone with minimal Hobbesian assumptions ('there's a lot of crazy bastards out there who want to kill us') it's hard to know what 'abhorring' US role in global (OK, planetary capitalist) security really leads to. "can you really not see any role for a MAD-type scenario, or for allowing countries to have heavily-regulated nuclear industry but no weapons?" - MAD is off the table. The only reason these guys want nuke programmes is for bombs (like Iran needs civilian nuclear power? - time to get off the bong) "Can’t markets sort it out?" - Markets presuppose economic motivation, where this is overridden - by jihadi enthusiasm or soc.ialist dictatorship for instance - they can't control the phenomenon "are there really naturally ‘bad guys’ and ‘good guys’ out there that must fight to the death ...?" - guessing you don't have problems with West having slaughtered German Nazis or Japanese fascists, so it's just a matter of categorization. How comparable are hard-core Salafists to Nazis? - I'm with Berman and Hitchens (very comparable) "... in some kind of end-times scenario?" - this is too big and tied up with other hyperstitional questions to rush a response here. "If [pro-market liberal capitalism] is so obviously the future, why can’t everyone see it?" - Is it more weird that humans have been biologically constructed to tolerate history or to resist it? IMHO we're a spatchcock engineered conservative species 1028

frightened of change, but also curious and experimental enough for runaway social dynamics to hook us into one-way (historical) processes. Capitalism exploits our conservatism (search for personal/family economic security) and alchemizes it into revolution (K+ techonomic mutation). This dynamic goes way back before modernity - after all, people have always sought to use technology to resist change and stabilize their environment, with the side-effect that the species is plunged into history ... More generally, this q. (of yours) fascinated all the Austrians (think savonarola refers implicitly to it above) PS. apologies for typos, errors and weird glitches savonarola "Tickled to see that Deng Xiaoping's hypertrophic bureaucratization of China under authoritarian state capitalism can be so happily brought under the banner of laissez faire" - but DXP didn't bureaucratize, he began a process of massive debureaucratization (of course, there's a long way to go). The mainland Chinese economy is a fascinating beast, combining extremely heterogeneous elements (hope to get into the topic in detail later). One thing for sure, it is being prfoundly privatized, from being among the most totalitarian in the world to one that now nurtures an entrepreneurial non-State sector growing at dizzying speed. "(skating gingerly over the facts of Tienanmen square, the work camps, the executions)" - lots of rough shit going down, sure "that the touching ... pagan inaction" - found this paragraph hard to decode "your love of Das Deng is founded on a somewhat belaboured subpolitics of acceleration (in which case, Junger is far more tonic company)" - but Junger was crap at economics "a kind of communist manifesto without the communism, suggesting you quickly drop the cynical disquisitions on freedom and diversity" - capitalism liberates the means of production, hence freedom and diversity "or (2) all this Techno-Sinophilia amounts to (2a) Hegel in China = a philosophy of history that has finally shed its fantasies of the yellow peril and the AMP (Asiatic Mode of Production) and embraced world systems theory (Wallerstein et al have been preaching the great shift for some time now, and The Economist is grudglingly tuning in)" - but Wallerstein et al are crap at economics, for instance, they have no 1029

understanding of market dynamics and expected Germany+Japan to overtake the US by end 20th C. If all you mean is that East Asia is the hub of planetary economic dynamism, definitely agree (though US proves very adaptive when subjected to fierce competitive pressure, maybe benefiting more from Japanese economic miracle than Japan itself). (Old) Europe is screwed. "(2b) Hayek on MDMA, or how to get the listless youth to cheer on structural adjustment" - sounds great, but not exactly getting the 'how' (great despondency of my existence is that antimarket nannified ideas always far sexier to young troublemakers than promotion of raw liberty) "(2c) a gross misrepresentation of contemporary capitalism and its effects on the Chinese peasantry, urban proletariat and environment (many continuities there between the worst of Mao, Deng and today's PRC)." - this requires more detailed discussion than i imagine would be tolerable here right now. Deng's reforms began in the countryside, with peasants thoroughly pissed at collectivist experiments eagerly seizing opportunity to push the 'family responsibility system' of grassroots productive independence + huge leap in agricultural incomes. Peasant incomes have since stagnated for intractable economic reasons (because aggregate agricultural income largely equivalent to social food budget, it's difficult to lift overall living standards in peasant-dominated societies - as the proportion of income dedicated to subsistence falls, so does the fraction of gross social output availabale to farmers - mass urbanization (at least 500,000,000 people) the only practical solution in the medium term). Urban proletariat doing OK unless working for clapped out State industries - as indicated by human flood of migrant workers into cities. Voting by foot by far most reliable gauge of what's going on anywhere btw. Environment issues always overblown, prosperity sorts this stuff out - concentrate on GDP growth "I suspect that your newfound concern for (but surely not belief in!) freedom and diversity is pretty epidermal ..." - Why 'newfound'? Always took D&G; to be promoting freedom and diversity. Maybe i'm just using more colloquial language these days. Not sure what a 'belief' would be in this case, nor am i pretending to have 'transcended' belief (unbelief is a limit). 1030

Skintelligenic take on 'epidermal' will have to wait. "why not sing the praises of intensive acceleration and have done with these inept forays into liberal morality and political science?" - but it's the same phenomenon, merely in different registers. The culture of democracy means everyone has to articulate 'political science' questions to some extent, even if they don't vote. "Might it be because if we're playing qualia the jihadis and red guards are sure to beat the cosmopolitan petty-bourgeoisie any day, hands down? No pagan supplement d'ame is going to change the basic (alas, Lacanian) equation: 'no authority = little intensity'." - absolutely love this - truly brilliant and worthy of far more extended examination than it will receive just now. 1) Commercial republics have actually shown themselves historically to be quite stubbornly competent at fighting and winning wars once fired-up to do so - plenty of interesting ref's here, VDHanson's 'Carnage and Culture' is one excellent signpost 2) the Lacan equation is simultaneously intriguing and repellent ('nun-raping' ideology in the end) - once you buy into it all kinds of foucauldean sadomasochistic political perversions start to make sense. Ultimately, i just don't accept that a big dead daddy is necessary for a serotonin spike. Seems to me the most intense cities in the world are the most thoroughly liberalized from the grassroots (= economically), with the oceanic intensities of decoded consumerism plateauing far better than hysterical jolts of totalitarian fanaticism The Ghost of Easter Past: The replacement of the Republican and Democratic Parties by two new governmental servicing corporations run by Coke and Pepsi has massively reduced corruption, pork-barelling and foreign policy machismo. -- Meat (or How to Kill Oedipus in Cyberspace), p. 200. Nick Land: The Ghost of Easter Past - any hint of a schedule? The Ghost of Easter Past: Well it says here, “A laundered Michael Jackson facsimile is in the Whitehouse”, so I assume you were just making it all up in your head. you surely can't be claiming i'm dissembling in order not to offend!) surely i'm going too far for you now, right?)) 1031

nick, isn't it time to drop this pathetic desperation to shock us all with your 'extreme' views, the marilyn manson act won't wash - no-one's shocked by you, least of all when you're toeing the whitehouse PR line... Tachi: By far the most interesting thread I have seen for a while, though I have been absent from the blog for some time. Trying to plug into your currents for a sec Nick - seems you maintain that China is still not a responsible player on the world stage, and your strongest political support is for the US since it is the least undesirable alternative power to side with for the slide into WWIV. Yet you almost glorify the direction China is heading (since Deng 1979) - isn't this precisely for the reason that you support the US: economic freedom and prosperity? China is not at all the best place to do business as you may suspect (have you ever done business in China, or worked in a commercial environment?); the commercial sector is rife with corruption, a lack of creativity and innovation, and state involvement. There is a long long way to go before China as a whole (not just counting SEZs) becomes an economic superpower. Nick Land: Tachi - all your comments on China plausible at least, but the vector is breathtakingly positive ('+' in a cybernetic sense if the value judgement seems questionable). When it comes to the cultural infrastructure of affect, directions (+ of course speeds) matter far more than absolute values. Hence East Asia is buzzing and optimistic, while (much richer but) decaying Europe is drowning in its own ressentimental bitterness and despair. "isn't this precisely for the reason that you support the US" - I'm not really in a position to support anything, and while I'm certainly tactically aligned with what infinite thought calls US 'superpower' (given the alternative is ANARCHY = FASCISM made grotesque by the impotent moral pontifications of cowards, hypocrites and heads-in-the-sanders) think facts, scenarios and models make better discussion material than allegiences Grumpy Ghost - you really think Marilyn Manson is more shocking than the Bush administration? That's certainly a minority view worldwide ... willow: isn't KP post just the best ever? the most wonderful load of nonsense...! 1032

Euclid: Willow- "isn't KP post just the best ever? the most wonderful load of nonsense...!" If you mean the recent post at KP, you are dead right. KP: "the Prince Charming of Cold Rationalism" Is there anything more pathetic, farcical or immature? Bloot: isn't KP post just the best ever? the most wonderful load of nonsense...! It certainly is. In fact it’s so good I think it deserves to be posted here too. Here are some of the highlights once again: No, I am not tolerant. No, I do not want to 'debate' or 'enter into dialogue with you. No, I don't respect you, nor do I solicit such respect for myself from you. The defenders of tolerance, debate, dialogue and respect advertise their bourgeois credentials with such advocacy. I'm sorry, apolologists for exploitation of labour, but, no, I don't see it as my duty to provide the enemy with a space to express itself. So, yes, hold on tight and spit on me, I am a dogmatist. But what does being a dogmatist entail? Briefly, it involves commitment to the view that there are Truths. One can add to this, the view that there is a Good. It's no accident that, since Kant, rationalism has been held to be synonymous with dogmatism. Post-Kant, we have grown accustomed to the view that critique rather than dogma is the only acceptable ethical and philosophical position, so that 'rational dogmatism' sounds like the worst imaginable insult. But where does this attack come from? Fundamentally, four interrelated positions: authoritarianism, mysticism, egotism and relativism. Far from being equivalent to authoritarianism, as the postmodern liberal doxa would have it, dogmatism is only effective alternative to authoritarianism. Dogmatism is religion in the best sense. It is only through dogmatism - ruthless subordination of your Self to an impersonal system - that his majesty the Ego can be crushed. This has been the appeal of nontheistic religion throughout the ages. Well that’s certainly roused me from my critical slumber! LOL “Our age is the age of dogmatism, and to dogma everything must submit." 1033

"The motto of the Enlightenment is therefore: submit yourself to an impersonal system!” hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Faced with this, is there ANY intelligent person who wouldn't immediately rush to align themselves with Russell's definition of "the liberal outlook"? The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology. Hmm, back again I'm afraid -- can't sleep (despite MKP's not-terribly-subtle attempt to lull me into an infantile dogmatic slumber! LOL) Just wanted to pose a quick question to Mark: since the title of your latest 'k-punk' post is 'We Dogmatists', I'm curious to know: who exactly is this 'we' supposed to refer to? Could you please ONE SINGLE PERSON who agrees with the above views? (Since you're all about 'collectives', that shouldn't be too hard now, should it?) On other thing: when putting across your ... ahem ... how to put it? ... [delete, delete: self-censorship in operation here] ... opinions, I really think you owe it to those of your friends who have been working assiduously over the years to translate and present Badiou's ideas to the English-speaking world in the rigorous and sophisticated form that they both demand and deserve, that you make it absolutely clear that the views you espouse are NOT shared by Alain Badiou. If you must persist in the narcissistic vainglory of self-publishing your imbecilic soliloquies and moronic monologues [hmm, delete button doesn't appear to be working!] on the net where anyone who happens to do a Google search for 'Badiou' might well be directed to your site, I really think you ought to be very careful to clearly dissociate your own hastily conceived opinions and beliefs from the rigorously reasoned arguments of serious philosophers. Forty years after his initial reception in the English-speaking world and Derrida is still widely regarded as a sophistical charlatan (an insult that he was not even spared in the obituaries which appeared after his death) due to the inept misappropriation and zealous misrepresentation of his ideas by people who had no business reading him in the first place. Should you continue to act as Badiou's selfappointed publicist and vulgarizer, then I'm afraid that his work is destined to get the 1034

same kind of reception as 'Cold Rationalism' has so far received in the confines of the blogosphere (i.e. it will simply be ridiculed and scorned), thus seriously hindering the considerable ongoing efforts of those who have the patience and critical forebearance to actually undergo the incredibly difficult and painstaking task of first coming to a rigorous, sophisticated and hard-won understanding of Badiou's very complex texts and arguments before venturing to publish anything on them. If you find nothing more in Badiou's texts than the latest radical-sounding rhetorical ornamentation with which to redecorate the walls of your autocratic little self-publicizing blog, then I really think you ought to leave it alone altogether and stick to areas that don't exceed your rather modest intellectual competence: e.g. music reviews and cultural studies. (And by the way, the same goes for the likes of Kant, Hegel and Husserl, who you have clearly understand nothing of either. If you're not prepared to actually *read* those you criticize, I really think you ought to curb your voluble trap.) Nick Land: "dogmatism is only effective alternative to authoritarianism" - discuss Bloot - chill ;) "Well that certainly roused me from my critical slumber!" - as you say, LOL clytemnestra: WE DOGMATISTS = CHRISTIANITY. After investigating the inherent CHEMICAL ELEMENT at the heart of this group it was discovered, utilizing the IC/DC CSAIL METHOD, this group exhibits extremely STRONG SIGNAL of CLUSTER-TYPE: ONE BIG RHIZOME. Mostly distributed throughout UNITED KINGDOM. REGIME OF SIGNS indicate following characteristics: clear MANIFESTATION of REASON AND LOGIC, GENIO HUIS LOCI87 and a AEONIC CURRENT that can, at best, be described as LEMURODIGITAL. Evidence of widespread belief in THE HOLY BOOKS of THE ONE IN THREE concerning THE(impending)APOCALYPSE. Group appears to be diametrically & quite vociferously opposed to the VIRGO LUCIFERA groups seeking ENLIGHTENMENT via ORGASMIC BLISS (aka, one-handgrasping gematria system). 87 we remain clueless as to what this means exactly. 1035

should you have more inquiries about this research (or, you know more about GENIO HUIS LOCI than we do), please contact CLYTEMNESTRA NYARLATHOTEP, ADEPTUS MINOR. Reza Negarestani: WE DOGMATISTS = CHRISTIANITY Feeling electrical floods of pleasure engulfing me. clytemnestra@nyarlathotep.ck Nyarlathotep, indeed! Tachi: Nick - "I'm not really in a position to support anything, and while I'm certainly tactically aligned with what infinite thought calls US 'superpower' (given the alternative is ANARCHY = FASCISM made grotesque by the impotent moral pontifications of cowards, hypocrites and heads-in-the-sanders) think facts, scenarios and models make better discussion material than allegiences" Interesting point. Agree to the general tone - contra-moral impotency - but have to split hairs somewhat. I don't want to pursue a personal agenda, but obv. cant deny interest in your particular (and personal) angle. However, the issue I see concerns more generally what being 'tactically aligned to' amounts to, and how this differs from 'moral pontification'. This is an issue, I think, since it affects all Hyperstitionists who are engaged in praxis: there are value judgements all of us make when enacting decisions and in engaging with the forces cutting through us. Whilst moralising without an appreciation of base global dynamics (for example about privatization of public services, the collapse of the welfare state) reflects unthinking resistance to change, self-deception and pathetic anthropomorphism - deploring humanity, because in general the species digs its hooves into a specific niche in a changing cosmic fabric, does not deliver a moral high-ground based on a superior intellectual 'position'. It in fact contributes very little to questions of praxis, which are, IMHO, far more important than intellectualising about events in which we play no part. I am not saying that this is what anyone in particular is doing, though I see strains of this many threads here. Your contribution Nick is stimulating and, dare I say it, 'heartfelt' (i.e. total). 1036

'Facts, scenarios and models' - important for discussion, I agree. More so than our own 'allegiances', though allegiances - or better, alliances, pacts - good stuff for discussion when considering the changing relationships of the key players on the global stage - government, big business, etc. Uncovering facts (or uprooting lies), conceptualising scenarios, and developing models amount to nothing without full engagement to actual lines of praxis. Internet discussion room activity is painfully locked into a very tight orbit. What could the most effective lines be? Moralising is indeed indifferent to the subtle and complex processes which shape and are shaping our world. But there are still questions of value attached to the development of models and tactical choices we make. And tactics is all about engagement, and this involves alliances and allegiances, however fluid. Nick, one other thing - interested in you either/or point of view: US 'superpower' OR ANARCHY = FASCISM made grotesque by the impotent moral pontifications of cowards, hypocrites and heads-in-the-sanders Strikes me as somewhat naive coming from you that there are two alternatives. Especially when you claim that you are not in a position to 'support' (though you allow yourself tactical alignment.) In fact, what differentiates support from alignment? northanger: nick - maybe this praxis issue is where some of us non-hyperstitional players need to leave the field, what say you? i'm not a major player here, and it's at this point i ask myself why i'm here and what you and reza are up to. well, mostly i just wonder what vauung is up to really ... but you get the idea. Nick Land: Tachi - brief response for now (more later): really think heartfelt moralpolitical polemic (a zillion mea culpas obviously) extremely sub-hyperstitional and while very enjoyable (for me, anyway) shouldn't be allowed to wreck the multitracked highly diverse and experimental undertakings that this blog is really based on 1037

nothanger - think your comment slightly perverse, this is among the very LEAST hyperstitional of discussions happening here (a holiday from the rigours of impersonality, mutant masks and experimentation) so definitely not a sufficient excuse to bail ... northanger PS. apologies for tone of 'pathetic desperation' but qabbalists are thin on the ground, so if you're fleeing try to send us a replacement (ha!) northanger: nick - "this is among the very LEAST hyperstitional of discussions" - and certainly the post that veered the most off-topic! it had such potential :( would be nice to blend in this crop circle bizness (come to think of it, should check two asteroids with this: ANGEL & SERAPHINA and see whether there's any mention of angels in the g-mg corpus) http://www.cropcircleanswers.com/ccc2001_article.htm http://www.cam.net.uk/home/Nimmann/events/cropcircles.htm http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/gigdecode.htm Tachi - "Internet discussion room activity is painfully locked into a very tight orbit." - what internet discussion room? please describe tight orbit. AQ 218 = TIGHT ORBIT = SLEDGEHAMMER = SUBOPTIMAL = UEBERTROLL = OUT OF TUNE = LIBER QWYZ = ANGLICAN BRIT northanger: crikey! nothing against mark k-p, but i just realized something. last k-p post had me chained in the basement for weeks. so, thinking ahead, desiring selfpreservation, i think it best that i cease posting in this "room" (and escape while i can!). lol. Nick Land: this thread has it all - (melo)drama, action, tears, plot-twists, now with the bloot battlescenes fading from memory piet arrives to clear up any accumulated confusion and northanger movingly confesses that k-p chained her up in a basement - definitely claiming first round hawking the hollywood rights ... Tachi - your comment above (which i promised to get back to) seems to be centred on this key proposition: "questions of praxis ... are ... far more important than intellectualising about events in which we play no part" 1038

totally agree. Ideally 'pontification' (mea culpa x n) would be relegated to a carrier function, where it could be pursued far more vigorously and constructively. Think part of the concrete method issue is sheer anthropology - Steven Pinker (in his IMHO brilliant 'The Blank Slate') suggests moral pontification is a natural human propensity, along with the associated tendencies to partisan organization (psychological test subjects divided into groups by coin-tossing quickly began to develop strong partisan loyalty to their 'tribe,' attributing all kinds of superior moral virues to it (over against 'the abominable tails' - i extrapolate)). Point is, we can either tolerate a degree of this human nonsense or try to stamp it out. Seems to me, best policy is tolerance without letting it get in the way of more important work. Another (sort of related) question is whether a productive hyperstitional analysis of 'capitalism' can be launched here, locking onto topics with high Hyp. affinity, e.g. money, social science fiction, cyberspace, transhumanism, artificialization, pulp markets, telecommunism (or whatever other genuinely mutant strains of marxism) ... there are a huge number, but partisan cat-fighting and blind heel-digging tends to obstruct their rigorous elaboration - i'm agnostic about the prospects here, but some good carriers would probably help a lot ('good' in this context designating optimum blend of rigour, extremism, contagion and comic absurdity) Tachi: Nick, thanks for your response; if I am not contributing directly to Hyperstition with this questions and comments then please understand that this is because I am still undergoing a kind of induction. Please see my comments in the Hyperstitional Method II thread - better there I think. Nick Land: Tachi - definitely 'contributing directly to hyperstition' - focused q.s highly welcome at this (and i hope at every later) stage Ghost of Trakl Interpretations Past: Grumpy Ghost - you really think Marilyn Manson is more shocking than the Bush administration? That's certainly a minority view worldwide .. also master of the evasion. My point was, obviously, that neither MM nor Bush nor your good self were shocking. Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but the 'I'm being naughty, aren't I?' lines come across as a tad needy ;) Tachi: Ghost: what's the *need* for being shocking? 1039

Nick Land: Grumpy Ghost - think you fundamentally misread the exchange you're obsessing on (go back and check if it's so important to you). Don't see any 'shock tactics' happening here from any quarters ghost: Ghost: what's the *need* for being shocking? why ask me? just forget it...after all, it was in no sense 'me' who said it, anyway. Ewaik Ryszard: Some insightful Bible students noticed, the proof lies in the obvious identity that exists between Daniel's "the king of the north" in the last days and Ezekiel's "Gog" of the latter days. By comparing what is said about each of them in the two prophecies, it is manifest that they can only be different titles for the same being. Ezekiel Chapter 38 and 39 = Daniel 11:45 1. Their geographical position is the same. "Gog's" country is in the north part in relation to the Holy Land; as it is written, "Thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts". "Gog" is therefore "the king of the north", his place or country being there. 2. Both of them are adversaries of Israel and invaders of the Holy Land. The eleventh chapter of Daniel abundantly proves this in relation to "the king of the north"; and of "Gog", Yahoueh said: "Thou shalt come up against my people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land". 3. The time they invade the land is the same. "The king of the north" invades in the last days. Of "Gog" it is said: "It shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land". 4. The same peoples are named as components of their armies. The Libyans and Ethiopians are allies with "the king of the north"; and in the enumeration of Gog's forces, it says, "Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them". Who is "Gog"? Which land is the land of "Magog"? Some people think that "Gog" is the Devil. But does the context support this idea? 1040

Ezekiel wrote that after "Gog's" last attack he will fall and then be buried by the people. (Ez.39:4,11) So there is no need to prove that "Gog" represents the Devil as we know that the devil does not have a body of flesh and bone and has no need for a grave. Thus, in actuality, whom does "Gog" symbolize? "Gog" is the chief prince of Meschech and Tubal. "Meshech, the sixth son of Japheth (Genesis 10:2) is the founder of a tribe (1 Chronicles 1:5; Ezekiel 27:13; 38:2,3). They were in all probability the Moschi people, inhabiting the Moschian Mountains, between the Black and the Caspian Seas. In Psalms 120:5 the name occurs simply as a synonym for foreigners or barbarians. "During the ascendency of the Babylonians and Persians in Western Asia, the Moschi were subdued; but it seems probable that a large number of them crossed the Caucasus range and spread over the northern steppes, mingling with the Scythians. There they became known as Muscovs and gave this name to the Russian nation and its ancient capital by which they are still generally known throughout the East" (Easton's Bible Dictionary). Many ancient sources have clearly identified "Magog" as referring to the "Scythians". One of the earliest references to Magog was made by Hesiod, "the father of Greek didactic poetry" who identified Magog with the Scythians and southern Russia in the 7th century B.C. Hesiod was a contemporary of Ezekiel. Josephus Flavius clearly identified Magog. "Magog founded the Magogians, thus named after him, but who were by the Greeks called Scythians". (Josephus, Antiquities, 1.123; Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel 38:2) The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that in the fifth century B.C. the Scythians ruled from the Don River, in present southern Russia, to the Carpathian Mountains in central Europe. Philo, is another historian in the first century A.D. who identified "Magog" with southern Russia. Ancient authorities clearly identified the Scythians as the ancestors of the present day Russians. However, even without that information, the identity of "Magog" is not too difficult to figure out. In Ezekiel 38:15, it says: "And thou shalt come from thy place out of 1041

the north parts, thou, and many people with thee". The "north parts" is literally the "extreme, or uttermost" parts of the north. 1042

AQ Exalted Nick Land (February 18, 2005) Among the gematria masterpieces of all time (thanks clytemnestra): WE DOGMATISTS = CHRISTIANITY (swoon) PS. Clytemnestra has a secret too, but it doesn't make anything like as much sense ... Comments: AQ Exalted Nick Land: typically, 'clytemnestra' goes completely berserk on the newly discovered current-263 (Nyarlathotep anyone?) [her comment on Gog Magog] clytemnestra: Yes, our HODOLOGY DIVISION in DE(GERMANY) has been studying CURRENT-263 quite intensely. Extremely CHTHONIAN research with an incredible GTVN EMBED. Before I continue, if I may? Thank you. I'd like to INSULATE the delicate ears of any S*** I***S listening. Our preliminary findings concerning CURRENT-263 PIONEERS the ULTIMATE PURPOSE of the BOLESKINE SORCERER. The OCTENARY ORIFLAMME of the RED CROSS-its IMMORTAL INVOKING MIMNESIS of the HOLINESS of that great beastie LEVIATHAN & his EVIL ONES. The BOLESKINE SOLDIERS ability to successfully utilize SEX MAGICK & repeatedly hit the BULLSEYE is, we feel, a critical component to visibly erect to excitation the very SKELETON of the TEN AND ONE -EMANATION- of the YULETIDE ASTERION TELETARCH. Things are going extremely well & we couldn't be more excited. Nick Land: clytemnestra - that's cunning. Best of all IMHO is the ensuing: CURRENT-173 = 173 (was aiming to do something on slippery beast Leviathan soon anyway) clytemnestra: nick - CURRENT-173 = 173, extremely fruitful! As for 263, once you consider Heb 263 = GEMATRIA (GMTRYA) & Heb SUM(1 to 31) = LEVIATHAN what can you say? you are aware of the CURRENT-31 and its WESTJAY axis? 1043

Nick Land: clytemnestra - (lazy i know but) could you unpack this: "Heb SUM(1 to 31) = LEVIATHAN" a little? clytemnestra: nick - "unpack this: Heb SUM(1 to 31) = LEVIATHAN" - my pleasure. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28 + 29 + 30 + 31 = 496 Crowley: Leviathan LVYThN, Malkuth MLKVTh, A small bundle TzRVR AQ 496 = GRAND THEORY OF EVERYTHING Reza Negarestani: Clytemnestra, Malkuth: originally from proto-Aramaic, later Malakoot (malakut): world in relation to the sun or infinite fire; Malakut and Moloch (see 'Five Billion Years of Hell Engineering') both from one genetic strain. Nick, Is there any possibility to have an exclusive version of the 'pandemonium matrix' (or even the same version) here at hyperstition? Nick Land: R - Vysparov's version of the Pandemonium Matrix has a number of technical errors, so an exclusive version would make sense - i'll try and get the whole of Ccru Shanghai mobilized (probably a corrected Vysparov version rather than anything more ambitious makes most sense right now) Reza Negarestani: nick, check your email again. northanger: CURRENT-173 = 173 TEN AND ONE -EMANATION- of the YULETIDE ASTERION TELETARCH ASTERION - ah. thought i remembered seeing this. figured out how to use 32 compass points (called "boxing the compass") with 32 paths on zodiac wheel. wanted to figure out which star/path was assigned to atu vii chariot. using frater achad's restored tree, ASTERION is one of 7 fixed stars on path 28: PATH 28: NATURAL INTELLIGENCE–The TWENTY-EIGHTH Path from Netzach to Yesod = The Chariot - CANCER. http://www.hermetic.com/browe-archive/achad/egyptian/egypt3.htm 1044

http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/Asterion.html ALIOTH (ENE ~ 09Vi00) 68º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 28 ALSUHAIL (ENE ~ 11Vi16) 70º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 28 ZOSMA (ENE ~ 11Vi23) 70º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 28 COXA (ENE ~ 13Vi29) 72º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 28 MIZAR (ENE ~ 15Vi46) 74º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 28 ALCOR (ENE ~ 15Vi57) 74º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 28 ASTERION (ENE ~ 17Vi46) 76º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 28 Tachi: EUROPEAN UNION=STUCK IN THE MUD 285; CENTRAL ASIA=ALIEN SIGNAL=FUCKED BY GOD=MECHANOMICS 202; SHANGHAI=MATRIX 139; TAIWAN=GLORY 122; SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES=ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 402; FAKE ASCENDANCY=FREE MASONRY 238; HUMANISM=ANCHORING 170; LOVE=HYPE 90; LEMURIA=RUBBISH 142; HUMANISM+LEMURIA=FISH OUT OF WATER=TECHNOCAPITALISM 312; DISCOURSE=FUTLITY 194; NATURE=ANARCHY=FACISM=MYOPIA 133; Nick Land: Tachi - hey, you're good at this ;) 1045

northanger: nick - "k-p chained her up in a basement" - (this post appeared "downstairs") - k-p didn't chain me up in THE basement, he'd already left by then. but, i do remember you, reza, undercurrent, bloot, tachi, etal. the original chain gang. Reza Negarestani: northanger, k-p didn't chain me up in THE basement, he'd already left by then. but, i do remember you, reza, undercurrent, bloot, tachi, etal. the original chain gang. Thanks, that sounds like a twisted compliment, i'm pleased. :) northanger: R - ack! argh. :| Reza Negarestani: northanger, btw, check 'Avesta Archive' (via hyperstition's del.icio.us feed): the Z-crowd, Vendidad, Kaveh, etc. the best site on the zoroastrian germ-cell of monotheism. also don't forget iranica, (although it's not the whole encyclopedia). northanger: reza - excellent job there on hyperstition's del.icio.us feed. wonderful resources. thanx. still want my flag paper tho. u/c: (way off topic) I thought N+R would appreciate a neologism from Nathan Barley episode 2 : "Axis of Diesel", LOL! northanger: Nathan Barley is a cunt. imho. Tachi: don't know about nathan barley, but BUDDHA certainly is a CUNT (94). northanger: so does ANGLO and DIGIT, but nick has a headache already and i was trying to be kind. (hahahahahaha) Nick Land: 94 TX: ((:)((:)))+(((:))(:)) 'Sleazy squid-sex writer' Mary Karno (post coming (i'm competing with the Reza unfulfilled promises list)) considered this nummogram an abstract image of the 'Vulvoplexive Gates of Tiamat' [No stable ordering convention existent (or necessary (??)) for TX yet - post on this 'imminent'] 1046

Reza Negarestani: Nick, 'Sleazy squid-sex writer' Mary Karno (post coming (i'm competing with the Reza unfulfilled promises list)) considered this nummogram an abstract image of the 'Vulvoplexive Gates of Tiamat' LOL ... then you are already the winner ;) ... my apologies for the silence; I’m really under heavy pressure here; knee recovery is progressing slowly, should write more than 8 papers and there is a software we are designing for tracing the phonetic combinations of any near / middle eastern language to its elemental constitutive sounds (I think it’s also a great hyperstitional tool). But I am working on a few long posts for hyperstition. 'Vulvoplexive Gates of Tiamat' Could you please stop teasing? By the way, this is a good opportunity to remind you of the Hyperstition’s index while your hotmail account is down. Did you find the proper categories for the articles I listed? If you give me the proper tags I can finish the sub-grouping project this week. btw, didn't you promise to write a more decoded essay on tic-xenotation? Nick Land: R - hotmail hassles have disrupted anything that involves getting information from emails - hoping it won't last long (this sort of hotmail crap has happened before and it just stopped at some point) Post touching on TX in the works, with more foggy stuff mist-crawling on the horizon ... Best luck with the knee and the language software ... PS. will try and move forward on the image front been totally messing up this simple TX formula (corrected it twice invisibly through 'magical' behind the board powers) 'Standard' TX 94 = :((:)((:))) - not anything like as pornographic northanger: nick - ((:)((:)))+(((:))(:)) -- oh, you must tell us what this is then. u/c: is it just me or is there some sort of C-word semiovirus stalking the blogs recently....most vulgar. 1047

nick, if you're taking requests I would like a thorough discussion/explanation of Mechanomics, LOL! Seriously perhaps a discussion of 'intensive number' (as in D&R;) could be weaved in? also, badiou's next chapter in Num&Num; truly astonishingly bizarre (surreal numbers, etc) - will try to gloss it soon. reza - phonetic mulching software sounds amazing! do we get an online version? Nick Land: northanger - addition isn't a standard operation in TX, so i guess ((:)((:)))+(((:))(:)) is just Karno being sloppy (and vulgar) u/c - Mechanomics is going back a bit - i'll see what can be dredged up from the depths (just don't expect me to match your output levels or technical agility) Reza Negarestani: u/c + Nick, reza - phonetic mulching software sounds amazing! do we get an online version? i hope so ... there are technical obstacles: interfaces are in Farsi plus nearly 17 foreign fonts should be installed (users should be familiar with these alphabets including Aramaic, Hebrew, Pahlavanic, Farsi, Gojarati, Avestan, Khotanese, Sogdian, Hebrew, etc.); but i think there are solutions for these problems. Let me oversimplify the core mechanism of this software: For example I used the original word ‘Jeh’ in Pahlavi as the input, the word cannot be pronounced or properly written in English (some kind of problem similar to Qaf-complex I discussed before); the application analyzed the phonetic structure of the word and disintegrated it into its most basic phonemes; the phonetic units are numerically coded and are processed according to the stored data and the phonologic / linguistic rules according to which a word is derived from its germ-cell in another language (i.e. inter-lingual rules among near / middle eastern languages). Now, the word’s phonetic structure cannot only be traced to its original combination but also its genetic potential for giving rise to new words in other near / middle eastern can be explored (i.e. possible derivatives that the word may breed if it enters in another related / interconnect language, for example from Avestan to Pahlavi to Arabic to Farsi to Arabic and again to Farsi). The software can also chart the results according to the universal phonetic codes, that means it is 1048

useful to get the most accurate form of the original near / middle eastern word in English language; however, this doesn’t work in all cases. Now, you guess what: the correct form of the word Jeh or Jahi in English is djahi (after being phonetically mapped), the phonetic structure of the word djahi if directly comes into Farsi is reduced and simplified to the word Jay. Jay = 63 = OIL :: djahi = 77 = Jihad :: Jindeh (another form of djahi) = 104 = Napht (Arabic / Farsi word for OIL) :: Jended = 100 = NO GOD = Dust Of course, I have already discovered this transformation: see the Abysmal Nummificator (Nick, I’ll write a full post on the discoveries about the name Jay, seems the writer of these shabnamehs who has named herself Jay has a vast knowledge of ancient languages – esp. after exploring a couple of references to the name Yatu) However, the costs are rising and we are all out of pocket; the software is still full of technical holes especially in the linguistic part, we hope to attract more interested people who love to work for free but sadly there is no one interested in this complicated project :( 1049

northanger: djahi ARK OF THE COVENANT - Part II - DJAHARYA http://www.biblemysteries.com/library/djaharya.htm " I built for the a mysterious house in the land of Zahi (dj - h) like the horizon of heaven which is in the sky, (named ); ' The-House-of-Ramses-Ruler -of-Heliopolis,L.P.H., -in-PEKANAN as the property of thy name. I fashioned thy great statue resting in the midst of it (named) 'Amon-of-Ramses-Ruler-of-Heliopolis,-L.P.H. ' The Asiatics of Retenu (Rtnw) came to it, bearing their tribute before it, for it was divine." Harris Papyrus Pl. 9. Breasted: Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. 4. p. 123 #219. Tutankhamen's Restoration Stele http://www.touregypt.net/restorationstele.htm If [the army was] sent to Djahi [2] to extend the frontiers of Egypt, no success of theirs came at all. [2] Djahi: region in Canaan, possibly in the Judean hills. The Report of Wenemdiamun http://www.courses.psu.edu/cams/cams400w_aek11/wenem.html His Majesty, having received the command of the god, equipped his soldiers with weapons and sent them forth to strengthen the boundaries of the two lands. He took all the picked men of Egypt, he established them in the garrisons of the land of Djahi, and he placed warships manned with the bravest crews upon the river mouths. Because I was an effective scribe, my reputation reached His Majesty, and he commanded me to go forth to oversee the troops who were taking the prisoners of the northern lands. He sent me to the frontiers of Djahi, and I happily went to do service for the Good God. I arrived in Djahi after a journey of many days, and settled in a camp by the river mouths. I brought with me a company of picked soldiers, and the men prepared to defend the borders of Egypt. AQ 221 = BLOGOSPHERE = WENEMDIAMUN The Military Man in Ancient Egypt http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/soldier.htm 1050

The Evolution of Warfare http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/war.htm Traveling along with the army were scribes, who appeared to have low regard for the professional soldier. Their writings characterized the profession in very unflattering terms as they warned their students not to consider a career in the army. The Instructions of Scribe Wenemdiamun speaks of the "woes of the soldier", u/c: everyone, I need some help...I tried to run the glossolalary through the complearn (onto-rhizome-building) software but it crashed it - too much data. it seems that the most you can have is around 150-200 'objects'. So could those with gematrial knowledge tell me which 'currents' would be best investigated (bearing in mind that choosing any single 1-digit number will give up to 200 entries, it's better to choose a few 2- or 3-digit numbers that intersect interestingly). northanger: uc, i think these are the high hyperstition pingers: 63, 86, 93, 111, 418, 777. Reza Negarestani: uc, i think these are the high hyperstition pingers: 63, 86, 93, 111, 418, 777. + 89, 92, 96, (and 100?) Northanger, You know what jay/jahi/jahica/jeh/jendeh/djahi means; don't you? you can trace the cult of djahi (Kakhuzhit/Kakhurit) back to the Z.crowd. u/c: [apologies for mad professor mode] Set (63,86,93,111,418,777, 89, 92, 100) gives 80 AQ results, we can probably add a few more... northanger: 31, 77 110, 160, 168, 173, 178, 189, 190, 194, 196, 197, 198, 210, 220, 222, 226, 231, 240, 241, 333, 444, 555, 666 u/c: LOL! The set mentioned above is running now, I'll see whether the resulting "non-rooted tree" looks interesting then run the rest. Nick Land: I'd add 69, 83 and 84 for starters, but guess i've missed the train ... 1051

u/c: bear in mind all this excitement may be for nothing. I'll have the first result today (after processing for 2 days) and it might just be a total mess... Tachi: why doesn't anyone want to face the fact that MONOTHEISM and NMA SORECERY have something rather significant in common? northanger: some words not in the nummy yet....AQ 221 = NMA SORCERY = MONOTHEISM = BLOGOSPHERE = DISMANTLING = ALL-TOUCHING = EXPIRATION = MASS MURDER = SIXTY-SIX = A LITTLE BOOK = COSMIC ORDER = KING OF KINGS = NIGRI SOLIS = PROSERPINA = REND THE VEIL = THE SERAPHIM Nick Land: 221 = 13 x 17 (:(:))((::)) Don't get it - except notion of a composite numeration for monotheism is quite amusing. At least it DRs to 5 (number of CONJURATION and DELUSIONISM (both troubling for the damned no. 14s clogging this site and WASTING TIME (or is it TEMPLEXITY?))). As to NMA SORCERY - cook up! (No such thing.) Try and get a Tak Nma Shaman and a Mu Nma Nago in the same tent, let alone on the same sorcerous page. Try (Mu) DREAM SORCERY = 252 = ::(:)(:)(::), or Lemurian TIME SORCERY = OUTSIDENESS PS. and at least 239 is a prime number (::(:(:))) SO THERE northanger: nick - lol, you mean the egg salad sandwhich part or the four-eighteen? i'm in process flattening meaning: monotheism, atheism, agnosticism, gnosticism, etc., - establishing DR-type framework to evaluate endtime strategies. just decode words & get to root meaning. sorta like what reza's working on. DR language frame inquires: what is a "mono" endtime strategy? gotta strip off encrusted meaning. mono strategies are not necessarily, in this structure, defined by one-god-only markup--even though that may be a requirement. *monatomic* related 1052

to ORMEs + piet's quote: " the inside MUST be in phase ( and ultimately FRACTAL ) to what is OUTSIDE" is certainly a mono characteristic = phase must be ONE. ie, monohttp://www.bartleby.com/61/3/M0390300.html 1. One; single; alone: monomorphic. 2. Containing a single atom, radical, or group: monobasic. 3. Monomolecular; monatomic: monolayer. ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin, from Greek, from monos, single, alone. See men-4 in Appendix I. men-4 http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE323.html DEFINITION: Small, isolated. 1. manometer, from Greek manos, rare, sparse. 2. Suffixed o-grade form *mon-wo-. monad, monastery, monk, mono-; pseudomonad, from Greek monos, alone, single, sole. 3. Possibly also suffixed form *men-i-, a small fish. minnow, from Middle English meneu, a small fish, from a source akin to Old English myne, mynwe, minnow. I. The Monad - The Aces (plus four monad types: inspiration, idea, longing, ambitioin) http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/m1.html Active Monad: The first principle is the Monad or Unit. It is the self-generating principle, the self-generated generator of everything else. Passive Monad: The Monad contains everything potentially, Protean. It is prima materia (first matter), an undifferentiated unity, an unstructured wholeness, the seed of all. The Monad corresponds to the first stage of many cosmologies, the Primeval Waters, the Confused Mass (Massa confusa), Chaos, Tiamat, etc. The Sun. Both odd and even, male and female, matter and form. William Buehler - http://www.zayra.de/soulcom/buehler/ Antarion Conversion in Lindisfarne Image http://www.zayra.de/soulcom/buehler/graphics.html 1053

ElDorado & The Re-Penting of America: Pictorial Map to America's Geomantic Global Role http://www.zayra.de/soulcom/eldorado/ Liberty Bell Rings Again, as Genes Sing of the Grail.. The Archeo-Geometry of America's Spiritual Destiny http://www.soulinvitation.com/america/ so here you have dan winter, vincent bridges, william buehler - what are their endtime (using term loosely) strategies? how do they converge / diverge with other "mono" (or whatever) ideas? u/c: re proposed onto-rootless-tree : firstly, after 48 hours, it crashed - so I tried running nick's selection (69,83,84). Unfortunately the software has no way of dealing with identical nodes, so it just strings them out in an deceptive and unattractive way...so in conclusion...still looking for an interesting way to visualise this mulch. Sagittare: Check out wordcount.org (also QueryCount). u/c - (Times like this you wish there was an Undo button.) Wordcount.org was meant for you - might be a way to "visualize this mulch". u/c: hey this is really cool (especially: http://www.number27.org/projects/wordcount/conspiracy.html for the conspiracy-theorists among us). The trouble with the nummificator mulched data is in presenting it in such a way as it's not simply a diagram of digital reduction vectors, with words stuck onto them. This is just a simple frequency index so I'm not sure it helps, but it is pretty fascinating.... Reza Negarestani: Sagittare, This is superb ... thank you! Hyperstitional Method II. 1054

Nick Land (February 19, 2005) Are we agreed? In a typically stimulating (Feb 17) post at K-Punk, MKP explicitly dedicated ‘Cold Rationalism’ to ‘dogmatism.’ The principle argument for this seems to be that sceptical tolerance supports theopolitical forces (of the ‘Satanic-worldly’) that Cold Rationalism – aligned with the true interests of the UK (and perhaps even international) proletariat - foundationally opposes. Leaving aside potential queries concerning the K-Punk text itself, this problematic raises suggestive issues for Hyperstition, some touched upon by the following questions: 1) Is there any conceivable ‘carrier-position’ (avatar-borne method, idea, commitment, or ideology) that hyperstition should refuse to entertain in principle? 2) What would compose a full set of basic hyperstitional postulates, or is the demand for such basic postulates misconceived in a hyperstitional milieu? 3) Assuming the relegation of controversial commitments to an expanding periphery of carrier-positions, does hyperstition have a residual politics/polytics that would rigorously follow from (2) above? Finally (and perhaps only of specialist interest): 4) Does Cold Rationalism conceive itself to be hyperstitional, antihyperstitional, or ‘axiomatically independent’ of hyperstition? Rather than presume responses to these questions, I’d prefer to pursue them in the comments thread. But, in the hope of productive provocation, my initial and highly provisional tendencies on #1-3. #1. Ultra-liberalism would be theoretically most consistent if socially/humanly sustainable. To take extreme examples, if someone fabricated a neonazi carrier to explore occultural trends in the politics of the IIIrd Reich, wouldn’t this be an asset to the overall field of hyperstitional research? A pedophile black magician ritualistically proceeding in strict conformity with a determinable numbo-jumbo would be equally legitimate – as a carrier – in principle (ah, but what principles?). Interesting objections immediately present themselves of course … 1055

#2 Elementary arithmetic combined with a hypergrammatical competence for the subjunctive mood (‘if there were a Ms W who though X, she would probably assume Y and be drawn to Z’) constitutes an entire ‘elements’ of abstract hyperstition. Particular hyperstitional strains – to be defined as megacarriers – have more demanding presuppositions, e.g. for Lemurian Hyperstition, Oecumenic propagation of decimalism is a basic presupposition. #3 At most a polytics – but this term remains highly contentious. Comments: Hyperstitional Method II northanger: nick - imho, "purple monkey dishwasher" illustrates the power of agitprop. why is INTENT an important hyperstitional consideration? because hyperstition has, among other things, transformational power. certainly recent events in the US show the depressing reality of how extremely easy it is to make fictions real. what do they say? reality is created by agreement. imnvho, everyone has an agenda, which prove more powerful in groups & nations. when two or more are gathered together consensus, agreement, alignment & whatnot must be achieved first before initiating action. that's how change groups work, right? who gets to establish core objectives, policies, procedures? politico-religio-ideological leaders ... and power still corrupts. however. hyperstition seems grounded in the philosophical & the ontological and appears to propose subtle & unique differences to the power of transformation. is transformation the fundamental hyperstitional concern? of course it is. anyone interested in making fictions real is involved in transformation. this is alchemy. changing water into wine ... atomic fission. splitting-the-atom. cell mitosis. the other day i was reading a book review for "Impostures Intellectuelles" by Alain Sokal and Jean Bricmont ... an "exercise in intellectual and moral hygiene". apparently, philosophers aren't doing a good job explaining scientific concepts. which made me consider: what is philosopher? i realized it is the job of scientists and mathematicians to explain their concepts, not philosophers. if i were a philosopher and wrote a book i would want the reader to "experience" my thinking & being. i would clearly explain those concepts i am redefining. however, if i really wanted to throw you someplace i'd mention a word, an idea, a concept in passing. because i know, as philosopher, that eventually i'd catch you in a net of meaning. 1056

studying philosophy these past few weeks has made me realize the importance of the philosophical conversation throughout history. it has established ideology. i imagine the current state of philosophy involves [1] can we still get it up, and [2] like Oppenheimer, philosophy has its Nagasakis & Hiroshimas - should we get it up? so before i get wound up by someone's excite-up i'd like to know why the fuck we're saying: purple monkey dishwasher. Nick Land: northanger "imagine 3 instead of 1 railcircuitset sharing/bundling half of each trajectory (the bellows going down empty together)" "i'd like to know why the fuck we're saying: purple monkey dishwasher" - just woke up and already have a splitting head-ache - think i need to get back to you on these points ... northanger: nick - of course you have a headache sweetie, you poured your little brains out ... poor you! excellent post, btw. Mesh-23. Oddubb (Odba). Broken Mirror. Pitch Null Net-Span 7::2 Syzygetic Chronodemon of Swamp-Labyrinths (and blind-doubles). Feeds Hold-Current. Rt0:[X]. Time loops, glamour and glosses. http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004042.html Mur Mur, meanwhile, carries echoes of the legends of Sea Beasts and ancient serpents; its time is the Deep Time of the ocean bed. Like Katak, it too, is horrified by what will follow it in the cycle; in this case, Oddubb (2/7), the amphibious entity, associated with the crossing out of water and the acquisition of lungs. What Mur Mur fears is the division that Oddubb brings, the splitting of the undivided waters. Oddubb is defined by ambiguous and elusive movement. As its name suggests, it is a ‘doubleagency’, a duplicitous creature. It has a horror of dryness, of the state of being fully landlocked that comes with Katak. Which brings us full circle." Oddubb - 'duplicity', 'doubling', cf also the incantations of Macbeth's witches - it is hard to imagine that Shakespeare wasn't remembering an invocation of Oddubb when he wrote the words of the Weird Sisters' spells. http://www.orphandrift.com/technics.html 1057

TIME RELATION: time rider. passes on time. BLOOD ASPECT: circulation- currents, dangerous communication MAGNETIC FIELDS: telepathic strange attractor labyrinths. Tachi - Thought I would bring this over ... Nick - "Ideally 'pontification' (mea culpa x n) would be relegated to a carrier function, where it could be pursued far more vigorously and constructively. Think part of the concrete method issue is sheer anthropology - Steven Pinker (in his IMHO brilliant 'The Blank Slate') suggests moral pontification is a natural human propensity, along with the associated tendencies to partisan organization (psychological test subjects divided into groups by coin-tossing quickly began to develop strong partisan loyalty to their 'tribe,' attributing all kinds of superior moral virues to it (over against 'the abominable tails' - i extrapolate)). Point is, we can either tolerate a degree of this human nonsense or try to stamp it out. Seems to me, best policy is tolerance without letting it get in the way of more important work. Another (sort of related) question is whether a productive hyperstitional analysis of 'capitalism' can be launched here, locking onto topics with high Hyp. affinity, e.g. money, social science fiction, cyberspace, transhumanism, artificialization, pulp markets, telecommunism (or whatever other genuinely mutant strains of marxism) ... there are a huge number, but partisan cat-fighting and blind heel-digging tends to obstruct their rigorous elaboration - i'm agnostic about the prospects here, but some good carriers would probably help a lot ('good' in this context designating optimum blend of rigour, extremism, contagion and comic absurdity)" [Posted by: nick at February 19, 2005 08:39 AM ] Nick, your comment about relegating moral pontification to the carrier level is interesting and I think we could unfold this a bit more, since to me this is more important than has been given space as yet. Some obvious but crucial questions: 1. What does fabricating a carrier involve and what are the typical steps in the production and development of a carrier? 2. Can one person (me for example) instigate the production and development of a carrier? If so then how would I go about it? 1058

3. To what extent can the carrier be a properly fictional character, and the issues the carrier touches upon be fictional? Is what the carrier discovers, explores, postulates, etc still rooted in reality or free to be constituted of 'lies' (fictions acting as truths), since although theoretically hyperstionists may intend to generate what you may call 'untruths', the fact remains that readers will still be caught thinking ... 4. What does it practically involve for moral questions, arguments (for instance about WoT, politics etc) to be relegated to the carrier level? 5. [That Pinker suggests] "moral pontification is a natural human propensity, along with the associated tendencies to partisan organization" - fascinating comment - does this imply that moralising action is connected, through human evolution, with socialization into factions, parties? If this is the case then alliegances are an important issue for hyperstition. Far from just being a question of personal loyalty, alliegances are embedded in a special (species-related) and social context. Since hyperstition aims to create social agencies beyond the individual and beyond personal morality, it has to confront the issue of alliegance since the special-social embeddedness of alliegance appears necessarily connected with morality, albeit of a partisan quality. So although personal morality and ego-centered thinking may be what hypersition attempts to bypass or utlise (we don't say transcend), morality and alliegance seems to be human traits hyperstition (construction of social agencies) cannot avoid since they are conceived as social and ultimately not individualistic. Not sure how this relates to the relegation of morality to the carrier level, but interested in your feedback. Nick Land: Tachi - highly productive q.s as always. I'll definitely try to put together another Hyp. carriers post to address these crucial issues. Provisionally: #1. Carrier construction massively 'undertheoirized' up to now - a running discussion on this would be excellent. #2. Can you (for instance) float a carrier here? That would be a major step forward, as would anything that facilitated the conveyance of hyp. discussion through such artificial agencies, dismantling the automatic dogmatism of pseudotranscenedence, 1059

naturalizing the hypothetical stance and subjunctive mood (along with many other things, e.g. microsocial personality fragmentation). #3. All these aspects of carriers only minimally explored. Perhaps a typology of carriers, emphasizing distinct functions, might ultimately be necessary. #4. I assume carriers help to attain a state of moral irresponsibility consistent with unimpeded experimental research, but hugely open to thorough discussion on this. #5. Think you're spot on with this - Pinker points to well known tenedency of human groups at all stages of 'social development' to withdraw the category of 'humanity' from their enemies. Agree fully that allegiences crucial to hyperstition, but the important thing at this stage IMHO is to prevent internal factionalizing of hypersitional enterprise in a way that would inhibit its activities. That's why playing out cross-allegiences in a carrier puppet theatre would allow the problematic to be explored without excessive metalevel catfighting tearing everything apart (prematurely?) northanger - updating P. Matrix task under urgent discussion. Won't be long ... Still slightly hazy about the purple monkey dishwasher, but if it's remotely possible to work it out needn't feel obligated to give the game away just yet. PS. Is it true you've written a guide to decoding piet? maybe that should become a side-bar resourse too. northanger: nick - "Still slightly hazy about the purple monkey dishwasher, but if it's remotely possible to work it out needn't feel obligated to give the game away just yet." - your haze is my haze. i like what werner erhard said: when someone gets it over here, someone gets it over there. (or something like that). when you decloak the haze, i'm sure i will dehaze. "guide to decoding piet" - yes, still working on it. pandemonium should set things aright. piet: Just to show you what a sewer the net really is (don't you agree? – the person who’se 168 page thesis I link to below the quotes can: We began our archaeology in the waste stream, 1060

concentrating on the darkest, most hidden aspects of our culture. Like Bataille, we were looking at our excess, our waste, in an effort to learn more about who we really are.), here are some bittits, undigestible, nondigesting (in my deeper sense of the word, turning ‘concrete singularity’ into soft organicalbe multivalence), just scavingin and taking the easy way out. Or I could say that this work shows the limits of an utterly feminine approach in this work? Soft and sensitive translating to passive and superficial, hysterically optimistic through remote (woulda coul dash ouddunit be nice) stance/view. Media Courage impossible pedagogy in an artificial community by Fred Issek Columbine gunminimen anybody?? I know this is going over tired old ground without a trace of fresh ground or even grinding intentions but .. . . she puts it so that the common man can make sense of these (Ren Hoek voice): I D I O T S ! !! ! ! ! While his intention is to deconstruct the horizon of philosophy, it is not Nancy’s intention to propose an “other politics.” Rather, the necessity of the “plural singular of origin comes into play.” There is no new politics or community, for it has been philosophy in its mistaken singularity that has linked itself to a “community of essence.” This process of community building, according to Nancy, requires sacrifice. “If one looks carefully, one can find the place of sacrifice in all political philosophy (or rather, one will find the challenge of the abstract, which makes a sacrifice of concrete singularity). But as singular origin, existence is unsacrificable” (Being Singular Plural 25). Just like Georges Bataille with his community of absence, Nancy is pointing out that all community building implies an essence that leaves as a remainder all that which is unassimilated. This logocentric essence is the “One.” “The One as purely one is less than one; it cannot be, be put in place, or counted. One as properly one is always more than one. It is an excess of unity; it is one-with-one, where its Being in itself is copresent” (40). Nancy blames philosophy’s preoccupation with essence and community building for much of humankind’s expectation of togetherness. ... Nancy points out that it was Georges Bataille who first noticed this and called it the “inner experience” which is tied up with a sense of the community as, “neither a work to be produced, nor a lost communion, but rather as space itself, and the spacing of 1061

the experience of the outside, of the outside-ofself.” The space around the self is the self’s proximity to others, in this case, the proximity of community in death. The community of absence is a community built around a longing for something that is not there. As Benammar writes of Nancy and his longing for community, “The community is not a political community, such as the one proposed by communism, which espoused not only common goals but also common and equal rewards. The community is not part of our history. There is no mythical past in which we had a community, community is not a lost garden of Eden: the community is yet to come, the community still lies in our future” (Benammar). Like Bataille, Nancy sees community as absence, acquiring an identity only around that which is missing. In our longing and in our mortal isolation, we are community, seeing in the other the conditions of our own birth and death. Bataille, along with Nancy and others, realized community’s impossibility. Bataille’s contribution to this understanding was to seek the community without a head. As Nancy pointed out, there is no “community of essence,” for such an essence would imply a sacrifice of something. Concrete singularity is usually sacrificed in the name of an abstraction that supposedly pulls community together; or the Other is sacrificed in the name of the One, excluded because it does not fit in. In the case of the Acephale sacrifice, the head is offered up, so that headless, the group is unified without a principle, without a logos, or the imposition of any abstraction or essence on their primal sense of community. In this way, the individual partakes in community, without having his or her freedom negated. In “Bataille’s Columbine: The Sacred Space of Hate,” Andrew Wernick likens the sacrifice of Klebold and Harris to the sacrificial gesture of Bataille’s Acephale – or headless - Society. Wernick is not suggesting that the two teenaged boys Ps: I wound up on this depressing page while going through 19 goooooooooooooogles worth of Laurence Rickels pages (sadly, my fave, ‘musicphantoms’ didn’t show up, neither the colourful nor the printerfriendly version), most of what I found contain mere mentions of his involvements): Conflict resolution is a trick. “The ability to win an argument is the ability to create a complex form in which people can't see that it's a suppressed premise that is the thing that allows you to persuade them; or they can't find out what your suppressed premise is, and are thus unable to respond adequately to what you're saying” (Ulmer answering Rickels). 1062

So, is that the most poetpietistic euphemism for the supremacy of trace ecology in the hellholewide warld or what????? that last remark refers to 'suppressed premise' I made a gender mistake referring to author with 'she' unless fred is short for frederika submersible promise Heh. Rickels: For those curious about Rickels who has been mentioned but, RUDELY, not quoted, go here: http://www.xenarts.com/art_org/raw/psyfi/rickels.html -PUSH name WITH CLOUSEMICKER and find perfectly passive run on but accurate commentary, slightly runny too perhaps but if you ain't sordided out how will you starts looking for where it all started to go o so horridly wrong. Nick Land: p the limpet sure knows how to hang onto a topic ... Tachi: Piet - hortfedormer! - maybe you just ain't getting it. You need your own fucking blog. Does it have to spelt out in black and white? Not meaning to be cruel, but think you have way too much time on your hands. Your wordproduction/feedback ratio must be telling you something. Fuck deconstruction; and Nancy don't belong 'ere. northanger: piet's already got a blog. piet: Nancy too dogmatic for ya? He blogns here then he needs two ... or three for all this overspill northanger: ah, been lax on my decodepoet project (sorry piety!). piet was the only one directly answering my question: we archeo this = sewer / waste / darkest, most hidden aspects of our culture (cthulhu fhtagn) + learn more about who we really are. undigestible, nondigesting bits, bytes ...((how do you turn pandemonium matrix number-system {poof!} everything conditions everything, a viral algorithm?))... never seek to control a strategy ... look for a way to unleash it. stationary flight a flight of intensity -- (((shabnameh))) THE enthymemic algorithm, the link to total dissimulation. i know i know, my translation is still kinda raw. fast becoming thangeroid version of badiou. 1063

piet: no rthanky: "never seek to control a strategy ... look for a way to unleash it." --hey not xaktlee but close - it's like those cartoon cross-continental races, standards and industrial products are out, all handmade artisan custom parts and put together in every constellation possible, no holds barred . .. . .takes 'it' (strategy) away from (obsessing over self) dangerous(ly emphasizable, inflatable) 'it' (relative of 'the') and brings 'them' up instead, that is to say, an unregulated, no I should say not centrally, remotely manipulable registration (greenthumb rule: the more remote, the more passive ((steady sealevellike)) the pool) biodiversity mimicking wildgrowth of strategy (multiculturalism is to some extent an anthromorphisized acting/playing out of the benefits organic derives from very rich mineral mixtures those that ranged widely ((ice age or continental heaters (((the ones straigth from the purifying tectonic fires of getwellhell))) amount to the same thing when it comes to dusts)), a very sad and well turmoily surrogate) united in their goal, the prize, get's us back to your 'it' again, unleashing a prudent modderrated amount of mudder we approach 'it' , as long as the goal is to cover (old tired) ground with (freshly) ground it just don't matter how you apply it, 5 years down the road, when the effects start to really kick in, the footprint and even the huge tiretrack are forgiven and thanked profusely, . .. .. .. is that a flour bouquet ghosted in my very being outed and exposed or what? Now I could use some help bring it to justice. northanger: piet - "no rthanky" - stop. you're having way too much thangeroid fun. FIRST MASHUP: "it's like those cartoon cross-continental races, standards and industrial products are out, all handmade artisan custom parts and put together in every constellation possible, no holds barred" - "takes strategy away from (obsessing over self) dangerous(ly emphasizable, inflatable)" - "strategy (relative of 'the') and brings 'them' up instead, that is to say, an unregulated, no I should say not centrally, remotely manipulable registration - biodiversity mimicking wildgrowth of strategy united in their goal, the prize, get's us back to your 'it' again, unleashing a prudent modderrated amount of mudder we approach 'it' , as long as the goal is to cover (old tired) ground with (freshly) ground it just don't matter how you apply it, 5 years down the road, when the effects start to really kick in, the footprint and even the huge tiretrack are forgiven and thanked profusely" IT1 (north) = UNLEASH "IT" IT2 (piet) = STRATEGY THE = ??? 1064

THEM = ??? RUNNING THRU PIET-MOLARIZER: native multiple-constellation strategies [NMCS] ... [which removes STRATEGY away from dangerous IT1 bringing THEM up instead to] REMOTELY MANIPULABLE REGISTRATION [=INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS] (AQ 295 = GREENTHUMB RULE = 1998 DODGE VIPER GTS = ALPHANUMBER TABLE = CAUSELESS HATRED = DE SUA FEMINA OLUN = DR. MICHAEL A. AQUINO = SEXUAL MATTERS = REALM OF THE GIVEN = TEARS STREAMING = DARKNESS IS AWAKE = HODOS CHAMELONIS = THE EMERALD TABLET = TWENTY POSTS = CORPUS CHRISTI) -- [NMCS] united goal & prize get's us back to IT1 again, unleashing a prudent modderrated amount of [AQ 119 = MUDDER = ANTI-CR = CROSS = PHOTO = POINT = SWARM = TAKFIR = WHO IS = JESUS = TAROT = AFGHANS = BECAUSE = BEYOND = BREAST = CARELESS = IXIDOD = NUMKO = OPIUM = PROUD = 2ND PATH = BATAIVA = ERETZ = HORNS = PRINCE = RULER = SOLIS = LAHGASH = MEDIUM = TEMPT = OLD ONE] we approach IT1. AQ 71 = GOAL = BASE 26 = CUT = NASA = SET = UTC = VAU = VEGA = DISC = BOND = BETH = RAY = MAAT = AEON as long as [GON1 66 = THE GOAL IS TO COVER (OLD TIRED) GROUND WITH (FRESHLY) GROUND = {AL(15) + BABALON(51)}] it just don't matter how you apply it, 5 years down the road, when the effects start to really kick in, [AQ 274 = THE FOOTPRINT = FANGED NOUMENON] and even [AQ 323 = THE HUGE TIRETRACK = TEMPORAL PROGRAM] are forgiven and thanked profusely, . .. .. .. GON2 69 = FANGED NOUMENON TEMPORAL PROGRAM = PRECYBERNETIC NOSTALGIA "is that a [GON2 27 = DIGITAL HYPERSTITION] outed and exposed or what? Now I could use some help [GON2 23 = BRING IT TO JUSTICE = {why do you think i take the bother of decoding you? ++ btw, this was a huge numerological GON2 PING}]." piet: sorry to have supplied broken headbreakers that is to say, an unregulated, no I should say not centrally, remotely manipulable registration - should be 1065

that is to say, STRATEGIZING HAPPENS IN an unregulated, no I should say not centrally, THUS remotely manipulable registratEGIZING MODE, but rather in a .. .. biodiversity etcetera. .. .. there will probably be more of these sorts of inversions, they happen to me frequently foliation strategy, unfolding strata, churned into the powder to swell, the 'bloem'(dutch for dust ..eh . ..I mean flower, also used for grainmeals), does that make scents or douleur? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_flour John D Hamaker was a man who studied the role trace mineral spectra distribution plays in health. He advocated conversion of all hardware in mimickers of this natural process (exposing a fresh supply to biospherical absorption / transformation) in order to take over and thus stave of one of the most clockworklike reasons climate changes (ice ages) happen regularly: trace depletion. Another person noting lack and/or superabundance (toxicity) levels of traces (but instead of a focus on climate and ice age cycles he zeros in on BSE - mad cow disease) is Mark Purdey. more (crashcrush and) carry the carryer resources: I'm debating which links for John D I should stick up at wiki these: TERRA: Living Soil ... Over thirty years ago, John Hamaker (1914-1994), engineer, farmer, ecologist and true polymath, did what is undoubtedly some of the most significant original ... www.championtrees.org/topsoil/feedsoil.htm - 16k - In cache - Gelijkwaardige pagina's Stone Age Agriculture ... SHELLEY FIRST HEARD OF JOHN HAMAKER FIVE YEARS AGO at a Natural Organic Farmers conference when Joanna Campe, publisher of Remineralize the Earth journal ... 1066

www.championtrees.org/topsoil/stoneage.htm - 20k - In cache - Gelijkwaardige pagina's [ Meer resultaten van www.championtrees.org ] or these: SEER Centre - Research ... The publication of John Hamaker's book, The Survival of Civilization, alerted the community to the continuing depletion of inorganic trace minerals that are ... www.seercentre.org.uk/original/ research-soil-remineralisation.html - 41k http://www.gardening-guy.com/stories/storyReader$151 www.remineralize.org/don/ - 2k ps to strikestress: had a vivid dream too . ..a huuuuuuge adventure at the end of which a lady died through my fault (letting go of her hand she fell but did not shatter until she had completed a series of those hi-lee diff trampoline/dive contortwists (killing time or keeping warm on the way down?) Nah, won't bother on second thought, I'll end up formulating too inaccesibly and someone will throw it all out again, as happened to my november efforts there, recorded here: members.lycos.nl/vadercats/nov04too.htm northanger: piet - "ps to strikestress: had a vivid dream too . ..a huuuuuuge adventure at the end of which a lady died through my fault (letting go of her hand she fell but did not shatter until she had completed a series of those hi-lee diff trampoline/dive contortwists (killing time or keeping warm on the way down?)" lol. 1067

Monkeys and Organ Grinders: Caro's Hell mark k-p (February 21, 2005) 'Hell is a city much like London' - Shelley 'Flesh is easy to shape.' - 'Clay Man', Swans 1068

Step into Tate Britain at the moment and you find yourself in Anthony Caro's Hell. The Last Judgement is part of the sculptor's final, and surely most accomplished, phase of production. Caro's early work was figurative - but figurative in the way that Bacon's or Jack Kirby's was, textbook Deleuzian in its rendering of animal forms as lines of force and energy. In contrast with the smooth surfaces favoured by Henry Moore (with whom Caro had worked as an assistant), Caro's pieces were rough-hewn, asymmetrical; empirically distorted but faithful to the Real of the intensive bodies whose torsion they arrested in plaster and bronze. Like Bacon's crouches (examples of which can be seen in the room devoted to Bacon, adjacent to where the Last Judgement is displayed), these pieces break through the screen of phenomenal difference to access the energy formations that find expression across animal and geological strata. They are diagrams, not organic representations: freezes without frames, since Caro eschewed plinths and and pedestals and placed his sculptures on the same level as that of their viewer, already anticipating the confusion of sculpture and architecture that late works like the Millbank Steps (produced specificially for the Tate) will explore. Under the influence of Clement Greenberg, Caro abandoned figuration completely in the second and most celebrated phase of his career, arranging and garishly painting found objects such as girders. Although this is the work which made Caro's reputation, it now looks unengagingly canonic. These austere clean lines are the very stuff of which the postmodern is made: literally. You are reminded of the literal vacuity of the postmodern domestic and corporate spaces, which recoil in horror from the unruly zigzagging lines of the Gothic. Despite the success of this work (or perhaps because of it), Caro was dissatisfied enough with it to move on, and his last phase of production - of which The Last Judgement is a stunning part - marks another turn, or rather a return: to Gothic abstract figuration. The Last Judgement is an astonishingly welcome reminder that contemporary art can approach all the classical themes addressed by Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Eliot, Bacon (all of whom it references) - without coming off worse. It has all the ambition and vastness which postmodern British art, with its demythologizing impulse towards tracing the empirical, its cult of vanitas (enslaved to two masters, celebrity and mortality) prides itself on having supposedly superceded. 1069

This is the way, step inside You don't contemplate The Last Judgement transcendently, you walk through it, which immanence gives a certain irony to the piece's title. Caro's message screams mutely out of every mouth gashed in plaster and iron: hell is not at the end of the road, not even round the corner, it is here, now. It will not be the judgement of a personal God that condemns you to infernal torment: your own animal vicissitudes put you there, now. Abstraction and myth have always been strongly correlated. Abstract engineers don't 'create' any more than they trace (represent) - they discover and follow lines, cutting through the mire/ maya of what is presented to us so as to get to the stratificatory apparatuses and parasitic machines which produce the grim empirical charade we are invited to accomodate ourselves to in the name of 'realism'. Each of the tableaux - crudely and fittingly boxed into caskets - capture an abstract mode and/ or intensive trap, sometimes identified as vice (sacrifice, greed and envy), at other times given names from epic drama or the Bible (Salome's Dance, The Furies, Charon) , or else simply given locational descriptions (Tribunal, Posion Chamber). Time and again, wandering through the abstract atrocity exhibition, I am reminded of Mary Shelley's phrase 'workshop of filthy creation'. Caro's anguished abstractions, rust coloured and malformed out of clay and iron, cry out the Gnostic wisdom that we are ourselves the offcut slurry of a demented demiurge whose workshop of fithy creation this is. Caro's waste land assemblages are Geurnica and Ernst's industrial jungles brought to still life: modernism redux. And, as Kurtz's bookshelf in Coppola's film makes clear, the real theme of modernism's revisited primitivism is always ---- apocalypse now. If you approach from the front of the gallery, you enter through the ominous stockade-section of the bell tower (if the intended allusion here is Hemigway, I couldn't but be reminded, too, of the fated final scenes of Hitchcock's Vertigo). You are then faced with the door of Death, whose position here again suggests a Gnostic insight: identification with the organs is life is death. But the casket whose grimly stolid contents ingrained itself most powerfully into my nervous system was 'Shades of Night'. Here hunched plaster sack-shaped figures with rudimentary Giacometti/ Tanguy heads and fixed halloween mask features stare inscrutably like Hellraiser scarcrows scarred out of geological residue. As ever, the real 1070

Gothic dread does not lie in the thought that these inanimate monstrosities might be alive (although Caro has the art of doing just enough to suggest that whatever quasianthropomorphic forms we fancy we see might only be accidental features of found objects) but quite the reverse. You see yourself diagrammed in these unhappy images of torturers tortured: I too am nothing but animated matter, the silent screaming product of a process without final purpose or deliberated intent. TX2. Nick Land (February 22, 2005) Tic Talk The (Barkerian) Tic Xenotation provides a numerical semiotic adapted to the Naturals with special affinity to Euclid's Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. The TX constructs numbers in terms of their basic arithmetical features as primes or composites in a notation without modulus (base), place-value or numerals. The exact circumstances among which D.C.Barker formulated the TX remain deeply obscure (for a number of reasons best explored elsewhere). For our immediate purposes it suffices to remark that the broad research context within which TX emerged was a highly abstract SETI-oriented investigation into minimally-coded intelligent signal, without presupposition as to origin (e.g. 'xenobiological organisms') or theme (e.g. 'cosmo-chemistry'). The investigation, situated in the jungles of Borneo, was entitled 'Project Scar' and received a high-level security classification. In keeping with this research topic, Barker proposed TX as a maximally abstracted or ultimately decoded numerical semiotic, stripped of all nonconstructive (or symbolic) conventions (and initially named 'Goedelian hypercode'.) While the raw numeracy of TX is most accurately conceived as sub-qabbalistic, due to its indifference to modulus notation (the primary motor of qabbalistic occulturation), its very independence from convention makes it a valuable tool when investigating the basic features of numerical (arithmetical or qabbalistic) codes. Among the notation-related features most prominently exposed to rigorous scrutiny by TX is ordinality. 1071

AOsys Within the Anglobal Oecumenon, the most pragmatically prevalent ordinal functions are alphabetical, utilizing the ordering convention of the Neoroman letters to arrange, sort, search and archive on the basis of Alphabetical or Alphanumerical Order, organizing dictionaries, encyclopaedias, lists and indexes 'lexicogrpahically.' The word 'alphabet' itself performs a (Greek) ordinal operation. 'Lexicography' - dictionary-type order - is used here (as in various fields, such as compilations of number series) to designate a mode of ordering (an ordinal-numeric function) rather than a definite topic ('words'). Although a relatively neglected numerical operation, lexicographic ordering plays a crucial role in concrete (popularOecumenic) ordinal practices. It is characterized by: 1) Popularity. Facility at lexicographic sequencing is considered a basic social competence, inherent - or even prior - to literacy, whilst pedagogically separate from the acquisition of numerical ('maths') skills. At the pedagogical level, Oecumenic societies tend to distribute ordinal/cardinal competences in accordance with the distinction between literacy/numeracy, thus establishing the basic division between linguistic/mathematical abilities from a primal nomofission (ordinal/cardinal differentiation). Literate citizens of the Oecumenon - those able to use a dictionary are ordinally competent, through lexicographic conventions. 2) Pure ordinalism. Restricted entirely to sequencing problems, cardinal values remain entirely alien to lexicographic practices, to such an extent that rigorous ordinalnumeric operations are typically divorced entirely from numerical associations.The ordinal function of numerals (1st, 2nd, 3rd ...), in contrast, remains relatively impure - at least psychologically - since in this case a persistent cardinal temptation confuses sequencing function with the spectre of quantity. For this reason the alphanumerical subsumption of the numerals into lexicographic practices can be considered 'clarifying' in respect to ordinal operations. 3) Fractionality. Simulating lexicography within arithmetic requires the employment of modular (e.g. decimal) fractional values. Arithmetical listing by cardinality will be isomorphic with ordinal-lexicographic sequencing for all numbers of the format '0.n'. 4) Sequential diplocoding. Lexicographic systems require twin ordering conventions. They draw upon an alphabetical code and an ordinal place value convention (principally, left or right ordering, equivalent to the behavioural scheme for the 1072

movement of a reading-head). The alphabet instantiates the ordering scheme, but does not (internally) describe it - 'reading' the alphabet to extract the ordinal code ('abcd...' or 'zyxw...') itself presupposes an extrinsic sequencing convention (AlphaOmega, from first to last). 5) Infinite potentiality. Any lexicographic system allowing interminable strings has a code potential (cardinally) equivalent to Aleph-0, with an infinitity of virtual Dedekind cuts (entry insertions) between any two terms, however close, and virtual isomorphy between any segment of the list/archive and the whole. It thus attests to a 'literate' infinity isomorphic with that of mathematics, drawing upon a common but culturally obscured digital source. Intercoding Arithmetic An intermediate semiotic attuned to purely demonstrative engagement with Euclid's Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (FTA) can be generated by transforming the standard Oecumenic decimal notation (*) by: 1) Employing the full Alphanumeric series 0-Z (0-35) for notational convenience, and 2) Raising all signs to their first hyprime power, from 0 = Prime-0 = 1 to Z = Prime35 = 149. The purpose of these transformations is to eliminate polydigit (place-value) numbering and expose the radical disorder implicit in the FTA. All integral numbers in the FTA intercode consist either of single figures or plexed-compounds of the form (...), with numerical clusters synthesized through multiplication rather than modularpositional construction. Consider a number picked entirely at random, *86, disassembled by factorization in accordance with the FTA down to the listed components *2 and *43, the *1st and *14th primes, hence: 1E. The expression of this number is no longer under any positional constraint, '1E' or 'E1' are equally valid on numerical grounds and strictly equivalent. Shuffling a string of intercode figures (FTA components) of whatever length makes no difference whatsoever to the number designated, with the ordering of the series being subject only to an extrinsic convention (of minimal - even vanishing - importance from a (cardinal) arithmetical perspective, where it is relevant only 'psychologically', for convenience in assimilation and comparison). 1073

Once the merely inertial and peudo-numerical order inherited from uninterrogated tradition is subtracted from FTA-intercode strings, dissociating all components from quantitative ordering, they are freed for lexicographic re-ordering as decoded series an ordering which will deviate from the series of quantities, liberating an Autonomous Ordinality whilst de-cardinalizing the number line. Consider *172, or 11E. Oecumenic-lexicographic procedures ensure this number precedes 1E (*86), as will all its successive binary multiples. Evidently, such procedures ensure that the infinite series of binary powers must be completed before arriving at 2 (*3). 'Natural' counting no longer has any prospect of reaching a nonbinary power, just as alphabetical-lexicographic 'counting' would proceed 'a, aa, aaa, aaaa ...' without ever arriving at 'b'. Reversing the problem and it is equally evident the lexicographic-ordinal line is never counted. The Kantian assimilation of arithmetic to temporality models elementary timesynthesis as n+1, +1, +1 ... an intuition rendered questionable by the rigorous lexicographic disorganization of the number (listing) line. Once ordinally purified, the number line becomes uncountable by any supposed finite (temporalizing) subject, even from moment n to moment n+1. Instead, the line is synthesized by sorting (lexicographic sequencing) of prefabricated strings, whose quantities are determined on a different axis to their linear-positional codings. A prolongation of the timearithmetic association would thus require a remodelling of time as nonprogressive synthesis without consistent scale or continuous-quantitative trend, no longer intelligible as passage or development. Such ordinal-lexicographic time maps a 'templexity' that is uncountable, fractured/fractional, erratic and heterogeneous, sequential but nonsuccesive. Of course, all of this needs re-approaching on a far more rigorous basis, with a consistent focus on the topic of templexity - suffice it to say for 'now' that Kantian intuitions of number, time and their intermapping are themselves structured by notationally-problematizable constructions, since time-mapping has a hypothetical rather than essential relation to arithmetical common sense (with its undisturbed assumption of straightforward ordinal-cardinal interconvertability). Note-1. Elevating this intermediate semiotic to a functional numeracy, with a semiotic power commensurate with the set of Naturals (including primes above Prime-Z), requires a final step: 3) Adopting Tic Xenotative plexion, where '(n)' = Prime-n. 1074

Thus 0 = 1, (0) = Prime-1 = 2, ((0)) = Prime-2 = 3, etc. The inefficiency of this semiotic relative to TX is demonstrated by its redundancy, most dramatically: V = (B) = ((5)) = (((3))) = ((((2)))) = (((((1))))) = ((((((0)))))) Note-2. TX shares the intrinsic disorder of FTA-intercode. *86 = :(:(::)) or (:(::)): or :((::):) ... Out Of Order TX/FTA-intercode numerical construction is indifferent to semiotic sequencing, position or grammar. A number expressed in either system could be distributed randomly within a space of n-dimensions, requiring only a cohesion convention (semiotic particles 'belong together' irrespective of order). Apprehended in their fully decoded potentiality as efficient number-signs, such formulae are clusters, not strings. The TX case is still more extreme than that typical of FTA-intercode, however, since here even the spectral residue of sequential coding is erased. Given two complex TXformulated numbers, correct order (quantitative comparison) requires - perhaps highly elaborate - calculation, eliminating entirely the practical usage of disordered TX clusters for ordinal operations. For anything but small numbers, Euclidean cluster-stringing conventions (by ascending cardinalities) become procedurally complex, perhaps inoperable, for TX numerical formulas. This is evident even from small numbers, such as *149, TFAintercode Z or (34), TX (((:))(::)). As the 35th prime, with 35 the product of *5 and *7, the sequencing of hyprime sub-factors (factors of the prime-ordinate, i.e. *35) is no longer facilitated by lexicographic codings drawn from the numeral sequence. That '5' precedes '7' is evident from the numeral code, but the ordering of ((:)) and (::) cannot similarly rely upon intrinsic lexicographic guidance. In the TX case, it is only by constructing the numbers and sequencing them arithmetically that the 'notational' question of their order can be resolved. In other words, the sequencing of the sign has ceased to be a notational or preliminary problem, becoming instead inextricable from the arithmetical construction of the number. This results inevitably from the elimination of notational redundancy in TX, with concomitant erasure of procedural 'intuition.' 1075

Because TX number clusters are intrinsically disordered, a consistent and functional TX semiotic requires re-ordinalization through autonomous (extrinsic) lexicographic procedures, inevitably constructing a cardinally erratic 'number-line' or list/search sequencing protocol. The semiotic economy of TX makes this procedural problem easy to define. As an approximate AOsys analogue, lexicographic TX requires a variant of sequential diplocoding: 1) Cluster stringing. Sequencing the components of composite TX-formula numbers. 2) Number listing. Meta-sequencing of properly sequenced TX strings. It might seem sensible to assume the Oecumenic left-to-right reading procedure, since the arbitrariness of this rule makes it unexceptionable, but the diplocoding option matrix necessitates a substantial question as to the consistency/inconsistency of this decision as between (1) and (2) above. Even allowing for this complication, the option matrix for a mechanical lexicographic TX ordering protocol remains highly constrained, consisting merely of twin decisions as to the sequencing of the tick [:], open plex [(] and close plex [)] signs. Irrespective of the Cluster stringing decision, tick-precedence sequencing of the number list results in a the AOsys analogue previously mentioned (a, aa, aaa ...) 'counting' through the infinite series of binary powers before reaching any nonbinary number. The list is initiated by TX *2 = ':'. Plex-precedence produces a far more anomalous list-line, one that is non-originating because it 'begins' with a series of arbitrarily large hyperplexed primes, notationally initialized by unending open-plex signs [((((((((((((...], since '...((' precedes '...(:'. Listing practices following a plex-precedence protocol necessarily begin in the middle. [My assumption is that semiotic consistency (across clusters/lists) is to be preferred, with the sheer weirdness of plex-precedence sequencing making a strong case for its adoption. The 'alphabet' (ordinal code) would thus be described by TX *3 = (:).] In his own brief comments on the cluster sequencing problem in the Project Scar report, Barker restricted himself to the observation that Euclidean (cardinally consistent) ordering was no more than a "provisional and arbitrary convention" which would quickly break down "given nondemonstrative numberical values [anything but very small Naturals]" that the problem should be considered "merely technical and extrinsic" and "probably best decided on communication-engineering grounds." 1076

Given Barker's Project Scar research orientation, focused on "nonlinear recursivelyembedded planar semionomic dot-groupings of cryptogeologic origin" - anomalous cryptoliths - it is not surprising that he came to the notational ordering problem late and distractedly. Just days after completing the "Appendix on Notation" Barker came entirely unstrung. Stricken by revolting tropical diseases, increasingly obsessed with an interwoven tangle of cosmopolitical conspiracies of various scales, and multiplicitously agitated by teeming microparasites of dubious reality, Barker's plummet into noncommunicating delirium is charted by the digressions into doggerel annotating his Project Scar research report: A chittering tide Devouring my hide Starting from the Outside This is the slide ... And Yet In the same twitchy, spintered handwriting Barker remarks: The xenotation continues to disorder itself as it condenses, tearing up the number line, devastating time and sleep. Perhaps it is a weapon from outer space. I say that seriously, even if it is a sickening kind of joke. There is no sleep, everything is broken, everything connects without joining, swarming, pulsing, dots, specks, dust particles dancing inside my eyes, continuously ripping ... thought has become a disease ... I even heard a voice (how ridiculous) saying: 'You must isolate the xenotation before it disintegrates the time-line.' It's just the fever of course, but the tic systems are all shuffled together now, shuffled together with this filthy disease and its cavernous speckled dreams and even Jolo admits that the markings are spreading over my skin, bites or rashes or maybe even colonies ... so the line has rotted through, disintegrated ... there's no line, that's the message, and yet ... And Yet. ... counting is ineluctable and unsurpassable ... You have to check it, re-check it continuously, but it's true. How could the hyprime indices be decided without a countable ordinality? They have to come from somewhere, from a matrix, a culture, even if the clusters seem to rip everything apart they MUST HAVE BEEN COUNTED at some stage, before dissimulating themselves and scattering again ... And yet we can only make sense of 1077

these dots and ripples by counting primes on a line that remains successive and integrated, developing reliably, communicable, they have a past, a true lineage, even if it's difficult to think, even if they tear it apart and make of it something shattered and insane, something diseased ... but really I don't blame them, NASA of course knew nothing, but even they knew nothing, they just arrived, why should they remember? Memory is impossible for them. In any case, it's just a disease, I understand that now. There's no malice ... not even real cruelty ... Note. While there is no reason to believe Barker had exposure to, or interest in, the Anglossic Qabbala, the emphatic reiteration of 'And Yet' suggests he had feverishly identified it as a synonym for counting, perhaps even for temporality. (AND YET = 123). Comments: TX2 u/c: to start, tentatively, at the beginning (and given the density of the above I'll allow myself the position of naive devil's advocate to open up discussion): It might be that the claim of TX to be 'the most radically decoded semiotic' slightly premature given that the set-theoretical conception of number (as described in detail by la Badiou) counts the natural number line but _without_ recourse to anything as outrageously unseemly as Barker's "deplex", requiring only the notion of membership, and including 0 and 1 simply through a shelling procedure 0 (0) (0,(0)) (0,(0),(0,(0))) where each number consists of its predecessor's elements plus the 'name' of its predecessor. Here, also, it is a matter of non-ordered 'clusters' (what else is a set?) each with a unique internal structure. Barker's approach understandably valorizes the primes for their robust uniqueness, using them as particles of absolute difference; thus primes become the 'substance' of a radically-differentiated number system. However this is done without reflecting that 1078

extraction of the primes is itself a complex secondary (operational) product of the number line (though I guess we will have to explore this point a lot more). Since Barker then denies access to the number line, is it any wonder that the number line has to be 'retrosynthesized'? This has all the makings of a 'philosophical' system, the untransparency resulting from the immediate interment of the conditions of its own possibility serving as a sign of its radicality or primacy. The set-theoretical conception is stronger insofar as it does not require _any_ 'substance' in order to create the number line, it really does create difference from nothing. In contrast, if one were to pick apart all of the 'primitives' and operations of Barker's scheme it would reveal a lamentable weight of assumption. How could you trust it without already having absorbed a headful of oecumenical convention? Reza Negarestani: Excellent, Nick ... just skimmed through this (need more time to process and read it completely) u/c: afterthought: maybe I'm confusing what is intended as 'a semiotic' with what is intended as 'an ontology'. But that would be more than a 'mere' confusion - it would relate to the vexed question of the relation between ontomath (the 'being' of number(s)) and popular numerics (their empirical variety and semiotic proliferation). ps. R - hope you're not in vicinity of apparently savage seismic activity over there ? northanger: nick, i'm illuminated by this piece. shit! you should have written it long before. u/c: O, FFS northanger: Ulam spiral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam_spiral OGSYIAC AQ 317 {prime} = HYPERSTITIONAL = HANDBOOK TO THE GAME = PSUEDO-CHRISTOS = THE HOLY OF HOLIES = THE ONE GREAT UNIT piet - "didn't northanger warn about venus' abominable position?)" - interesting venus position in hyperstition's chart. investigating VENUS / 2003CO1 influence. venus "called 'wasp star' or 'spearing star,' was said to be malefic and dangerous" - CO1 "not very good for aircraft war", "very bad for aircraft / flying in general". see 1079

http://www.onereed.com/journal/archives/00000006.php for Venus synodic cycle analysis concerning socio-political events: "during inferior sun-ven conjunction – impulsive actions, premature decisions, errors in judgment, sex scandals, big mistakes, etc. The idea is that desire runs ahead of reason"; eg, Abu Gharib 'torture memo' released, 9/11 Commission issues initial report, etc. will write more @ livejournal.com. PLUS, hyperstition chart re venus & co1: interesting grand cross with pluto aiming ve/me and jupiter-co1 opposite uranus. question is piet (cos i know there is one): what is the tic-prime connect with this bizness? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prison http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26401-2004Jun8.html Nick Land: u/c - try to respond to you first because you're speaking numbo ;) your key point (hope i've got this right) that Peano axiomatization of arithmetic through set theory provide construction of the naturals no less decoded than those of TX. Don't want to rush this 'cos i think it's important (and we should come back to the Peano thang anyway - interesting that both (inc. TX) rely on recursive embedding) - also key topic for 'meaning' of decoding but (for moment): 1) Peano Naturals can be 'decoded' by simply tallying - why are they a superior code in this (pop. numeracy, pragmatic, or properly arithmetical) sense - in contrast to a logical one- than a simple tally I, II, III, ... (as employed in the dreadful 'Contact' movie mentioned in first TX post) 2) Peano's system also raises none of the ordinal/cardinal disjunct problems mentioned in this post - OK, this ambivalent topic at least, since this problem seems fairly brutally intractable, and also made points to an axis of ciphering rather than 'coding' ... Gotta go right now ... more ... northanger - "question is piet (cos i know there is one): what is the tic-prime connect with this bizness?" - thanks for that ;) u/c - [MiNiDoGon issues partly scrambled last comment] ... kicking myself for not addressing Peano construction in post (maybe next time) ... IMHO Euclid (FTA), Goedel and Barker grouped together over against Peano, Russell (Badiou(???)) 1080

on numerical vs logical construction of the Naturals. As sets, Peano number constructs virtually disordered in way profoundly analagous to tic-plex clusters, but when it comes to a synthetic ordering protocol (i.e. extrinsic notational rule for ordering semiotic, akin to a grammar and list-sequencing principle) Peano constructs achieve ready isomorphy with Natural number line by coding treating '0' as 0, close plex ['}'] as '1' and open plex ['{'] as '2' (for both clusters (sets) and lists). Thus: 0=0 1 = {0} 2 = {0{0}} 3 = {0{0}{0{0}}} etc. Arithmetically and lexicographically consistent. TX indexing function, which derives code from number line, rather than overcoding the number line with a logical code, accounts for its vastly more complex ordinalnotational behaviour "primes become the 'substance' of a radically-differentiated number system. However this is done without reflecting that extraction of the primes is itself a complex secondary (operational) product of the number line[?]" - this question reveals complete intellectual resonance with Barker's slide into tic psychosis - the number line is 'ineluctable and unsurpassable' for exactly the reason you indicate, but it is also notationally (culturally) inaccessible from starting point of tic-system assembly - an intriguing dilemma when pushed (virtually mapping an intrinsically (hyper)parasitic semiotic/culture as that most attuned to a pure numeracy (freed from exogeneous lexocoding)) - highly suggestive of Shoggoth intelligence (essentially nonoriginal but autonomous) "the vexed question of the relation between ontomath (the 'being' of number(s)) and popular numerics (their empirical variety and semiotic proliferation)" - hope we can get back to this piet - "the humanistic philosopher of mind soon finds himself replaced by the robotics scientist" - popping the champagne already ;) 1081

Woelfli ref. highly interesting Reza Negarestani: u/c, ps. R - hope you're not in vicinity of apparently savage seismic activity over there ? Hey thank you; yes, I’m far away ... It’s a long time that geo-conspiracist speak about two earth-shuddering catastrophe in Tehran and Shiraz (the Fars province) ... for centuries Shiraz has escaped all kind of xeno-invasion and disaster, the crafty Shirazians bribed the Mongolian Golden Horde, these sly dogs also welcomed the Timurids and betrayed their own ruler and surrendered him to Agha-Mohammad Khan (of the Qajar dynasty) to escape his wrath, so speaking of a possible upheaval is fun. ;) Nick Land: Reza - so no geotraumatics for you then? Reza Negarestani: Nick: Reza - so no geotraumatics for you then? In Iran, you never know ;) ... maybe the next week or next year. u/c: - processing tic-matierial (apologies for previous comment was the acronymic yowl of a tired-and-emotional brain hoping to find 7 new comments about neogodelian hypersemiotics and discovering a volume of hypertexted beatpoet memoirs) re. Rz/geotraumatics : the old ones will find him eventually....don't get too confident... Azer: re. Rz/geotraumatics : the old ones will find **him** eventually....don't get too confident... who, the faceless Nyarlathotep? ;) u/c: I meant IT (the azeronamous thing) In fact Badiou's criticism of Peano is that he is stil too concerned with semiotics, with the operation of signs, rather than the 'being of number'. The Peano axioms propose too many irreducible signs, define zero negatively, and rely too much on meaning, which for Badiou means Peano is classed with (or represents the numerical root of) postmodern semiotic relativity, for which 'everything is sign': a (member) N --> a+1 (member) N, an implication that involves three undefined signs, and which "means" that, if a is a number, its successor is also a number. The force of the letter is here at the mercy of signification. 1082

“...Peano thus explicitly renounces all definition of number, of succession, and of 1...." In contrast Badiou's conception is that numbers simply "are" as form of being (they are not _produced_ through additive coding mechanism, number exists independently as a unique way-in-which-being-can-be-multiple). So: "Every attempt to reduce the matheme to the sole spatialised evidence of a syntax of signs runs aground on the obscure prodigality of being in the forms of the multiple." So he contrasts Peano and other failed attempts at producing an operative definition of number with Von Neumann Ordinals (transitive sets of which all the elements are also transitive - transitive meanig that their elements are also parts - understood by B as a sort of 'maximal internal consistency' which distinguishes number from all other forms of being-multiple, which at a certain level break down into inconsistency: "number is a figure of natural being") Von Neumann Ordinals use only membership to define the natural numbers. The 'ordering' part comes 'for free' (each ordinal's successor defined as that one which contains its predecessor and its predecessors 'name' - and it can be proved that no other natural number can possibly come in-between, so that each natural number creates a 'fault' that makes it radically differentiated, utterly cut off, from its predecessor (this distinguishes successor from limit ordinals...) Don't want to lose the plot (any of them) here, I'd like to go really slow on this : for instance, I'm not even sure what you (or Barker) means by a 'superior' coding system - one that's easier/difficult for humans to decipher? One that requires fewer axioms? What? Apologies if I'm wrong on who (cantor, peano, von neumann) is responsible for what here - I've only Badiou for reference...but there is something important at stake in this semiotics/being question, because obviously barker is quite horribly aware that he is not dealing with 'mere' signs... [once again, sorry if I'm sounding like Badiou's latest trumpeter. But he does have the skill of making this stuff seem at once comprehensible and important, which can only be a good thing] just to clarify: 0 1083

(0) (0,(0)) (0,(0),(0,(0))) is von neumann ordinals, not peano arithmetic, right...! VNO given by: - the empty set is 0 (in badiou's terms the necessary founding 'decision') - given any ordinal a, the successor of a is a (union) {a} (transfinite recursion) http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/VonNeumannOrdinal.html ahem...one last amplification...as I understand it, for B. this system gives the same robust, radical difference to _every_ whole natural number that Barker wants to 'borrow' from the primes. Nick Land: uc - "von neumann ordinals, not peano arithmetic, right...!" VN Ordinals certainly, but I'm unclear exactly what Peano's axioms imply for constructing the Naturals (I'm probably just assuming that a set theoretic definition would look like what we've been seeing). Peano axioms (note especially #5): 1. Zero is a number. 2. If a is a number, the successor of a is a number. 3. Zero is not the successor of a number. 4. Two numbers of which the successors are equal are themselves equal. 5. (induction axiom.) If a set S of numbers contains zero and also the successor of every number in S, then every number is in S. My brain slides off logic without really engaging - wondering also if the same true vis Badiou 'being' - point of 'semiotic' IMHO is nothing to do with ontology (positive or negative) but with practices, micropragmatics - how does logical redefinition or ontological dignification effect in any way what can be done with the sign systems in question? 1084

(genuine - rather than rhetorical - question, but probably missing 'the point') VNO of course ordinality comes for free, but that is because it defines the number rather than indexing it - this to say, approaching conventional ('Hindu-Arab' decimal) number-signs from TX (rather than VNO) is to treat them as indices, tagging numbers they do not construct - a kind of abstract empiricism in which the referent is not conceived by the process which identifies it, but merely 'named' (as you say). Numerals 'single numbers out' - accessing them (this v. quick i know) a function dramatized by TX or any other semiotic emphasizing prime ordination (since primes elude logical anticipation(?) and thus temptation to lend semiotic construction a conceptually generative role). Assuming this somehow connects with Badiou's ontology shtick since "[numbers] are not _produced_ through additive coding mechanism" sounds exactly right ... "for B. this system gives the same robust, radical difference to _every_ whole natural number that Barker wants to 'borrow' from the primes." - interestingly enough (?) Crowley is with Badiou on this. Don't want to be dogmatic in opposition, but remain sceptical (due to danger that dissociating numerical singularity from the primes reopens possibility of logicizing numerical difference) also (from position fusing ignorance intimately with technical incompetence) still wonder about Badiou's tone (as relayed) - isn't he still employing the ontological 'genre' as a master concept under which number finds a subordinate place as a "form of being-multiple"? Hobbes says: "thinking is merely reckoning" - tendentious gloss: numerical calculation and associated semiotics are not overcoded by or subordinated to 'deep concepts' of a supposedly less technicist, more profound kind. On the contrary, deep thought is arbitrary vaporizing in contrast to the apprehensive, synthetic purchase of calculative innovation ... "'superior' coding system" - did someone really say that? - crude and fuzzy expression, at best (practical-calculative) polytics precedes being u/c: quick answers. 1085

Let's leave to one side the peano/von neumann/whoever point...although btw badiou goes way beyond VNO...I need to read more textbooks...you need to read my dodgy badiou translation how does logical redefinition or ontological dignification effect in any way what can be done with the sign systems in question? aren't you partly answering this question by saying: VNO of course ordinality comes for free, but that is because it defines the number rather than indexing it In order to 'index' something (or to posit a difference between defining and indexing) that thing has to 'exist' independently of whoever's doing the indexing, so the question of 'ontology' or at least priority must come in somewhere..? dissociating numerical singularity from the primes re-opens possibility of logicizing numerical difference) but there is no 'logic' as such in set-theory, is there? isn't he still employing the ontological 'genre' as a master concept under which number finds a subordinate place as a "form of being-multiple"? In a restricted sense, since for him the ontological genre _is_ set-theory - set-theory _is_ contemporary ontology, i.e. currently the most powerful and rigorous way to speak about the being of things regardless of their specificity. Numbers are, I am glossing wildly here, the most direct access 'we' have to being, to the structure of being as such. Thus an ontological interrogation (aiming at statements of the widest possible validity ie philosophy) begins with an interrogation of number. But in order to make this interrogation we have to dissociate the being of number (its internal consistency) from our operative use of numbers. So: how does logical redefinition or ontological dignification effect in any way what can be done with the sign systems in question? is a moot point for B insofar as it is already posed in language of operativity (but there must be some way to tackle this wihout declaring it an insuperable 'differend'?). The most pragmatic question for him is 'what is a situation','what does any given situation consist of, how can it best be analysed qua situation'; and he believes that the only way to answer this is by asking 'how is a situation _counted_'. Which in turn is a 1086

question about the internal consistency of multiple-being as such. In turn I think you (or Barker) needs to define what Barker means by pragmatics. What _can_ be _done_ with coding systems? How does one distinguish between their relative merits or capacities...? Isn't there the danger of getting caught up, relativistically, enthusiastically in the infinite combinatorial variety of possible 'slices' through number whilst missing out on the possibility of pursuing to the root the wonder of their being qua being... (obviously playing angel's advocate here, but not entirely, since I _do_ think that the 'ontology' is more interesting than the multitude of coding systems.) (practical-calculative) polytics precedes being how can this declaration be justified (if not phenomenologically, ie 'numbers wouldn't exist if the state didn't support my existence thus allowing me to count' ;) Nick Land: uc - slow thinning of haze (think a lot of erratic zig-zagging still up the road) "you need to read my dodgy badiou translation" - pdf problems, but might get acrobat to work here (not in the office) "In order to 'index' something (or to posit a difference between defining and indexing) that thing has to 'exist' independently of whoever's doing the indexing, so the question of 'ontology' or at least priority must come in somewhere..?" - key point (think we're agreed 'cos we keep spiralling it). Might be nothing but terminological quibbles at stake here, since 'empirical' (synthesis) exactly marks out this topic for me while 'ontology' sets off alarm bells - it's the '-ology' part particularly, implying a higher discourse on the nature of beings, but then 'how is a situation counted' sounds unexceptionable. Really not clear about 'logic' in set theory - number theory 'saved' from logic by the primes, what marks the irreducibly synthetic element in set theory? (again, genuine question) - issue obviously whether an apparatus of rational construction is predictive of its product - the logicist dream - (which seems to be the case for VNO, for instance, at least insofar as its notational regularity is concerned (obviously no idea how calculative operations would proceed in such a semiotic)) "Thus an ontological interrogation (aiming at statements of the widest possible validity ie philosophy) begins with an interrogation of number. But in order to make this interrogation we have to dissociate the being of number (its internal consistency) from our operative use of numbers." - accepting i need to immerse myself in your 1087

Badiou translation, this is obviously another critical argumentative point, and it triggers all kinds of allergic reactions. A dissociation from the operative use of number seems to imply a thinking of number that is no longer numerical, no longer guided or processed by the workings of number - by 'being' if you/B. prefer - but instead 'interrogates' number from philosophy, ontology (?), from somewhere that does not itself function in accordance with numerical procedures (through numerical synthesis, operationalizing the calculative outsideness of number ('calx' are pebbles, distributed technical multiplicity)). What 'authorizes' ontology? Back here to my partisan 'empiricism' over against a dubious (ontological) conceptualism. "I think you (or Barker) needs to define what Barker means by pragmatics" operationalizing the outside (calculation, rigorously effected (machinism)) "Isn't there the danger of getting caught up, relativistically, enthusiastically in the infinite combinatorial variety of possible 'slices' through number whilst missing out on the possibility of pursuing to the root the wonder of their being qua being..." - can see this risk of ineffectual diffusion - but quite distantly (think your polytechnical competence actually makes you more vulnerable to this) - there is a requirement of convergence (questionable perhaps, but think we agree at least), the issue IMHO is whether such convergence is calculative-numeric in nature (or 'ontologicotranscendental'). Goedel strikes me as a crucial reference, since his 'transcendental arithmetic' raises the potential for any 'master discourse' to be re-immanentized within the number line (it's like that Douglas Adams "what's the ultimate answer? = 42" joke, the qabbalistic fetish of 'special numbers' over against arcane doctrines) - that "wonder" (angel whispering in your ear, i know) couldn't be some religious stuff creeping in around the back, could it? Barker is making machinery for the outside, prior to any insight or understanding that might produce ... "polytics precedes being" - a DG skit (original was v. popular with pomoleftists at one point) in this version - concrete hypertactical operations of multiplicities cannot be transcended by realities at a higher or more fundamental level u/c: A bit more (perhaps too 'philosophical' ) advocacy: wonder...religious stuff creeping in around the back, 1088

remember, twas you who coined 'hypercosmic delight'!! polytechnical competence actually makes you more vulnerable to this) but surely no 'nobility' in basking in technical incompetence for the sake of a bit of 'wow' ? operationalizing Think the problem might be that whereas you see any logos (as in ontology) as the sneaking-in of an illegitimate teleology, it is possible, inversely, to see the valorization of 'function' and 'operativity' as an illegitimate imposition ; isn't ontology _more_ abstract, _deeper_ in nihilistic indifference to anthropocentric teleologies, than any quest for the functional, operational, or 'exciting' could ever be? What if the universe doesn't "function" at all (with Badiou, what if there is not becoming, but being, and being is nothing?) The point is, why is enquiry into 'how different things work differently in interesting ways' _more_ extropic, more "for the outside" than an explicit enquiry into 'how things are constituted at the most fundamental level'....? If the experimentation is nongoal oriented, then how is the research guided except by anthropo-fiat? If it's a matter of amphibiousness, we need to discuss precisely _how_. Will try to process this again more slowly so as not to crash the spiral....get back on substantive (ie properly numerical) points later so you don't just go Kattak against my onto-advocacy (esp Godel re-immanentization, which I agree really important....but still, doesn't this reinforce the importance of understanding what numbers _are_ ;) ?). btw this polytechnical competence actually makes you more vulnerable to this) was what I was trying to get at with previous comments on glossolalary : the equation "enthusiasm + meagre evidence = functional mysticism" should perhaps be "enthusiasm - evidence = functional mysticism" meaning that the more you 'molarise' (tendentious term though) mass data the less 'exciting' it becomes (perhaps in direct inverse of science where the more comprehensively an axiom covers totally indifferent masses of data the more scientifically exciting it can be said to be). nathan b. laruelle:- would it be imprudent to ask whether pure' pragmatism anything more than a philosophical (yes, still philosophical) advocacy of idiocy ? 1089

piet: http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?050228crat_atlarge Goedel and Einstein Nick Land: uc - "The point is, why is enquiry into 'how different things work differently in interesting ways' _more_ extropic, more "for the outside" than an explicit enquiry into 'how things are constituted at the most fundamental level'....?" key for me is 'explicit enquiry' i.e. what raises this beyond its own functioning (Hobbesian 'reckoning') as if choosing a topic ('functionality / ontology') were a decision transcendending the functioning of a disjunctive operation. It's not a matter of thematizing 'the Outside' (calculatively distributed machinism) but of immanentizing thematization to the machinery that processes it, collapsing the meditative-reflective stance in the name of experimentation. "What if the universe doesn't "function" at all [?]" - bypassing the universe ('what if there is no universe?') response would be: no functioning - then no reckoning - then no thinking ('high level' or meta-reckoning) - then no 'what if?' of any kind ... [not gloating at (my) technical incompetence i assure you - accusations of vague envy would be more germane - if you see 'wow' think you're gently hallucinating ... but MiNiDoGon calls ...] some diverse carriers would be productive at this point, because obv. i'd like to see how the B. nummysticism (with Lovecraftian resonances) unfolds in all its cosmic grandeur ... Don't think Barker ever obsessive on the 'pragmatism' issue (despite engineering background), it's just that the tic delirium provides a model of connective antiepistemology, dissolving thinking into microparticle (dust) dynamics Also think it's important to note that the popular numeracy / pragmatics pole inevitably eclipsed by the 'superior' lucidity of an academically consolidated meditative thinking and tends to get lost, even when it is supposedly being discussed (don't mean this at all snarkily, merely addressing uncontroversial (?) sociological fact that 'the philosophical' is advantaged by a reflective articulacy that draws upon specific social and institutional resources - it is supported by career advocates, over against a mute unreflecting distributed pragmatics (e.g. AOsys praxis) lacking even self-identification or the sense it has anything to argue about, let alone an 'archive' of models and references equivalent to the 'master texts' of professional thought). For instance, alphabetical sorting evidently a popular practice of inestimably greater magnitude 1090

(social impact) than metamathematical axiomatics, yet due precisely to its prereflective, diffuse, sub-articulate and operational 'mode of existence' it slips readily into invisibility - doesn't topic of 'popular numeracy' - however slippery - capture something about the (concrete, empirical, distributed) 'existence' of number that onto-philosophical reflection misses? (even if the inverse is also true) - numeracy as a social 'force of production' for instance? or as a catalytic component of planetary mutation under conditions of (K+) intelligenic runaway? numbers and masses (which is not to say measurable quantities)? "enthusiasm - evidence = functional mysticism" - to take this further, think discrimination required between evidential accumulation and molarization - nanoexperimentation surely possible? with its own mode of cumulative molecular development ... also might involve some degree of 'anthropological' subclassification of religious phenomena (on a spectrum from hyperstitional unbelief (neutralized religiousity as abstract intensity (?)) to theocratic dogmatism (thought police) - with various 'mysticisms' scattered throughout) u/c: You're quite right, to speak of Badiou in the same sentence as "the universe" was a mistake for which I would be strung up in some european cities. Think you're right that the philosophy needs to be reigned in to keep this moving but.... I still think your points (ie 'importance' of alphabetic sorting or a fortiori planetary mutation) infected by a [deliberately?] unreflected valorization of 'function' ultimately derived from anthro-history ('social impact'). Still think 'pragmatics' little more than an order-word used to justify what it has already been decided is Good (bit like 'rationality'). Surely from a materialist pov everything is pragmatic (has a material effect) ? And what pragmatic effects did e.g. Crowley's work have? Pragmatic for what purpose/who....? And in what sense can it possibly be cumulative except in the sense of a planetary-scale bricolage....? Topics of (a)amphibiousness (=priority of manifest entrapment in the strata over merciless programme of abstraction) and (b)experimental types (molar/molecular) suggest themselves: Merging in the definition of the lineaments of a 'methodology' that could be called metallurgical, artistic, occult, tracking, vagabond etc...where the qualities of matter (all those things Badiou wants us to ignore) directly influence the 1091

course of the experiment. (especially in french experiment=experience), but how to think a 'vecu' without the subject and its 'explicit enquiries'? sorry for revoltingly pious 'how to think' locution - been spending too much time with the wrong sort of batrachians. northanger: nick - how is the Baker Tic related to ((num(ogram)mysticism))? nick - if i understand the problem with "pragmatic", wouldn't there be a bigger problem with "mysticism"? "'general purpose decryption protocol' for identifying intelligent signal from alien sources" there's nothing "mystical" about a protocol? u/c: yes, but then what use exactly would TX be in building such a protocol... (not that ontology would be greatly helpful, of course)? Nick Land: northanger - 'mysticism' still pretty much free floating at the moment, perhaps even a token of mild and unformalized abuse (?? (can't even remember who 'started it')) - anyway, Barker a definite nuts-n-bolts type of guy until tic-plague plugged him into the xenoplex - don't think he should be blamed for what various wacky 'neo-barkerians' have done with him ... uc - guess i'm thinking 'pragmatics' in terms of self-regenerative machines (without extrinsic teleology), but getting the feeling these 'pragmatism' q.s beginning to clog things up right now, i'll do some serious meditatin' and try to assemble a post ;) Main thing is not to let jagged edges of the zig-zag chop anything out before its potentials have been effectively exhausted, so worried that crystallization my end of a (bizarrely oxymoronic) 'pragmatist ideology' beginning to have an oppressive influence on 'ontological' inquiry - but still be interested to get a sense of what the programmatic consequences of particular ontological stances might be. Given a hypothetical working consensus on the 'being of number', what follows? [I'll get Acrobat re-sorted soon, honest!] northanger: nick - "'mysticism' still pretty much free floating at the moment, perhaps even a token of mild and unformalized abuse" - well, mysticism is sorta "free floating" anyway, lol. maybe you can do a micro-"pin down" on the Tic that might help the rest of us figure out the wider ramifications of mysticism and hyperstition. 1092

uc - "yes, but then what use exactly would TX be in building such a protocol... (not that ontology would be greatly helpful, of course)?" - why is ontology important in developing a communication protocol between machines? bringing up the question: did TX work? was it able to decode alien communication? seems like it did. uc - don't misunderstand. trying to formulate intelligent question to your "differend". u/c: (bizarrely oxymoronic) 'pragmatist ideology' yes, this IMHO not just a cooked-up problem or a 'mere paradox'... An interesting point is that, given that B selects Deleuze (and particularly, although, or perhaps becuase, he never mentions them, D&G;) as 'enemies', what 'exactly' is the Capitalism&Schizophrenia; 'position' on number - AFAIK no-one ever tried to explicate this at length (except for 'mechanomics', and that hardly 'explained' anything ;) Just thought I'd point out, since it might help smooth things over between Badiou and Barker, that the former's preferred description of what Numbers, in their (one might say 'noumenal' ie beyond what we do _with_ them) Being is 'fourmillement' = swarming or tingling. northanger: uc - i thought the "differend" (can you unpack that one?) was between number theories. sounds like it's between Badiou and Barker? Badiou = mystic and Barker = ??? barker's schizo? ah, Barker's pragmatic. yes? u/c: (time-thingy there...probably another one by the time I've finished typing this) why is ontology important in developing a communication protocol between machines? No, it's not, that's what I was saying. This question of signal-processing is massive....It seems there are two different questions which might be asked: (1) Given a hypothetical ergodic signal, what procedures can be used in order to extract signal from it, or to determine whether it contains signal 1093

(2) What _methods_ might be useful in opening up 'human' semiotic systems to interference from "intelligences" immanent to "the universe" (or at least, distributed and communicating in ways non-analogous to two tin cans strung together) The first is presupposes a channel of communication (carrier signal) through which a 'message' might be being sent, so it proceeds at once through a selection and assumed stratification (something like SETI, for instance). The second is asking a question about matter "itself". It connects obscurely (I've been thinking about this for a long time but haven't got anywhere) to a kantian 'aesthetic judgment' or what Reza called the psychogeographical 'event'. The first is more 'scientific' but in a sense far more scattershot and rather lame. The second is open to charges of being 'subjective' Where ontology fits into all of this, I don't know.... There is a lurker round here who I'm sure could sort this out for us.... north: B-du not mystical; rather, he believes that inquiry into number goes by way of an understanding of what it _is_ independent of all usage, therefore the 'differend' (=assumed-irreducible difference of position between two parties) is (schematically) philosophical/pragmatic northanger: uc - "B-du not mystical", well, i will leave you two to it then. lol. me clueless. too much math. uc - "B-du not mystical; rather, he believes that inquiry into number goes by way of an understanding of what it _is_ independent of all usage" -- (sorry) if you switch "god" with "number" you have mysticism. "therefore the 'differend' (=assumed-irreducible difference of position between two parties) is (schematically) philosophical/pragmatic" -- and isn't this the problem (argument) between monotheism and atheism? (forgive me if i'm totally off the wall with this) oops - switch "number" with "god" u/c: leaving aside the fact that the last thing I want to do right now is have another discussion about atheism....B-du's position is staunchly atheistic and nonanthropocentric in that there is no 'all of being' (ie god) and that being is not defined 1094

by our access to it. It's not really mystical to say that there are things to which we have no access, is it? But you're right, I'm not entirely clear on what 'mysticism' does mean now ... IMHO the only element in B-du that can be called 'mystical' (apart from an occasional 'wonderment' at the sheer immensity of number) is that he distinguishes between being and event, event being the irruption(=something you didn't count on happening) of the 'uncountable outside' of (being=what can be counted). But let's not get into that (unless someone else wants to try to explain it). Anyway, the little manouevre of 'Switching "god" with "number" ' is bound to move the goalposts somewhat, don't you think... the difference is more to do with (a)wanting to build a theory that will endure and that will enable you to analyse anything whatsoever, ie philosophy/mastery/phallocentry; and (b)wanting to make things happen, just to see what happens with whatever happens to be at hand ie pragmatics/participation/idiocy. The question is whether one of them is a bizarrely contorted version of the other (or whether they're both bizarrely contorted versions of something else) northanger: uc - can't help but put these two together: "And what pragmatic effects did e.g. Crowley's work have? Pragmatic for what purpose/who....? And in what sense can it possibly be cumulative except in the sense of a planetary-scale bricolage....?" "(2) What _methods_ might be useful in opening up 'human' semiotic systems to interference from "intelligences" immanent to "the universe" (or at least, distributed and communicating in ways non-analogous to two tin cans strung together)" i don't know crowley's system very well, but your #2 sounds like him. and, from my experience, the taro and astrology are two semiotic systems open to "interference". they're just not "pragmatic". u/c: precisely. They don't actually have any appreciable effect on reality whatsoever (unlike, say, Turing's work). So in what sense can taking inspiration from Crowley and his ilk be said to be 'pragmatic'? 1095

and insofar as they are open to interference without 'topdown' guidance as to what is being looked for, do the results collected add up to anything more than a mere blowby-blow phenomenal description of experience...? northanger: uc - "appreciable effect on reality" - oh yeah? (i'm working on the C part). uc - don't worry, not a discussion about atheism. imo, critical issue about Barker's TX: [1] no it doesn't work, let's find something new. [2] yes it works, but it drives you nuts. [3] yes, spot on! what evidence do we have that TX worked as intended? "...unscrambling cryptic dot-clusters and factor-strings into hints of alien contact. Xenotation is clicking together, a mathematical antimemory where things meet ... Try to figure it out and somewhere you cross over, which is problematic in various ways. Unexpected difficulties infiltrate the calculations tick-systemic interchatter implexes through plutonic torsion, a descent into the Outside. When NASA sees Barker's report, it flips - nonmetaphorically - into another phase. A passage through institutional criticality occurs spontaneously, a conversion of stack-tectonic torsion, triggering some kind of latent security-reflex, or bureaucratically fabricated suppressor-instinct, extrapolating the exact affective correlate of Anthropol. They were waiting for this. Waiting for a long time." uc - "pragmatic" and "topdown guidance". off the top of my head: guerrilla tactics, large companies spinning off smaller companies, judo strategy. what do you mean by topdown guidance? uc - "It's not really mystical to say that there are things to which we have no access, is it?" after reading about differend, i agree. "IMHO the only element in B-du that can be called 'mystical' (apart from an occasional 'wonderment' at the sheer immensity of number) is that he distinguishes 1096

between being and event, event being the irruption(=something you didn't count on happening) of the 'uncountable outside' of (being=what can be counted)." surely this isn't mystical, it's life itself? it's a miscarriage, an earthquake, a car wreck, a bad bit of undigested beef. "Anyway, the little manouevre of 'Switching "god" with "number" ' is bound to move the goalposts somewhat, don't you think..." no. this goes back to "access" and "differend". for one person it *is* moving the goalposts, for another it's not. ever get a SHOCK and when you look around, life is still lifing unaware that it should "stop"? you've just had this EVENT - but everything does not stop. and when there is no language for that to be expressed ... silence. my experience with crowley falls under that. uc - ever read or watch "the right stuff" by tom wolfe? those first astronaunts were *drilled* on what to expect & how to handle every situation. imo, crowley does the _same_ thing. the difference? one group had a president and a nation behind them -the culture was impacted. their experience was never questioned. that's topdown guidance. imo, Outside contact IS occurring already. but there is no structure in place in which the culture can experience and validate it. u/c: topdown guidance = simply, deciding parameters of the research programme in advance events, etc. OK, we're going to _have_ to get into it now...For B-du the event only 'exists' as such through collective fidelity to it after it has happened - since the event 'itself' is of the uncountable real, what is essential is for those who experienced it to literally 'realise' it (make it real) by remaining 'true' to it (=making a truth out of it). All a bit hyperstitional, if you ask me. But you're right, this process of truth-fidelity does seem, if we allow ourselves a nontechnical use of vocabulary, to refer to 'life as it is lived' as opposed to the 'brute facts of being', and there is definitely this explicit division in his thinking. Maybe the 'pragmatics' of hyperstition is entirely on the evental side of the B-duian divide, and wants nothing to do with Being at all. 1097

But (and I'm getting into territory which I'm not at all sure about here) what makes an event important or effective, I would have thought, is that fidelity to it makes a real (=universal or potentially universal) difference in the way being is perceived. So the crowley-event wouldn't fully qualify in the same way as the turing-event, even if it changed _your_ life. In this way, B-du reveals his communist as well as his mathematical roots (and this is why he criticises D&G; for putting forward a model where each individual can tend to their little intensities and BwOs) .... which is to say - brutally - that unless you can create a truth out of a mystical experience, that is to say realise it, then in a very real sense, nothing has happened. The world of phenomena, and ones lived experience relating to those phenomena = nothing happening = no subjects, simply mechanistic persistence. Collective production of paradigmatic shifts in conditions of possibility=something happening=emergence of subjects. You realise I'm now in the position of neither arguing my own position nor being sure I'm arguing any other assignable person's either....I'd better stop. northanger: uc - "collective fidelity"? i would rather be murdered than raped. imo, american culture does not support "uncountable real" (if i understand your meaning. "essential is for those who experienced it to literally 'realise' it (make it real) by remaining 'true' to it (=making a truth out of it)." - it's slightly easier to say you've been raped, sexually harassed, abducted by aliens. maybe someone will believe you if you keep pushing the issue. why bother at all? "Maybe the 'pragmatics' of hyperstition is entirely on the evental side of the B-duian divide, and wants nothing to do with Being at all." - yes, i'd agree to that to a point. which is why i want nick to pin down "mysticism" bizness. "what makes an event important or effective, I would have thought, is that fidelity to it makes a real (=universal or potentially universal) difference in the way being is perceived. So the crowley-event wouldn't fully qualify in the same way as the turingevent, even if it changed _your_ life." - exactly what do you mean by "fidelity"? i'm a black slave in 1826 and i must maintain fidelity to the fact that i am human, even though i am viewed as property. what are my choices exactly? "In this way, B-du reveals his communist as well as his mathematical roots (and this is why he criticises D&G; for putting forward a model where each individual can tend to their little intensities and BwOs) ...." 1098

gosh. don't tell me D&G; had anything to do with the "ME Generation". uc - "which is to say - brutally - that unless you can create a truth out of a mystical experience, that is to say realise it, then in a very real sense, nothing has happened." that's not brutal, that's fact. it can also be cognitive dissonance for the unfortunate. something that you have to learn to shut down (if you experience the mystical) in order to keep playing the game of "Being". "Collective production of paradigmatic shifts in conditions of possibility=something happening=emergence of subjects." bingo. now you're talking. collective production = hyperstition. purple monkey wants to know what are the parameters? uc - "unless you can create a truth out of a mystical experience, that is to say realise it, then in a very real sense, nothing has happened." - revisiting this: define "create a truth" & "realise it". culture may determine what is "real / not real" & the mystical may be a subset of the unreal. however, mystical tradition provides ways for individuals to validate their experience and know the difference between hallucination, schizophrenia, and mysticism. can be extremely thin lines however. piet: yo, yall are on a trawl, I'm tickled to a tangle, .. . . in pure gratitude I offer a rusty little suppressed premise mistifyer belowprint I have in the upstairs chockra for free, somebody better come pry it loose and carry it of before the bodybuilding collapses, and I meta it. northanger: why is ontology important in developing a communication protocol between machines? we need an ontology to help () communicate between protocols = protoplasmatics and vica versa by the way . .. which is why neither end of the ludilubology looks very rosy rite now. u/c: uc - "collective fidelity"? i would rather be murdered than raped. imo, american culture does not support "uncountable real" (if i understand your meaning. uuhh, well I don't understand yours...."collective fidelity" means, basically, a bunch of people get together and talk about what the event means and what they should do in order to 'stay true' to it (ie after the initial, unplanned irruption of the bloody upheaval of a revolution) making a truth out of it)." - it's slightly easier to say you've been raped, sexually harassed, abducted by aliens. maybe someone will believe you if you keep pushing the issue. why bother at all? 1099

not sure where the rape meme came from...not sure what you're saying here... changed _your_ life." - exactly what do you mean by "fidelity"? i'm a black slave in 1826 and i must maintain fidelity to the fact that i am human, even though i am viewed as property. what are my choices exactly? exactly the opposite, B-d would say that a slave revolt or (better example because pinpoints the event to a particular moment in time) the event of refusing to go to the back of the bus (an 'unthinkable' occurrence in the status quo) would provide the event, BUT in order for it to become REAL, would require the fidelity of thousands, sometimes working extremely hard with little apparent progress, sometimes feeling that the truth of the event had been 'lost' - but it would take their collective fidelity to the event and the truth that it proposed (the universal declaration that henceforth blacks are people and equal members of the community) to become an ACTUAL universal truth, a reality....(and in some sense the 'work' of fidelity is never over). Obv. you can see why in some sense this is something like a politicised hyperstitional position. gosh. don't tell me D&G; had anything to do with the "ME Generation". yes, well, this is exactly what is at the root of B-d's antagonism towards "postmodernism", precisely that. He sees the current state of affairs as the result of the failure to tend to the truths that the enlightenment, as event, produced, and a takeover by mere combinatory mechanism (capital). however, mystical tradition provides ways for individuals to validate their experience think you can see from the above why 'an individual validating their experience' would be in certain respects an oxymoron for the Big Bad. (and btw I'm sick of answering for him and refuse to do so any longer! Consult Mr MKP in future...) northanger: p - "we need an ontology to help () communicate between protocols" i see your point. in software development ontology=specification. are hyperstition protocols similar to internet protocols?. "I offer a rusty little suppressed premise mistifyer belowprint I have in the upstairs chockra for free" - for free? only have to jump through one hoop. okie dokie. uc - rosa parks. excellent point. 1100

uc - rosa parks experienced a lifetime of inequality prior to refusing to get up. what kicked her over that day? THAT WAS THE TRIGGER. would i rather be raped daily, or get it over with once and for all? she could have died that day. piet: "therefore the 'differend' (=assumed-irreducible difference of position between two parties) is (schematically) philosophical/pragmatic" you ever tried organizing a debate between idiot savants? Say, between Bill Meegan and Dolf Boek (I did and failed, but Szabo and the torah science fella fell out with each other). Try and you'll find your formula don't apply unless of course you shine (diffmakin) light across the pragmatic end of the stick -- -- some walls are made of doubt, keeping in and keeping out . .and if there is any hope for our love at all, some walls must fall -- Maura O'Connell I suppose that severely contaminated rubble is indeed rather irreducible and even if not, will only support the thinnest of slowly toxicity diluting populations full of incommensurable venom neighbour learn to be wary of. The most extensive form of differend: after aeons and aeons of physical versions, now even tiniest (mental) space stuffed up defined as/with 'terra nullius' "wanting to build a theory that will endure" -- I have heard of penis envy but now propose to rename it rockhard-envy or rocksoliditeitneid if you wanny be nitwitty about it. uc - "It's not really mystical to say that there are things to which we have no access, is it?" after reading about differend, i agree. I should probably 'clarify'the poetpietistic resolution for myst = mist = mix = mud = dry (heavy dark) + wet (clear and readily alighting) oxides = spray = sproutable, after all, how would we find the time to read and come up with the gems after a dig and be down with the presumptiating fuel and fun ingene operating dept uc - "It's not really mystical to say that there are things to which we have no access, is it?" after reading about differend, i agree. I should probably 'clarify'the poetpietistic resolution for myst = mist = mix = mud = dry (heavy dark) + wet (clear and readily alighting) oxides = spray = sproutable, after 1101

all, how would we find the time to read and come up with the gems after a dig and be down with the presumptiating fuel and fun ingene operating dept northanger: p - mist = gas. uc - we're back to square one then i think. TX and hyperstition. in the face of this "severely contaminated rubble", exactly what type of agnositic "protocols" can be created to deal with another universal truth? human beings don't like one another, don't understand one another, etc. and that's the problem, imo, with communicating with the Outside. if being human provides no openess, as something easy & fun to be, then we will continue to create protocols, paradigms, whatever that are limited before they become operational. uc - however, the purple monkey recognizes inherent value in hypersition protocols and wants to pitch in. PM just wants to make very clear who the HNIC is. "imo, Outside contact IS occurring already. but there is no structure in place in which the culture can experience and validate it." ever read any arguelles? here's the first of 260 postulates, one of my favorites: http://www.earthascending.com/time/postulates1.htm here's a sample (from elsewhere): Quote 14.11 The self-evolving planetary network of radiosonic architecture registering the analog functions of the life of higher analog functions is enhanced by the development of “soul boats:” radiosonically crafted carriers of the fourth-dimensional double that extend the activity of the double far beyond the biological life-span of the present era. The human species itself evolves into a race of wizard people whose thirddimensional bodies take root in a type of elementary garden culture, while forms of deep meditation and trance activity allow the projected doubles greater and greater extension into the galactic order of the universal life. I have them all someplace, probably still online too. For those who like a lot of numbers with their reality his other work is better, or start here: A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe. The Mathematical Archetypes of 1102

Nature, Art, and Science. A Voyage from 1 to 10. By Michael S. Schneider. ... www.phanes.com/beggui.html u/c: Too many acronyms flying about now... think we need to hush up the Big Bad and start again on TX.... if being human provides no openess reza has a lot of interesting stuff to say on this, of course...maybe we could even map some of the things we've been talking about onto his distinction between 'affordance' and 'communication'. northanger: uc - i knew day one i couldn't afford hyperstition. i mean, i enjoy chatting and everything, and the occasional mystic potshot is ok, but really, other than piet's poeticity, your toys, and vauung's tut-tutting - really, hyperstition is just my favorite internet serial show. very amusing waste of time. but i love it! p - "ever read any arguelles?" - yup. not that i believed it exactly. piet: "emergence of subjects." that is a mighty accurate 'cross' from which the crushage of rock can begin, proper 'placement' and leisurely score to follow falllow; scarecore cared for, punto, period. oxides = spray = sproutable =spoutenabled = accesoraised = northanger: p - i'm a sleepy sprout. cya later. u/c: I think to really get a grasp on the TX I'll have to.....build a new gadget....sweet dreams thanger ;) pacal votan: Dynamics of time -- whatever you might think of substance choice, he scores hi on attempts to rigorize and materialize the elusive. http://www.pan-holland.nl/downloads/DynamicsofTime.pdf u/c: ROFL 1103

Nick Land: Uc - "to really get a grasp on the TX I'll have to.....build a new gadget" [swoon] northanger: "build a new gadget" - the visual always works best with me :) (actually, i'm kinda beginning to understand the TX thingy) Nick Land: northanger - don't let the philosophers (not to mention poets) muddy the water - practice using it ;) "spot on!" - deliberate joke? p - "protoplasmatics" = shoggoth engineering? (If so, agree we should be doing a helluva lot more of it) uc - obviously have issues with your formulation of philosophy/pragmatics 'differend' - 'i'll be back' ... northanger PS. loved the solar tadpoles northanger: nicky - "don't let the philosophers (not to mention poets) muddy the water - practice using it ;)" - okie dokie :) "spot on!" - deliberate joke? - nope! honest. yes. solar tadpoles, the fanged noumenon. (what's a fanged noumenon anyway?) Nick Land: northanger - you think solar tadpoles are avatars of the fanged noumenon? that wasn't an angle of the story i'd picked up on ... northanger: nick - "you think solar tadpoles are avatars of the fanged noumenon?" qabbalistically speaking. the unpragmatic esoteric side of things. Nick Land: Duh！ northanger: hehe Nick Land: TIC XENOTATION = (((:)))((:):): = HYPERSTITION northanger: HOLY DAEMON ANGEL = 286 (((:))) = 11 ((:):) = 13 1104

:=2 (i saw that mistake buster!) Nick Land: northanger - "(i saw that mistake buster!)" - Damn!! last shreds of credibility shot to hell northanger: "Damn!!" - yeah, i copied it and thought to myself: this is w.r.o.n.g! (not going to tell you what that helicat of a purple monkey said! nope, not me) nick - ok spill. hand over the rest of the tic or i let the monkey go. (which reminds me! what animal is hyperstition) brb. hyperstition is THE GREEN MONKEY! http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/2004.htm Nick Land: northanger - "i copied it and thought to myself: this is w.r.o.n.g!" - thank the wellspring of archaic evil that i switched it before anyone else noticed - as it is, they'll just put the whole episode down to thangeroid hallucination and delusions of grandeur northanger: nick - "as it is, they'll just put the whole episode down to thangeroid hallucination and delusions of grandeur" - you're a small man nicholas. a small man. Nick Land: Bwahahahaha northanger: what is this bizness? "Bwahahahaha" evil laughter? hey! are you ever going to give us that tic list? Nick Land: northanger - "tic list" - ordinated tic clusters? northanger: nich - "ordinated tic clusters?" - um. yes! Nick Land: nothanger - Good idea. Soon. u/c: nick, are you familiar with 'surreal numbers' (on which Badiou bases 'his own' theory of Number-with-a-big-N)? It's pretty strange...each number is composed of two ordinals, the matter and the form, and the 'difference' between any two numbers is determined by the smallest 1105

ordinal which discriminates between the two (is in the matter of one but not the other, or is in the form of one but not in the form [or in the 'residue'] of the other). Nick Land: uc - utterly unfamiliar, but sounds fascinating - if not Acrobatized by end Sunday I'll start whinging, but anyway will google my way to some crude approximation of comprehension on this specific topic ... (twin ordinalization clicks onto all kinds of stuff ...) northanger: nick - gee, that means we're not getting the ordinated tic clusters anytime too soon. u/c: don't worry, I'm working on some tic-related goodies (by ordinated tic clusters do you just mean an ordered list of numbers in Tic-language? And just to prove that programming languages can be beautiful, how about this supercompressed (46 char) Perl sieve of Eratosthones that I came across in the process (btw practical use of this system surely compromised by the need to do this first): sub sieve { sub p{$_[0],$#_?p(grep$_%$_[0],@_):()}p 2..pop } ...pure poetry! And, AZer, my fellow fan, it looks like one of the ideographic swearwords out of Asterix, too... piet: if that appeals to your sense of poetry you might like a fella called Sondheim, talk about runny and run on .. .except it seem rather lobotomized compared to Rickels most of the time Nick Land: uc - if you can pull this off you'll simultaneouly produce a humungous discussion topic (stretching from cryptography and erratic series to AI and shoggothic cultures) northanger - "we're not getting the ordinated tic clusters anytime too soon" - if uc hasn't got his miracle machine up and running by monday i'll put up a modest list (1st 127 primes) as a provisional resource ... uc - lots of q.s of course, but mostly i'll wait - one i can't refrain from: how are you sorting out the cluster-ordering problem? 1106

northanger: ::scratching head:: sub sieve { sub p{$_[0],$#_?p(grep$_%$_[0],@_):()}p 2..pop } poetry. ::nodding head vacuously:: u/c: since the clustering doesn't matter, I'll just sort it out by leaving them however they happen to come out (probably in prole-numerical order) nb. surreal numbers comment above slightly misleading : not a question of 'pairs of ordinals': the 'form' is a _part_ of the matter; so it can be more than one ordinal, even a 'holey set' of ordinals - Examples : N=(1,0) - matter is 1, form is 0 (which is contained in 1) - [this Number is -1] N=(w, w) where w=first limit ordinal(aleph 0) - [this number is w 'itself'] N=(w, (3,587,1165)) - 'dispersed' form in the matter of w [he doesn't tell what this number is in 'normal' terms (haven't finished the book yet!)] Nick Land: uc - i know you're trying to be helpful ... northanger: uc - uhuh. ROBINHOOD [ALCYONE] (NW by N :: 03Ge00 :: CROWN CHAKRA {Sahasrara}) 332º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 1: ADMIRABLE or HIDDEN INTELLIGENCE–The FIRST (1) Path is KETHER (Crown) = I THE MONAD (Aces) :: EON PHASE: 36 (Phase Arc 330º ~ Semi-Sextile) : Fruition, Creative Imagination, "Last Judgement", Closing. NASH [DENEB KAITOS] (West :: 03Ar14 :: SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA {Manipura}) 272º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 19: INTELLIGENCE of all the ACTIVITIES OF THE SPIRITUAL BEING–The NINETEENTH (24) Path from Netzach to Tiphereth = ATU XI LUST = LEO = TETH :: EON PHASE: 28 (Phase Arc 270º ~ Square) : Integration, Vision, Crisis of Meaning, Congruency. "uc - i know you're trying to be helpful ..." 1107

rotflmao u/c: I ought to shut up until I understand what he's on about, really - it's just so intriguing... anyway, back to tics: http://www.urbanomic.com/cgi-bin/ticx.pl does the first 500 - Haven't checked thoroughly but I think this is right (prime factors shown in brackets to the right). You may be interested in the rather nice recursive procedure for ticnotation (even if I'm not such a great poet...). @primes is the array from the Erastosthenes' Sieve (all primes up to n). sub tic{ my $num=shift(@_); #$num is the number to convert my $count=0; #counts the prime index if ($num==1){return;} #nothing more to do in this case foreach $prime (@primes){ #cycle through primes $count++; if ($num/$prime==int($num/$prime)){ #if divisible if ($prime==2){ return ":".tic($num/$prime); #divide & recurse, adding ":" }else{ return "(".tic($count).")".tic($num/$prime); #divide & recurse, adding "( )" } 1108

} } } This results in ordinal ordering of clusters (but you could easily do it the opposite way by changing "@primes" to "(reverse @primes)". Any other requests should be easy given this basic procedure... sorry, all the carefully formatting of that code got lost ;) Actually it's not just recursive, it's syzygetic-recursive, since it often shoots off in two directions, recursing the prime count inside the brackets and the remainder outside. just out of interest (??) here are the first 9 numbers according to the set-theoretical interpretation, showing their formidable 'internal consistency': http://www.urbanomic.com/cgi-bin/sets.pl and the correspondingly elegant code: sub ordset{ my $num=shift(@_); if ($num==0){return;} else {return ordset($num-1)." (".ordset($num-1).")"; } } realistically speaking, can anything except for its 'icy desuetude' and anthropounfriendliness stop this from taking the crown of 'the most radically decoded semiotic ever to exist upon the earth' ?? northanger: uc - 'internal consistency' - yes, it is formidable: GON1 77 = DECODED SEMIOTIC = BEHOLD IT IS REVEALED. lol 1109

Nick Land: uc - well that's got them (500 TX clusters) down cold (should keep northanger happy for a moment - thus putting me out of a nicely mechanical post), but when you say 'gadget' you set all kinds of weird neural juices flowing for dynamic machines - am i to assume your program description would do the job? hope the ghastly impracticality of the VNO now exposed for all to see ;) northanger: http://www.urbanomic.com/cgi-bin/sets.pl http://www.urbanomic.com/cgi-bin/ticx.pl these need to be added to the hyp-index. "hope the ghastly impracticality of the VNO now exposed for all to see" - um ... never mind. lol. u/c: Just had a thought - Would be fairly easy to define ontology simply as the shortest program-length (qv.Chaitin, Kolmogorov) definition of Number. Modifying this to 'the shortest program-length definition _we can think of_' and defining it as the upper limit of a 'perfect minimum description' would nicely "define out" any relation to the practical/human/etc. This could easily run 'automatically' and independently of any of the suspect connotations of 'ontology' - it would be an attempt to get as close as possible to the (assumed but not absolutely posited) 'way things are' defined simply as maximum compression. On the other hand, is "practicality" the criteria for a 'semiotic', as you seem to suggest: if so, once again, practicality for who/what?? And if 'purposeless practicality' does this simply index an azathothic drive for "more stuff"? All this meant as an attempt to break through possible ideological troll-barriers rather than to erect them. ...I'll certainly take any suggestions for gadgets (but what about decaplex, goddammit!) - don't think these really warrant wider promotion, just a test really... amplification: you'd need to _include_ the VNO in order to get the ordinals to run the sieve of eratosthenes on. Remember, the program for ticx has to iterate through an ordered set of numbers to get the primes, then iterate through them to make the ticx numbers. VNO program just needs to iterate (transfinite recursion plus membership is all it needs) So if we're talking complexity/compression then it's not 'more practical' - if there is another criteria (practicality? 'outsideness'? But what could be more 'outside' than 1110

VNO's abysmally intricated holey spaces that are totally intractable to human eye?) , let's hear it....;) thus putting me out of a nicely mechanical post), I'm sure I detect a hint of wistful regret Robin: # No need to work out the primes in advance $max = ($ARGV[0] || 100); $[ = 1; @primes = (2); %tics = (2, ':'); %decomps = (2, '2'); newprime(2); print "ticX 2 = $tics{2} [ $decomps{2} ]\n"; for $n (3 .. $max) { if (!defined($tics{$n})) { push(@primes, $n); $index = $#primes; $tics{$n} = "($tics{$index})"; $decomps{$n} = $n; newprime($n); } print "ticX $n = $tics{$n} [ $decomps{$n} ]\n"; 1111

} sub newprime { my ($n) = @_; for $m (2 .. $max) { if (defined($tics{$m})) { $tics{$m*$n} = "$tics{$m}$tics{$n}"; $decomps{$m*$n} = "$decomps{$m} $n"; } } } # If you take the slight liberty of saying 1 is the zeroth prime # and represent 0 by the empty string, then you can do away with ':'. $max = ($ARGV[0] || 100); @primes = (); %tics = (); %decomps = (); for $n (1 .. $max) { if (!defined($tics{$n})) { 1112

push(@primes, $n); $index = $#primes; $tics{$n} = "($tics{$index})"; $decomps{$n} = $n; newprime($n); } print "ticXm $n = $tics{$n} [ $decomps{$n} ]\n"; } sub newprime { my ($n) = @_; for $m (2 .. $max) { if (defined($tics{$m})) { $tics{$m*$n} = "$tics{$m}$tics{$n}"; $decomps{$m*$n} = "$decomps{$m} $n"; } } } So that would give you ticXm 0 = then 1113

ticXm 1 = () [ 1 ] ticXm 2 = (()) [ 2 ] ticXm 3 = ((())) [ 3 ] ticXm 4 = (())(()) [ 2 2 ] ticXm 5 = (((()))) [ 5 ] ticXm 6 = (())((())) [ 2 3 ] ticXm 7 = ((())(())) [ 7 ] ticXm 8 = (())(())(()) [ 2 2 2 ] ticXm 9 = ((()))((())) [ 3 3 ] ticXm 10 = (())(((()))) [ 2 5 ] You could allow for infinite numbers by having infinite strings that satisfied recursive equations, eg: X = (X) would be satisfied by (((((((( ... )))))))) and X = :X would be satisfied by :::::::: ... Although it would make much sense to try and work out which was the larger infinity (as you can with ordinals), the two examples are nontheless distict infinities, as the first is a prime number whereas the second is a power of 2. Nick Land: uc, Robin - [processing] 1114

Robin: My second comment was bollocks. Given that concatenation of strings is multiplication, the empty string mustn't be 0, as you'd never be able to tell if a number had been multiplied by 0 or not. Whereas if the empty string is 1 then this doesn't matter. This would leave 0 unrepresentable: $max = ($ARGV[0] || 100); @primes = (); %tics = (1, ''); %decomps = (1, 1); for $n (1 .. $max) { if (!defined($tics{$n})) { push(@primes, $n); $index = scalar(@primes); $tics{$n} = "($tics{$index})"; $decomps{$n} = $n; newprime($n); } print "ticXn $n = $tics{$n} [ $decomps{$n} ]\n"; } (newprime as before) This gives: ticXn 1 = [ 1 ] ticXn 2 = () [ 2 ] 1115

ticXn 3 = (()) [ 3 ] ticXn 4 = ()() [ 2 2 ] ticXn 5 = ((())) [ 5 ] ticXn 6 = ()(()) [ 2 3 ] ticXn 7 = (()()) [ 7 ] ticXn 8 = ()()() [ 2 2 2 ] ticXn 9 = (())(()) [ 3 3 ] ticXn 10 = ()((())) [ 2 5 ] (Shame the comment system here mucks up the spacing.) northanger: i don't think these things work. i usually use periods to space stuff. here's another idea tho (testing...) ok! first idea worked: use " " - remove quotations. it works so well, lol! &.nb.sp; (remove periods) Nick Land: Robin - yes, your tic-less tic xenotation carves out an interesting diagonal between VNO / TXv1.0 - excellent contribution to polysemiotic delirium On comparison of systems, obviously we have to get beyond zero-sum brutal darwinian survivalism - it's not as if we have to 'choose' a single 'winner' - different semiotics optimize along different dimensions. TX features of special interest include: 1) Cryption (use of primes and decryption matrices align it with cryptographic problematics) 2) Rhythm (drawing on non-metric (and obscure) pattern of prime distribution) 3) Semiotic economy - this topic divisible into at least two parts: (a) notational 'base' (VNO also v. strong here), (b) expressive concision (this source of VNO impracticality, except as logico-demonstrative tool, since even a machine intelligence would be swamped by a numeracy whose expression increased exponentially relative 1116

to the numbers expressed). 'Practicality' worth examining at greater length, but one ateleological criterion is sheer propagative power: 'pulp potential'. Agree, of course, that 'abstract practicality' a crude and misleading idea. As far as Surreal Numbers are concerned, seems there are quite a lot of them ... Robin: Thanks, northanger. $max = ($ARGV[0] || 100); @primes = (); %tics = (1, ''); %decomps = (1, 1); for $n (1 .. $max) { if (!defined($tics{$n})) { push(@primes, $n); $index = scalar(@primes); $tics{$n} = "($tics{$index})"; $decomps{$n} = $n; newprime($n); } print "ticXn $n = $tics{$n} [ $decomps{$n} ]\n"; } sub newprime { my ($n) = @_; 1117

for $m (2 .. $max) { if (defined($tics{$m})) { $tics{$m*$n} = "$tics{$m}$tics{$n}"; $decomps{$m*$n} = "$decomps{$m} $n"; } } } ticXn 1 = [ 1 ] ticXn 2 = () [ 2 ] ticXn 3 = (()) [ 3 ] ticXn 4 = ()() [ 2 2 ] ticXn 5 = ((())) [ 5 ] ticXn 6 = ()(()) [ 2 3 ] ticXn 7 = (()()) [ 7 ] ticXn 8 = ()()() [ 2 2 2 ] ticXn 9 = (())(()) [ 3 3 ] ticXn 10 = ()((())) [ 2 5 ] Nick Land: Robin - think you've hit the fundament - don't see how notational economy could be pushed any lower without mindless tallying. You going to name this thing (without triumphalistic TXv2.0-type nomenclature's ;))? How about 'Nullotation'? 1118

Aesthetically, i'd favour emphasizing the absent inner '0' with a space ['( )' rather than '()'] to mark the founding deletion of unity supporting the whole machinery. TX machine-processible into Nullotation by find-and-replace ':' with '( )'. Assuming VNOs similarly notationally evacuable, since the zeroes/empty set markers have no semiotic value beyond '( )'. Intriguing emergence into apprehension of a whole array of such 'pure plex' semiotics ... Reza Negarestani: Hey, guys ... i regret that i accepted so many projects this month; before lurking off: 1. Robin, please feel free to rename the new links at the crypromat section. 2. i cast my vote with Nick; open '( )' [with an evaporating W] instead of the standard and digitally bugless '()'. '( )hole complex' rocks ;) See “Machines are digging” Nick Land: Reza - "( )hole complex" - absolutely u/c: btw, in case any (quite understandable) confusion (in fact, it's almost a crime against hyperstition to admit this) - "Robin" is not me (uc), but even more bizarrely, another Robin who I know but I haven't met for over 15 years (and, actually, never met sober). > 0 unrepresentable isn't this a MAJOR problem... Nick Land: uc - "0 unrepresentable" - this from where? On the 'other Robin' - kind of bemused that 2 Robins would be simultaneously programming pure-plex number systems, but hey: 'coincidence engineering' (or hyperhoaxing) u/c: 0 unrep. in nullotated TX2, according to Robin. Yes, I'm still somewhat overwhelmed by coincidence explosion (but it's true that although it was never mentioned as such, in former life of sitting around parks in Cambridge, we were both equally reliant on blocking out the mundane world through 1119

alcohol-abuse until such time as noumenopocalyptic calculus became available and made life worthwhile). Realise would be the most futile imaginable gesture to 'deny' a hoaxing charge at Hyperstition HQ...LOL. The guy's obviously a better Perl poet than me, anyhow ;) Nick Land: You make a good team :) Don't think '0' problem need be too oppressive, nullity dilates to swallow unity, making the system deeply zerotic u/c: btw re Surreal Numbers - it's Conway's Surreal Numbers you want...this is a nice brief expo: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SurrealNumber.html this is a more indepth intro (but in PDF!): http://www.tondering.dk/claus/surreal.html But Badiou's version as you can imagine has a different bias (but - so he claims - he doesnt make any substantive mathematical changes) TX2+ Nick Land (February 28, 2005) Some additional tic talk resources: Undercurrent's Tic Matrix of the first 500 clusters can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20061004005347/http://www.urbanomic.com/cgibin/ticx.pl Also from Undercurrent, first nine Von Neumann Ordinals, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20061004005347/http://www.urbanomic.com/cgibin/sets.pl 1120

Still hungry? Vauung's Tic Matrix of first 127 primes follows: First 127 Ordinated Primes, with Tic Xenotation, in accordance with plex-precedent cluster-ordering (lexicographic cipher '(:)'). [001] 002 = : [020] 071 = (((:))::) [039] 167 = (((:):)(:)) [002] 003 = (:) [021] 073 = ((::)(:)) [040] 173 = (((:)):::) [003] 005 = ((:)) [022] 079 = ((((:))):) [041] 179 = ((((:):))) [004] 007 = (::) [023] 083 = (((:)(:))) [042] 181 = ((::)(:):) [005] 011 = (((:))) [024] 089 = ((:):::) [043] 191 = (((::):)) [006] 013 = ((:):) [025] 097 = (((:))((:))) [044] 193 = ((((:)))::) [007] 017 = ((::)) [026] 101 = (((:):):) [045] 197 = (((:))(:)(:)) [008] 019 = (:::) [027] 103 = ((:)(:)(:)) [046] 199 = (((:)(:)):) [009] 023 = ((:)(:)) [028] 107 = ((::)::) [047] 211 = ((((:))(:))) [010] 029 = (((:)):) [029] 109 = ((((:)):)) [048] 223 = ((:)::::) [011] 031 = ((((:)))) [030] 113 = (((:))(:):) [049] 227 = ((::)(::)) [012] 037 = ((:)::) [031] 127 = (((((:))))) [050] 229 = (((:))((:)):) [013] 041 = (((:):)) [032] 131 = (:::::) [051] 233 = (((::))(:)) [014] 043 = ((::):) [033] 137 = ((((:)))(:)) [052] 239 = (((:):)::) [015] 047 = (((:))(:)) [034] 139 = (((::)):) [053] 241 = ((::::)) [016] 053 = (::::) [035] 149 = (((:))(::)) [054] 251 = ((:)(:)(:):) [017] 059 = (((::))) [036] 151 = ((:)(:)::) [055] 257 = ((((:)))((:))) [018] 061 = ((:)(:):) [037] 157 = (((:)::)) [056] 263 = ((::):::) [019] 067 = ((:::)) [038] 163 = ((:::):) [057] 269 = ((:::)(:)) 1121

[058] 271 = ((((:)):):) [080] 409 = (((:))::::) [101] 547 = ((((:):):)) [059] 277 = ((((::)))) [081] 419 = ((:)(:)(:)(:)) [102] 557 = (((::))(:):) [060] 281 = (((:))(:)::) [082] 421 = ((((:):)):) [103] 563 = (((:)(:)(:))) [061] 283 = (((:)(:):)) [083] 431 = ((((:)(:)))) [104] 569 = (((:):):::) [062] 293 = (((((:)))):) [084] 433 = ((::)(:)::) [105] 571 = (((:))(::)(:)) [063] 307 = ((::)(:)(:)) [085] 439 = (((::))((:))) [106] 577 = ((::::):) [064] 311 = (::::::) [086] 443 = (((::):):) [107] 587 = (((::)::)) [065] 313 = (((:):)((:))) [087] 449 = ((((:)):)(:)) [108] 593 = ((:)(:)(:)::) [066] 317 = (((:::))) [088] 457 = ((((:))):::) [109] 599 = (((((:)):))) [067] 331 = (((:::))) [089] 461 = (((:):::)) [068] 337 = (((::))::) [090] 463 ((((:)))(:)(:):) [110] 601 ((((:)))((:)):) [069] 347 = (((:)(:))(:)) = = [111] 607 = (((:)::)(:)) [091] 467 = (((:):)(::)) [112] 613 = ((::)::::) [092] 479 = (((:)(:))::) [113] 617 = ((((:))(:):)) [093] 487 = (((((:))))(:)) [114] 619 = ((:::)(:):) [073] 367 = (((::)(:))) [094] 491 (((((:))(:))):) [115] 631 = (((:)(:))(:)) [074] 373 = (((:)::):) [095] 499 = (((:))(:::)) [070] 349 = (((:))(::):) [071] 353 = ((((:))::)) [072] 359 = ((:)(:):::) [075] 379 (((:))((:))(:)) = [076] 383 = ((:::)::) [077] 389 = ((((:)))(::)) = [116] 641 = ((((:)):)::) [117] 643 = (((:):)(:)(:)) [096] 503 = ((:):::::) [097] 509 = ((((:))((:)))) [098] 521 = ((::)(::):) [078] 397 = (((:):)(:):) [099] 523 ((((:)))(:)(:)) [079] 401 = (((((:))):)) [100] 541 = (((:))((:))::) 1122 = [118] 647 = ((((::))):) [119] 653 = (((::))(::)) [120] 659 = (((:))(:):::) [121] 661 ((((:)))(((:)))) [122] 673 = (((:)(:):):) =

[123] 677 = ((((:):))(:)) [124] 683 = (((((:))))::) [125] 691 (((:))((:))((:))) 1123 = [126] 701 = ((::)(:)(:):) [127] 709 = ((((((:)))))

Comments: TX2+ northanger: great! ok, how do these map to pandemonium? is it done by mesh number? ok, i've got it. (well, i think i do anyway) Nick Land: northanger - Pandemonium coming, honest! "ok, i've got it" - care to share? northanger: yeah, yeah yeah. um, find north star (polaris) and place gentle Lurgo there since she's in the "center" of the zodiac wheel and represents 32nd path (told ya she was important!). give me a couple of hours to check my math. LURGO {(Terminal) Initiator - Amphidemon of Openings} GEMINI 18º to GEMINI 26º Fixed Stars.................... http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/new_page_1.htm HAEDI I 18GEM38 (Charioteer) HAEDI II 19GEM27 (Charioteer) NIHAL 19GEM40 (Hare) BELLATRIX "Amazon Star" 20GEM57 (Orion) ARNEB 21GEM23 (Hare) CAPELLA 21GEM51 (Charioteer) PHACT 22GEM10 (Columba) MINTAKA 22GEM24 Delta (Star in Orion's Belt) EL NATH 22GEM35 "Shur-narkabti-sha-iltanu" (Taurus) ENSIS 22GEM59 "Sword Sheath" (M42, The Great Orion Nebula) 1124

HATSYA "FA" 23GEM00 (Orion) ALNILAM 23GEM28 Epsilon (Star in Orion's Belt) MEISSA 23GEM42 "Shining One" (Orion) ALNITAK 24GEM41 Zeta (Star in Orion's Belt) AL HECKA 24GEM47 Tien Kwan, the "Heavenly Gate" Nick Land: northanger - keep forgetting you count in Sumero-Babylonian ;) past time you got some back-up here on the whole 360(º) thing - lack of cosmo-visual imagination largely to blame ... (do you own a telescope?) northanger: do you own a telescope? - nope. first problem: i do need help mapping the p-demons to the zodiac because they handle the (a) gates, (b) primes, (c) lotus (right now you got the spheres, but not the paths). i've been dealing with a 22-letter alphabet, not 28 (ABJAD). 22 x 22 = 484 484 / 44 = 11 possible way to map 44 of the p-demons and place LURGO as THE gate (no attributes, no letter, no nothing). so what is the alphabet? 22 or 28 letters? those build the gates. or, maybe there's another way to do this. oh gosh! give LURGO 6 letters and have her create the holy hexagram thingy. which 6 letters? http://www.cyberaxis.net/assets/imgs/northanger/220/484-array.gif {white diagonal is LURGO space} another problem: using the ordinal values of the first 484 primes, arrange them in a table where the columns and rows equal the same number. that scramble will give you the correct PRIME SET for Pandemonium. 1125

next problem related to this: leaving Lurgo out of the equation, what are the 22 Pandemonium Pairs? when you have the 22 P-Demon pairs you can then assign a 22-letter array to each pair. ie, 1st of the pair begins at LURGO, second continues the array (black and gold diagonals). hope this makes sense to you as the VNO makes sense to me. :) Nick Land: northanger - "22 x 22 = 484, 484 / 44 = 11" very neat, and tastefully traditionalistic ;) "so ... or, maybe there's another way to do this" - that's what carriers are for, polytrack experimentalism ... lots here v. suggestive "which 6 letters?" - Lurggo (or Lurgho)? "using the ordinal values of the first 484 primes" - ordinal values? PS. No telescope?! northanger: argh. ok, what i can do tonight, since i have no telescope, is plot them to the zodiac. Nick Land: you're probably missing all kinds of cosmic tadpoles and stuff ... #00-LURGO ~ GEMINI 18º–GEMINI 26º #01-DUODDOD ~ GEMINI 26º–CANCER 04º #02-DOOGU ~ CANCER 04º–CANCER 12º #03-IXIX ~ CANCER 12º–CANCER 20º #04-IXIGOOL ~ CANCER 20º–CANCER 28º #05-IXIDOD ~ CANCER 28º–LEO 06º #06-KRAKO ~ LEO 06º–LEO 14º #07-SUKUGOOL ~ LEO 14º–LEO 22º #08-SKOODU ~ LEO 22º–LEO 30º 1126

#09-SKARKIX ~ VIRGO 30º–VIRGO 08º #010-TOKHATTO ~ VIRGO 08º–VIRGO 16º #011-TUKKAMU ~ VIRGO 16º–VIRGO 24º #012-KUTTADID ~ VIRGO 24º–LIBRA 02º #013-TIKKITIX ~ LIBRA 02º–LIBRA 10º #014-KATAK ~ LIBRA 10º–LIBRA 18º #015-TCHU ~ LIBRA 18º–LIBRA 26º #016-DJUNGO ~ LIBRA 26º–SCORPIO 04º #017-DJUDDHA ~ SCORPIO 04º–SCORPIO 12º #018-DJYNXX ~ SCORPIO 12º–SCORPIO 20º #019-TCHAKKI ~ SCORPIO 20º–SCORPIO 28º #020-TCHATTUK ~ SCORPIO 28º–SAGITTARY 06º #021-PUPPO ~ SAGITTARY 06º–SAGITTARY 14º #022-BUBBAMU ~ SAGITTARY 14º–SAGITTARY 22º #023-ODDUBB ~ SAGITTARY 22º–SAGITTARY 30º #024-PABBAKIS ~ CAPRICORN 30º–CAPRICORN 08º #025-ABABBATOK ~ CAPRICORN 08º–CAPRICORN 16º #026-PAPATAKOO ~ CAPRICORN 16º–CAPRICORN 24º #027-BOBOBJA ~ CAPRICORN 24º–AQUARIUS 02º #028-MINOMMO ~ AQUARIUS 02º–AQUARIUS 10º #029-MUR ~ AQUARIUS 10º–AQUARIUS 18º #030-NAMMAMAD ~ AQUARIUS 18º–AQUARIUS 26º #031-MUMMUMIX ~ AQUARIUS 26º–PISCES 04º 1127

#032-NUMKO ~ PISCES 04º–PISCES 12º #033-MUNTUK ~ PISCES 12º–PISCES 20º #034-MOMMOLJO ~ PISCES 20º–PISCES 28º #035-MOMBBO ~ PISCES 28º–ARIES 06º #036-UTTUNUL ~ ARIES 06º–ARIES 14º #037-TUTAGOOL ~ ARIES 14º–ARIES 22º #038-UNNUNDDO ~ ARIES 22º–ARIES 30º #039-UNUNUTTIX ~ TAURUS 30º–TAURUS 08º #040-UNUNAK ~ TAURUS 08º–TAURUS 16º #041-TUKUTU ~ TAURUS 16º–TAURUS 24º #042-UNNUTCHI ~ TAURUS 24º–GEMINI 02º #043-NUTTUBAB ~ GEMINI 02º–GEMINI 10º #044-UMMNU ~ GEMINI 10º–GEMINI 18º 01 + 22 = 23 11 + 12 = 23 21 + 02 = 23 02 + 21 = 23 12 + 11 = 23 22 + 01 = 23 03 + 20 = 23 13 + 10 = 23 23 + 45 = 68 04 + 19 = 23 14 + 09 = 23 24 + 44 = 68 05 + 18 = 23 15 + 08 = 23 25 + 43 = 68 06 + 17 = 23 16 + 07 = 23 26 + 42 = 68 07 + 16 = 23 17 + 06 = 23 27 + 41 = 68 08 + 15 = 23 18 + 05 = 23 28 + 40 = 68 09 + 14 = 23 19 + 04 = 23 29 + 39 = 68 10 + 13 = 23 20 + 03 = 23 30 + 38 = 68 1128

31 + 37 = 68 36 + 32 = 68 41 + 27 = 68 32 + 36 = 68 37 + 31 = 68 42 + 26 = 68 33 + 35 = 68 38 + 30 = 68 43 + 25 = 68 34 + 34 = 68 39 + 29 = 68 44 + 24 = 68 35 + 33 = 68 40 + 28 = 68 45 + 23 = 68 23 + 68 = 91 = ADEPT = AOUR = BURN = CHANT = CHAOS = FLASH = GIMEL = HANDS = HORN = JESU = LAMAS = MAUT = MELEK = MESHA = MU'AT = NADIR = SACRE = SUFI = VAHAN = WANGA Nick Land: northanger - 23, 68?? u/c: 1-100 in Robin's far more efficient, and nullotated, program for TX2, is here: http://www.urbanomic.com/cgi-bin/tic2.pl I've added the holes too :) The apparently semiotically trivial removal of the actual tics ( ':' symbols) definitely takes the relation with VNO notation to different places.... ...but would be interested in exploring the nature of the 'reducibility' of TX2 to VNO (this would bring us right up against the 'materiality' of the primes) Nick Land: uc - for sure. PS. Why has 'TX' suddenly become 'TX2'? Also, 'Nullotation' short for 'Nullified Xenotation' hence '0X' unless anyone cares to argue to the contrary. u/c: TX2=Nullotated TX=OX= OK, whatever! has anyone read 'the collector' by John Fowles? Just a warning: don't let Nick take you into the basement to show you his collection of numbering systems. Azer: has anyone read 'the collector' by John Fowles? 1129

Years ago, i loved it. u/c: ...and now you're living it, LOL! Fowles "The Magus" one of the greatest works of novelistic hyperstition IMHO Tachi: guys and gals. we desperately need a glossary to provide instant access to the concepts and terms being used on the site. looking at the side bar on the home page i actually think we are creating more questions - 'what is ...?' i mean, most of these words have been made up in the blog - nothing wrong with this level of creativity but i feel the sire risks becoming too clicky for its own. without clear references to original posts in which many new terms emerged, a glossary is severely lacking. anyone on the case? wish i could help but feel a bit lost myself .. site ... for its own good ... (and sorry not sure where this is best posted ... hence also suggested bulletin board) northanger: Tachi - "a bit lost myself" - you must be joking. that would actually make things worse if the dynamic duo ever got around to creating such an animal. they would have so much fun changing the meaning every now and again. without notice. Nick Land: Reza will clear everything up when he gets back ... Agree on need for glossary - i'd even forgotten what 'futhnorking' is ... northanger: nick - [sigh] you said "deranged futhnorking gnosis of pythagorized extraterrestrialism" about northanger :( it's obvious piet & northanger should go to another blog. we're so un(der)appreciated in the hyperstitional realm. you & tachi can be really condescending sometimes. you sniff-nosers. futhnorking - hmm. fu[th]nor[king] fu[king]nor[th] not nice. nice not. 1130

Tachi: CONDESCENDING=WAR-AS-A-MACHINE (233) UNAPPRECIATED=FIGURE IT OUT (250) ;) northanger: FIGURE IT OUT: WAR-AS-A-MACHINE = SITUATING THE DISCUSSION Nick Land: northanger - think you're confusing 'futhnorking' with 'northfrikin futhnorkery' - the latter has an undeniable edge of condescension about it, but the former is respectful almost to the point of psychotic idolization ... as you are well aware, when referring to your meticulously constructed hermetic system (though as yet only a mere presentiment of the veritable cathdral of astral science to come - gawd glory!!) as a "deranged futhnorking gnosis of pythagorized extraterrestrialism" i was under a great deal of stress and thus perhaps expressed myself - just for a moment - in terms that failed adequately to convey my sincere appreciation of your titanic efforts :)) PS. Tachi's getting pretty damn good at the AQ battles, dontcha think? northanger: nick - your clever side-step manoeuvres with slippery astrofied neolemurian futhnorkisms will get you nowhere. as far as tachibana is concerned, his limp numerology only leaves me searching a thousand plateaus. how disgusting. can we please pin down WAR-AS-A-MACHINE in the hyperstitional endeavor (um, if there is one). Europocalypse Soon Nick Land (February 28, 2005) Steyn cuts straight to the chase. [Editor’s Note: The article by Mark Steyn no longer exists at the Sun Times website, even via the Wayback Machine. The comments provide enough context to make its inclusion valuable.] 1131

Comments: Europocalypse Soon Tache: Steyn: "CIA analysts predict the collapse of the EU within 15 years...Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up...Europe's problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025." Nick, is this hyperstitional in any way? Can't think how, unless Steyn is one of your carriers designed to make your morbid fantasy (read fiction) of Eurocollapse real. Interesting nevertheless. But I would like to see some more evidence, figures etc on the impending collapse. There are genuine economic crises on the horizon but I would like to see the economic factors teased apart from a general sentiment that apocalypse is immiment. And collapse of the EU is probably not what you have in mind (total economic and political meltdown into warfare chaos). Can you give any more pointers for reading re. the europocalypse? Growing numbers of Muslims oops, yes, "Growing numbers of Muslims" - a tad tainted to suggest that Europe is totally swarming with (breeding) radicalized fanatics? Nick Land: Tachi - this is a giant ongoing topic with zillions of refs - i post this stuff occasionally 'cos i worry people here aren't getting both sides of the story. As for it being Hyperstitional - IMHO all forecasting is intrinsically related to H., with conflicting virtual futures targeted by occulted technosorcerous wars ... And as for wanting more detailed analysis, of course - if it can be polytracked with a hyperstitional framework so much the better (i'd also genuinely like to know, what are the Eurotranzis seeing up the road?) piet: http://www.time.com/time/europe/html/050228/story.html life at the frontline (In Antwerp, the far right is facing off against muslims. Who's winning? BY VIVIENNE WALT) 1132

Time article: “true Americans.” – of course Time is an advocate of and believer in true americans like all the groups I enumerated above are brimming with belief (psychotic commitment) to purity of one sort or another --- that Americans are the sort of mercenaries and imperialists who take pride in being such to the same extent there is no viable reason to is the reason they point at poor little europe and in that sense, Nick, you’d make a splendid American. Nick Land: P - "poor little europe" - :) "Nick, you’d make a splendid American" (just wanted to hear it again) P - time-compression apocalypticism definitely overdue for introduction, key dimension of Templex Hyperstition (intensive bino-exponential time-implosion). Thanks. Tachi: Piety, Ol' Nick, 'time-compression apocalypticism' only *slightly* different than flower power 'ascensions of consciousness' though. Think they are fundamentally opposed prognoses. piet: Personally go for rock/time decompression – the enlightenment has never yet had its concomitant, delumpage, physical work out acknowledged and implemented except in fragile and spotty homeopathic fashion http://www.pmac.net/rockdust.htm Know your rock type, don't choose mono minerallic rocks such as quartz thinking they will contain a broad range of minerals. Ask a geologist or your quarry manager what the rock type is and access material which has the consistency of talcum powder. The finer the powder the greater the surface area that can be attacked by soil acids. http://www.championtrees.org/topsoil/soil.htm The ideal natural form to feed elements to soil is as the insoluble minerals available from finely ground up rocks. To maximize the conversion of rock minerals into protoplasm and plant nutrients, the best strategy is to grind the rocks to powder. This increases the surface area of rock that is exposed and accessible to soil microbes. A normal fist size rock has a surface area of a few square inches, but ground to the consistency of fine sand, the rock has a surface area of several thousand square feet. This means microbes can much more rapidly access and consume the rock's minerals, and thus more rapidly digest them into plant nutrients. The finer the rock is ground, the greater the exposed surface area, and the more rapidly the soil microbes will digest it. 1133

Tachi: Nick "i post this stuff occasionally 'cos i worry people here aren't getting both sides of the story...i'd also genuinely like to know, what are the Eurotranzis seeing up the road?" Thanks for the reference for sure. Glad to read around too. Not so sure about 'both' (ie just two) sides though. Aren't there journos who are cynical on 'the' two fronts? Indeed, is it possible to take an 2+nth stance at all? I suppose this depends on what kind of pragmatic position one can take, politically, economically etc. Or is the notion of two sides notsomuch about the war but about fates? Is the US's fate redeemable and Euroland's not? Is this because of a link to the approach to the WoT, or are these different fates independent from WoT and more connected to domestic economic and political choices? In any case, both Europe and the US face the prospect of decline in the face not of Islam but of the rising powers of Asia. The WoT is a distinct issue dividing the US and Europe, but the rising power of Asia is something that faces them both. This is why Asia's relationship to the WoT will be crucial for the US-Europe connection in the near future. "all forecasting is intrinsically related to H., with conflicting virtual futures targeted by occulted technosorcerous wars ..." Intrigued by this remark, please expand. Henry Miller: Mark Steyn also forecast the end of Iraqi resistance by new year 2004 and that OBL would be found dead. FFS just go direct to Spengler if you want to boradcast this kind of trash. Heinrich Himmler: If it's hyperstitionally effective, where's the harm? deb: http://debfrisch.com/archives/000083.html Heh. A jewish lesbian with a phallic tongue if ever i read one as a teazer I present the second (of 3) comment(s): What I allege Rabin and Arrow showed (although they did not put it this way) is that allowing "non-linear utilities" but NOT "non-linear probabilities" leads to paradoxical predictions. 1134

Normatively, if you're going to have DMU, you need to have non-linear probabilities also. This goes against the conventional wisdom in economics and decision science where non-linear utilities are seen as RATIONAL but non-linear probabilities are seen as IRRATIONAL. deb: we need to invite this lass over, look, she's got hyperstitional talents: Mencken published this on 7.26.1920. 7x2x6=84. 84+1920=2004. A prophesy? Nick Land: Tachi - (P.s good on polarization.) Wars have two sides, so everyone understands the real hyperstitional fork: Is is a war? (WWIV to be precise). If 'no', then 'multilateralist kumbaya reigns, if 'yes' then 'neutrals' (most loudly and obnoxiously, Old Europe) will come to seem like the Swiss or Swedes of WWII (or Indians of WWIII) Since the 'reductio ad hitlerum' rule has alsready been broken by some moron, no reason to inhibit myself from saying (Old) European politics basically fascist in infrastructure, with a fragile and unconvincing democracy grafted on by the Americans and other Anglosphere allies after WWII - it's the default option over there, leading both to domestic stagnation (allergy to 'liberal' (Anglo) and 'cosampolitan' (Jewish) market economy) and international infamy (supporting / triangulating with / popularly identifying with IIIrd Reich / Soviet Communism / Islamofascism / whatever other antimarket + antiamerican insanity gets cooked up next) Rise of Asia is great opportunity for free socieities. Why should economic competition lead to decline? opposite is the case (Japan totally re-invigorated US industy durring 1980s) more ... Henry Miller - so he scores under 100% - whaddya want, Nostradmus? piet: item 112 at debs has a new next door commenter to mine and the link he left will convince you that frauelein frisch and family attracts hyperstitious struts, straps and paraparsables http://www.no-treason.com/archives/2004/07/27/hello-simon-kittay-disprovesaustrian-economics/ 1135

or at least tanite anyway Nick - works by beckerath and rittershausen were dramathically reported to be on Bruening's desk when ousted by Hitler and were thus sent into dormancy but if you're interested in competition it's time to revive them. Nick Land: piet - thanks for debfrisch (South(west)paw) ref - looks like an excellent site (she even mentions the great Stephen Pinker) also liked your geopolcalypse ideas - related to Rezoid dust dynamics dontcha think? AND the Beckerath and Rittershausen stuff looks fascinating ... this is beginning to worry me Ned Sherrin: He was far better on Loose Ends, when he knew his limits. Nick Land: Tachi - "Intrigued by this remark ..." Nexus comprising SF-scenarios, historical impetus, discounted economic outcomes (actualized as current prices in market economies), political prophecies, religious prophecies ... surely at the (dead) heart of hyperstition - think this 'megahistory' dimension of H. requires first of many explicit posts (although '(Islamic) Apocalypticism' line and other elements already touched upon (e.g. Petropolitics) beginning to prefigure important aspects) As (emergent inhuman) polytics and topic for (pitifully confused anthropian) politics, hyperstition accesses the virtual (future) to wage war against the present - it is highly unlikely, therefore, that it conforms to a single programme or even ideologically consistent set of programmes, more plausibly it is an abstract weapon available to many different factions and strategies (although perhaps escaping them along its own vector of Renomu-type autonomization ('Skynet-scenario')) Hoping to draw Infinite Thought in - just about the only leftist in the blog neighbourhood who knows the difference between making a case (/asking interesting questions) and unleashing reflex abuse (/shoring-up comforting ego-structures) Ned Sherrin: She puts great store by logical consistency so I shouldn't bother hanging around. Tachi: Nick - "hyperstition accesses the virtual (future) to wage war against the present" 1136

What kind of 'war' are you talking about? Is this *in* the future, or already present? If present, we should be able to draw out the battle lines. Global vs local? Democracy vs authoritarianism? U.S. vs jihad? ...? "it is highly unlikely, therefore, that it conforms to a single programme or even ideologically consistent set of programmes, more plausibly it is an abstract weapon available to many different factions and strategies" If the virtual (future) is already a multiplicity of programmes, factions and strategies, then how can you talk of *two* sides to the war? The 'vs' I mention don't seem to add any value to the discussion, since it seems the site of conflict is already multiple and cross-cutting. Nick Land: Tachi "what kind of war?" - depends on the agency considered, you already point to a number (of interlocked) possibilities. Main thing for now is to recognize that such polemical architectures exist and thrash them through, rather than mouldering resentfully in the collapsing ruins quasimarxist utopianism or relapsing into an indolent conservatism blind to potential historical catastrophes of unbounded radicality (artificial Armageddon, Shoggothic insurgency, Pest incursion ...) To rephrase the question: How does the agitation polarize? That's where strategies are at work, with various forces attempting to re-install the marxian class war model ('antiglobalization'), the vichyesque eurofascist 'third way' ('antiamericanism'), Jihad ... seems to me these are all 'Anticapitalist uprisings' of various kinds ('reactionary spasms' in my book), but don't want to leap to hard conclusions (hoping, probably in vain, for a discussion on the subject). Every hyperstitional megasystem has to bring its own way of war along with it, since by accelerating the consolidation of a particular future it inevitably dispels numerous others, with those that fight 'back' providing enemies (and effective enemies necessarily mobilizing technosorcerous powers). Personally, i want my tentacles back, and don't see anything other than Oankali arrival (improbable) or the most ruthless technocapitalist species mutation offering that ... VDH on topic: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006350 1137

achi PS. Apologies if post above gives impression i'm barking at you, that's an illusion attributable to the goyaesque phantasmatic leftists flapping perpetually around my head (and receiving just enough sustenance from our visiting trolls to reproduce themselves) Tachi: Excellent feedback and references as always Nick. Would pay you a handsome sum for your bookmarks ;) Whilst this topic may be only tentatively related to Hyperstition for some (note lack of other contributors in the thread, save Piet, who is sprawling himself all over the blog), I do think marco-H is as important as micro-H, from the PoV that the planetary stage is really the only stage right now. The planetary scale is the key scale from my PoV, and the emergent picture is riddled with hyperstitional lines that are converging hyperstitionally themselves - China's rise is one of the best examples of a hyperstitionally emergent reality, and how this is locked into other hyperstitional entities - anti-americanism for example - is really yet to be seen. Jihadism, WoT/"anti-jihadism"?, anti-U.S.ism, anti-globalization - all hyperstitional 'systems' as you put it - strangely mostly "anti" something - all involving a fuelling, or hyperstitional creation, of enemy entities. Which is why China - and India - are especially interesting, since their ascension is hyperpositive. Coming back to an issue pertinent to hyperstition in general - what wouldn't count as a hypersitionally emergent entity? Nick Land: Tachi "what wouldn't count as a hyperstitionally emergent entity?" this question potentially very productive - IMHO 'emergent entity' already opens the space for a hyperstitional approach, whatever the specific domain, since what is at stake is the precipitation of a virtuality, with attendant 'hyping' or 'boosting' vs negative counterparts, dependent on the agencies/strategies engaged. Technocapitalist globalization hypersensitizes these events, since economic/information flows accentuate the process - no one any longer thinks 'hyping' is simply reducible to captivation by an epistemological false belief, since the investment generated has at least a measure of 'self-fulfilling' nonlinearity. 1138

Take a simple example: people buy into the Europe-going-to-hell 'story', investment and tourism fall, emigration of skilled workers rises, suicide, disabling depression and alcoholism increase, Al Qaeda decides to seize the opportunity ... demoralization (by an impending 'future' or efficient scenario) hastens the outcome that was forecast ... Of course, these hyperstitional / feedback / templex dynamics operate within complicated and constrained circumstances that make any notion of 'bending reality to the will' highly problematic ('fascist epistemology' according to Sauceruney (spelling?) on PKD), markets are corrected by reality when the wander too far into delirium while ideological dreams + fanaticism rarely triumph against resolute realism. However, such nonlinearities indisputably occur, with advertising, PR, promotion campaigns, cultural agitation, propaganda, psy-ops + associated fields of activity existing solely because persuasion makes a difference, 'voodoo death' does happen, social prestige boosts physiology, beliefs are causal factors ... IMHO the most common 'hyperstitional' effect is an exaggeration of certain deeply rooted trends, leading to catastrophic collapse and other such 'tipping point' phenomena by introducing excitatory nonlinearities that intensify/accelerate the trend - for instance, when a regime after reaching a point of unmistakable but sedate decline is stricken by relatively sudden mass libidinal disinvestment and 'implosion' (the European near future?) Also on Euro economy: http://www.techcentralstation.com/030105D.html concentrates on macroeconomics, where the microeconomic story ultimately far more important, but point it makes about the US trade deficit interesting and contra CW piet: hey antipodian heaperstichionettes http://indymedia.org.nz/feature/display/25623/index.php Nick Land: piet - NZ is Australia's Canada piet: oops, dropped a stiTch there Tachi: Nick - your 'simple example' is useful, and honestly think what you have written today has a value for anyone interested in H. 1139

Re. non-H emergence - think there is scope for distilling true hyperstitional emergence from non-hyperstitional emergence. How would this be done – or what would make this possible? The emergence of new organizational structures - biology, geology, for example from lower level strata do not seem to exhibit the hyperstitional dimension that technocapital does. I think there is a case for the view that hyperstition is not just a motor (or, better, mode) of reality production, but is a product itself - i.e. a singularity with space-time coordinates. Otherwise, all emergence would be seen as hyperstitional. But how would you formulate the evolution of bacteria into sexually reproductive organisms in hyperstitional terms? How would the original emergence of language in human beings take advantage of hyperstitional strategies? If there is a difference between H as a producer and as a product? This may just be to recognise H as an mode of reality production which itself emerged. Which brings us to the interesting issue of human agency. It would appear that though H does not depend on individual agency – ego – it does nevertheless depended on the human species for its summoning in the world of social organization associated with technocapital. infinite thought: I'm here, snooping in the wings. Give me a bit, just got up (yes, I know how late it is). Nick Land: Tachi - need time to process your q.s 'Time' is the issue, and my rotting subbasement of fungal heideggerianism needs thoroughly cleaning out before risking a response ... infinite thought - yeeeaghhg (Dean-style) infinite thought: Might return to our unfinished discussion from the Gog/Magog post here too, as similar enough to warrant resurrecting like a dead crow I think... A lot of my questions would be similar to Tachi's, though probably not the Hyperstitional ones (although I think am beginning to get a grasp on what you all mean by this). 1140

Not going to ask you why you think Pinker (bad Chomsky+bad Darwin=toss) is great, but am intrigued as usual by the end-times scenarios and the projected machinations of the big three: Islam(no state!)-US-China. Was having a conversation the other day with an ex-leftist professor, let's say, and he posited two futural (hyperstitional?) claims regarding China: 1. That, as in one of Nick's scenarios, Chinese people buy into the Europe-going-tohell 'story'. Literally. Instead of investment and tourism falling, though, Europe becomes a giant theme park for Chinese tourism (assuming holidays get upped) - you can't put a price on history, especially when it's over. 2. That China will kill my grandchildren. At the point at which he said this, he was fairly drunk (pre-empting the depressed alcoholic old europe path, no doubt). Is this really right I wondered. If they can eke out a humble living pretending to pack boxes in a fake tourist factory village for Chinese visitors, then that wouldn't be so bad. But if Europe really will be the united states of Islamia (though muslim pop currently seems to be about 1.4% of UK and 2.8% of Europe, though don't tell me.. there'll be some massive population explosion + huge immigration - yeah right, have you seen what we're up to in this regard lately - in the next few years - yet my muslim students seem eminently convinced that they'll grow up to be successful western-style business folk with little time to procreate, but that's by the by), then will the Chinese really be happy to visit? Or will they just purge the place and leave the pretty churches and dinky high-rises empty, the ghost of Europe past? Or breed authentic Italians, Spaniards, Irish and so on in specialy constructed labs to work in these places? Um...wait, will come back to this.... Tachi: IT - interesting nuggets for thought. Can well imagine Europe becoming a Chinese-tourist mecca, though not sure how this squares with q. of actual immigration and muslim population explosion. Don't think the Chinese give a flying F about muslims, but sure the noveau riche Chinese romanticise all things European - fake vineyards, 'chateaux', all being built in China right now, plus 'classic' style homes, interior furnishings etc all totally 'in'. So seems that there is still plenty of ground for China and Islam to meet, not mentioning in the Western regions of china and in Central Asia. Nick Land: infinite thought - response delayed mostly until i get into work - guess you'll be asleep again by then, but: 1141

Pinker - definitely going to have to slug that one out sometime (have you actually read the guy, rather than denunciations by lying PC pricks?) Muslims - lots of interesting demographic debate potential (i'm genuinely unclear about the picture, and even sympathetic to idea that next gen. 'Bush-Muslims' will be better democratic capitalists than 'native Europeans'). Nevertheless, find your figures implausibly low, and think multicult-bureaucratic dishonesty of panicking govts should be factored into calculations (if only to widen zone of uncertainty) China - scary to world i know (maybe 1.6 billion pop (ignore official figure), 10% annual growth, incredible determination, fairly passionate ethnic nationalism, and weird culture foreigners find hard to understand (what, no God?)). Under current circumstances though (State WMD in other hands - without which how the hell could Eastern Russia NOT become Chinese?) it's hard to see how implicit power gets practically transformed into actual dominion - so rise of Chinese superpower going to be extremely interesting on theoretical grounds. Total Eurodisney idea kind of cute, so long as its not radioactive ... Tachi's point, China + Muslims, too intrictate, multilevel and conflicted to respond to immediately Also read 'Carnage and Culture' before dissing Hanson - the guy actually knows stuff ... infinite thought: good stuff here - unfortunately back to sleep again (fuck the human OS, as someone else probably wouldn't say). But yes, have read a fair bit of Pinker liked his stuff on language for ages until I realised it was based on a total misunderstanding of Darwin and populations: most people don't like Stockhausen therefore Stockhausen is bad for the brain..therefore, er, procreation...just nonsense. I dunno who these 'lying PC pricks' are, but I doubt I read them! their prose is probably not nearly inticing enough. I'm not anti-evolutionary psych at all, but when it's totally arbitrary and reactionary via bad reasoning I just can't read it any more. Got the muslim figures from pro-muslim websites, so doubt they were underplayed. Am perplexed by the somewhat hysterical 'they're gonna breed!' rhetoric of that guy you posted - it just seems motivated by reasons other than the realistic. But like the idea of 'scientifically informed reason' a lot. I'll be back, just have to 'nail' this next chapter and then I'll be hyperstitionally free..woohoo... 1142

piet: pinker the crimson stinker: http://debfrisch.com/archives/000105.html Madam Curie didn't 'believe in it either but ... remind me . ..how did she die again? Nick Land: piet - your last one is absurd even by your dadaistic standards, but then why let the fact Curie never came within decades of depleted uranium get in the way of a cheap shot? US economy: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050301facomment84201-p0/david-h-levey-stuarts-brown/the-overstretch-myth.html infinite thought - haven't read much Pinker yet, just The Blank Slate, but so far it's a torrent of interesting ideas, tentative scientific rationality (largely the hypothetical mode with lots of space for opponents), polymathic references (with all i recognize treated admirably) + devastating (but scrupulously underheated) exposure of the stalinist blank slate mafia (supercilious 'PC pricks' such as the Roses and their howling student stormtroopers) who have attempted to violently shut-down free enquiry in the field ever since EO Wilson outrageously proposed that humans are higher primates ... On demographics - i've not got any sympathy with decadent populations heading for extinction with "the evil savages are breeding, the horror, the horror" on their lips but that doesn't mean i think the topic is unimportant, being dealt with honestly, or that your interpretation of probable bias on a 'pro-muslim website' is anything other than perverse Ned Sherrin: I did warn you. Nick Land: infinite thought - "this next chapter" ?? been told i've been 'barking' - apologies if true BUSH = (yet a goddamnother) 86 (which Northanger knew last October ...) infinite thought: Pinker against the 'stalinist blank slate mafia': he gets this mostly from Chomsky, I'm afraid, whose attack on empiricists and behaviourists has persisted since the 1950s (funny, I had you down as some kind of odd libertarian/ behaviourist hybrid - if this is possible - don't be offended!). I suppose you recognise the Chomsky influence - but Pinker goes too far in drawing unwarrented conclusions 1143

from the minimal conclusions about language drawn from his work - for example, giving all manner of spurious reasons for the unpopularity of atonal music - 'our brains like harmonies'! Next chapter - of my thesis. I am not going to tell you what it's about, otherwise you truly will think me 'perverse'. And not in an interesting way. Anyway, it's still not finished, so can't really say anything today. But when I give it in tomorrow I will return, foreign-policy guns blazing, for more virtual antlering about... Agree about importance of statistics, will post more about this in detail later, later. Didn't think you were barking - wouldn't matter if you were. In fact I like being offended and attacked as often as possible, it sharpens the blood! It's better, perhaps, when the person attacking me is the other side of the world behind a computer screen..... Tachi: ‘Pinker=bad Chomsky+bad Darwin=toss’ – IT – where do you get the Chomsky-Pinker link? Can’t see the connection at all – Chomsky has an axe to grind against the American government, and makes his ‘case’ vs the political establishment without any clear or practical alternative; Pinker is lucid and robust about dispelling the PC-mythology that sadly Chomsky is a part of. As for bad Darwin – what do you expect from Charles? He only debunked the greatest PC myth of all. “intrigued as usual by the end-times scenarios and the projected machinations of the big three: Islam(no state!)-US-China.”– me too – ‘end-time scenarios’ really captures my interest in Hyperstition. Interested though in how you see these three relate. IT - "Pinker against the 'stalinist blank slate mafia': he gets this mostly from Chomsky, I'm afraid, whose attack on empiricists and behaviourists has persisted since the 1950s" - please elaborate - from what I have read, and confess v. little of Chomsky's linguistics though tad more of Pinker - can't see how innate structures have to be implied from a well-thought through attack on 'social conditioning'. infinite thought: Talking about Chomsky's limguistics work here, not the politics (he himself stresses that they do not relate in any obvious way). Dunno if I would call Chomsky's politics PC either, but that's another thing entirely and wouldn't want to turn Hyperstition into a Noam debating society... Well Islam-US-China....who the hell knows really. I'm mostly intrigued by what Nick says as regards their varying fortunes (at least as a starting point). The Foreign Affairs 1144

piece seemed to be downplaying US potential collapse, but if China is on the up, and Europe is becoming increasingly Islamic (not convinced at all about this last point, but will return to this later), then will we get to see some kind of monstrous threeheaded encounter?...plus, what will happen to all that US debt in the hands of China etc.? And are we talking about economics here, or religion, or what? Anyway, must go for now. our posts crossed there, and I meant 'linguistics' of course (!) you wrote: 'can't see how innate structures have to be implied from a well-thought through attack on 'social conditioning'.' It's the other way round, surely...there's a somewhat simplistic account of the relation between Chomsky and Pinker here (apologies if you find it a bit basic): http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/reviews/Harris-Pinker.pdf Pinker goes further than Chomsky cos he wants to remain an evolutionist, whereas Chomsky puts the question to one side, which I why I think Pinker makes some questionable moves regarding the 'use' of certain capacities - sure sign of a bad evolutionary thinker...and his jokes are terrible too. Tachi: Just read that review - pretty scathing. Haven't read the Language Instinct, and to be honest would be surprised if Pinker really is that one dimensional - i.e. reducing language completely to innate structures and denying learning etc. From The Blank Slate it seems he is very well aware of the interplay between cultural and biological factors. Still, I'll have to read more and resume this with you another time. Back to Europe and apocalypse ... Rising tides of angry muslims, increasingly xenophobic white youths, maddening cries of welfare-dependent-minded old farts, declining productivity ... Reza Negarestani: Nick, I think all the entities in your anti-capitalist list (Jihadism, Eurofascism, etc.) are not basically restricting the techno-capital; without these anomaly-inducer pests, technocapitalism is all emptied of its peripheral potential and surface[1]-to-edge (or surfaceto-surfactant) transformations, thus falling into the gravitational textum of the core (even becoming an unconventional ontotheologic entity towards terrestrial inevitability of the worst kind: necrocracy of biophilia, or super-survival economy of affordance). In the absence of Jihad’s Napht hegemony (OPEC’s oligopoly or 1145

oiligopoly, Iran-Europe’s pipeline paradise, etc.), emerging anti-Zionistic euro-militia, pacifist Marxism and whatever, techno-capitalism has no (hyperstitional) ‘trigger’ to hit autonomy and agitate its ‘polytics of periphery’ which if rests for a certain period of time (becoming stagnant according to the periphery-core connection i.e. ‘levis’ and ‘gravitas’) will be stratified and directly modulated by the core, thus eventually become autophagic towards the core not to the outside (the Babylon Syndrome catapults forward.). In addition, these ‘seemingly’ or ‘so-called’ anti-technocapitalist entities not only prevent techno-capitalism from losing its ‘peripheral agitation’ -- which is the initiating phase required for reaching a radical autonomy: the emergence of the Thing -- but also they forge a schizotrategic blade (parallel to the Z.crowd’s unconventional, not too pleasant strategies) out of each line of movement that techno-capitalism undertakes to resist or devour its enemies; these schizotrategic blades no longer belong to techno-capitalism as a planetary entity since they cut open a broad and diverse path for techno-capitalism (and even all its so-called adversaries) to the outside, the cosmodromic capitalism. Each so-called anti-capital entity potentially offers a new blade to the techno-capitalism for cutting into the outside, forcing it to invent new weapons and fuels. If schizotrategic blades which cut into the outside ‘unfold’ in this panorama, it is because techno-capitalism has never been radically liberal or even liberal enough to communicate (in the sense of ‘being open to’) with its antagonists, all it can do is developing the survival economy of its own affordance and at the same time (Faraj is right when he suggests that “they are not even liberal, they cannot even afford us”), confusing its own capacity and affordance mechanisms (sometimes affirming and negating concurrently as in the case of petropolitics / napht-nexus), this is why it has sucked into such a Khattackoid maelstrom with Jihadism, and again it is exactly for the same reason that it may eventually reach radical openness, since each manifestation of affordance is already forging, sharpening and envenoming blades at the outside, brewing up its eventual openness as ‘being opened’. It is because of this atypical affordance (economical openness) that schizotrategic blades open / butcher technocapitalism, impregnating it with the cosmodrome instead of letting it rot and succumb into the core-despotism. Only in openness as being opened, the Outside emerges as the cosmodrome dynamics and not as an object of accommodation or dwelling; The tendency of technocapitalism in the absence of its ferocious and even pacifist antagonists (before reaching a radical autonomy: whether in terms of rising as a Shoggothic insurgency or radical pragmatics of A-Now) is locking into ontological navigation systems of 1146

Survival Economy and the repressing opportunities they offer towards a colonized Outside i.e. lines of escape already softened to form an outside-capturing net. But each anti-capital antagonist involuntarily [2] or through a series of collusions teach technocapitalism a new way to be politically cunning, the most artful but drastically sinister of which is: instead of knitting itself on the Outside through the current consolidated / individuated (in terms of haecceity) assemblage of the Earth (both governed by the self-fertilizing economy of the grund and Tellurian dynamics or becomings), mobilizing and facilitating 'ungrounding polytics' (or as Craig put it "Erathication") for irreversible conjuration of the Tellurian-Omega as a totally expedient space for positively engaging with (or swallowed by) the Cosmodrome’s “Holocaust of Freedom”. However, since technocapitalism takes the ‘tactical’ (within the range of anthropoid sensors) lead in this panorama, a certain kind of delusion has been evolved through technocapitalism and its agencies, making them believe that they are the only protagonists of this flight, and consequently underestimating the potential of furious participation with their adversaries. On the other hand, this hegemonic delusion is schizotrategically positive in confining the capacity and canalizing affordance, that is to say, attracting more opening blades from the Outside. Ok, I know all this needs MORE elaboration but time is short and my ‘losing-theairplane’ paranoia inhibits me from getting into details. See you all next week. [1] Surface doesn’t necessarily mean the crust, the ( )hole complex is swarming with vermicular surfaces of all kind, all chemically / politically active (surfactant; the way J. J. Gibson uses the term), turned into cutting edges. [2] In skirmish-participation, all subjective inputs combine an artificial space based on the transgression (negatively conducted by intensifying affordance instead of reforming it, or making it less economical) of their affordance. btw, will try to collect all these conversations (emerged here at hyperstition or those left at Dread [of corse, if undercurrent gives the permission ;)]) in one post when i'm back from the trip (IMHO, v. useful materials for further explorations). Tachi: Reza - nice to see you in this thread. Think what you are basically saying is that (techno)capitalism systemically thrives on producing, and consuming/subsuming, 'the outside'. At the peripheral zone you say "[e]ach so-called 1147

anti-capital entity potentially offers a new blade to the techno-capitalism for cutting into the outside, forcing it to invent new weapons and fuels." But I would like to question whether there are individuable 'blades'. It seems slightly problematic to suggest that there are individual blades that correspond with the terms 'jihad', 'antiglobalisation', and 'antiamericanism', for example, since all are cocontinuous. Perhaps this isn't key. I can run with the general approach - that Capitalism thrives on the development of infolding the periphery into the centre, which produces or expands the periphery. This is in fact Braudel's concept of Capitalism. But I am more interested in exploring what actually *distinguishes* 'blades'. More importantly, perhaps, I would be interested to hear concrete examples of this theoretical schema: how have concrete antagonist agents colluded, participated, in stimulating Capitalism? I have a problem with remaining in the abstract when this schema is to function as a tool to apply to planetary phenomena. So one question which would bring this discussion to the here and now would be 'in what way has the anti-globalization movement contributed to futhering the integration of trading mechanisms?' This might not be the best question, but then we should ask: 1. What 'blades' can we identify? 2. What would count as a furthering of Capitalism? 3. Can we associate items from list 1. with items on list 2.? Very interested in your comment near the end of your post about the surface being ( )holey, and therefore the relation with the outside being conceived not just as surfaceto-edge (periphery). Still, I think these concepts all need further clarification: - core - surface - ( )holey space - periphery - outside willow: Hmm. I wonder why IT is sucking up to Nick and Co? She's such a slag! 1148

Reza Negarestani: Tachi, Thanks for the analytic questions, just some 'very' brief and unrefined answers; (un)fortunately, the flight postponed to March 4 (so I’ll be at home for less than 24 hours): (techno)Capitalism or planetary capitalism neither produces nor consumes the Outside but it smoothes processes whose ultimate goal is interlocking with the Outside. The Outside (or the cosmodrome) cannot be produced by capitalism, on the contrary capitalism in all its forms is the surfacial agitation caused by participation of the cosmodrome with the planetary sphere. [there are some old conversations on cosmodromic capitalism on the H-blog] But I would like to question whether there are individuable 'blades'. It seems slightly problematic to suggest that there are individual blades that correspond with the terms 'jihad', 'antiglobalisation', and 'antiamericanism', for example, since all are co-continuous. A possible misunderstanding (perhaps my fault: poorly expressed), the blades do not correspond with Jihad or other anti-capitalist entities (they are not themselves blades) but each one sabotages the affordance of the capitalism (through the skirmishparticipation) to summon a new blade (associated with its own internal and exclusive anti-capital machinery) from the outside but they are not themselves blades; they are just different names of summoning. However, at a certain level (when the anticapitalist entity becomes so relentless in its so-called opposition) we can say each one is itself a blade to lacerate the capacity of capitalism based on mutual affordance, leading it an openness through which capitalism latches onto the outside. [think you should grasp the difference between opening lines of openness (introducing openness as being opened) or schizotrategic blades AND accommodating lines of openness [mutual affordance]; my recommendations: ‘sorcerers and necromancers’ series at hyperstition and A Good Meal at cold-me: http://www.cold-me.net/text/meal.html] (note: Undercurrent is also familiar with this difference, he can add a lot of helpful details) since all are co-continuous. In their polemics with capitalism yes, but not in the internal mechanisms that each one exclusively possesses: 1149

For example Jihad burns in the Napht soup and tactically / strategically works through the pipeline system; the napht-nexus induces certain resisting tactics (frantic search for non-fossil fuels, entering in a war with the napht-sorcery of the OPEC, etc; all potentially move towards invention of new weapons or exposing to new blades of the outside) and stealth cooperation (see pipeline odyssey) within and according to techno-capitalism. Anti-globalization, negatively but strategically represses free-trade or communication lines as totally economical mutual affordance (for instance the scenario of Dialogue between Civilizations [henceforth: DbC] which reduces the n-plex diversity of globalization to self-reforming mechanisms of affordance between cultures / civilization), thus making the entire connections network a good meal for butchering lines of openness [1] (more working with ‘being opened’ rather than gliberal ‘being open to’ [see ‘A Good Meal’]). Reformist Islamism which has Europolitical antiglobalization tendencies and is highly interested in DbC, either works with Taghieh in communication with the agencies of Techno-capitalism (thus forming the Diffusing side of the Axis required for the Escalating side which belongs to technocapitalism – see ‘Jihad: The Absent Obligation’ and its following comments) or turns into a secular / pacified Islam which finally provokes the uncompromising Jihadism not only to be anti-capitalistic but also running as a fissional process within Islam ('Terror within Terror': here capitalism should invent two distinct heads, one for a direct assault on uncompromising Jihadism and the other for engaging with the semi-secularized, under-Taghieh or Pacified Islam which is highly contaminative for Europe’s politico-economic interfaces and may breed truly hideous offspring: euroislamist movements which are not necessarily islamic but follow the same islamic guidelines) that Capitalism thrives on the development of infolding the periphery into the centre, which produces or expands the periphery. This is in fact Braudel's concept of Capitalism. I didn’t mean a Braudelian model of capitalism despite my reference to periphery / core connection. The peripheral agitation I’m taking about is not produced by capitalism itself (its intrinsic / internal insurgencies) but by unrests and anomalies that emerge out of the skirmish-participation with anti-capital entities. So this peripheral ‘space’ -- which has already enveloped schizotrategic lines (potential blades) of anticapital entities -- even if reaches the core cannot be captured, grounded, or turned into strata; it engineers a ( )hole complex, making the core malfunctions (stepping out of its governing functions). This mutating techno-capitalism presupposes commotion 1150

and cataclysmic excitements from the other side of itself until it reaches and maintains its own radical autonomy. Will get back to the rest of your excellent questions after returning from the trip. BTW, re. surface-to-edge. Wait for the updated version of ‘Machines are digging: ( )holey space’ [I promise ‘SOON’]. [1] Every instance of affordance (or accommodating capacity) if developed properly in its horizon can invite the butchering lines (blades) of the Outside, reinventing openness as ‘being opened’ not the survival economy of liberalistic ‘being open to’. PS. Tachi, I’m not sure but I guess you have missed a few key articles in regard to Islamic chronopolytics and (non) Apocalypse, diffusive Jihadism, and escalating WoT: Holy War from the other side. Jihad: The Absent Obligation or the Latent Duty Islamic Chronopolytics I: the heresy of the apocalypse Col. West: a renegade delta-trooper or an autonomous machine? Nick Land: Reza - don't think i disagree, but whole discussion complicated by an inevitable variation or inconsistency of 'subject positions' since the Khattakoid commercium (where antagonistic puppets meet as components of an inappropriable machine) perpetually rejects the anthropian (even 'aphidian') ID-fragments which try to cling to it and delect in its 'transcendental' intensities. Discursive positions are constantly recycled into the fray, thus 'I' will variously slate the 'antiglobalization' crowd (or more importantly the Jihadists) viciously from the 'empirical' position of a technocapitalist partisan, while at another phase of the dehumanization spectrum readily admit that it is only through friction, conflict and peripheral agitation that the machine is sucked into the hyperheated extravagances it constructs itself around (in orbit). Hyperstitional fragmentation into carriers is no more than the explicitly formulated programme for what this inevitable polypositionality and polytics wreaks of its own accord ... of course, you're doing what is absolutely necessary for rigorous apprehension of the topic: 'Think the war as a machine' However, think (anonymous) technocapitalism holds a privileged relation to initiative, since its temporality is utterly aggressive ('faster, faster ...' without definable limit hence intrinsic relation to time-implosion), forcing all contestants into a strategically 1151

reactive stance (while it exploits resistances to promote further acceleration of the process, drawing down the Thing from out of the future) ... Reza Negarestani: Khattakoid commercium perpetually rejects the anthropian (even 'aphidian') But doesn’t it feed (as a transient bond) on expendable anthropian agencies as a cheap fuel? Discursive positions are constantly recycled into the fray, thus 'I' will variously slate the 'antiglobalization' crowd (or more importantly the Jihadists) viciously from the 'empirical' position of a technocapitalist partisan Well, that is the way ‘we’ are the puppets of West and Jay: from an empirical position, a techno-capitalist partisan and a shadow-trooper under Taghieh ;) Faster and faster Slight disagreement (or perhaps a misunderstanding from my side) on this blind chrono-torpedo and its line of escape (some doubts expressed in Sorcerers and Necromancers series), but can’t open it right now [time is the only thing that I don’t have at the moment]. can't participate in discussions for a week. best, reza Nick Land:vReza "cheap fuel" [tick] "h. puppets" [tick] "chrono-torpedo" - didn't mean to imply technocapitalist acceleration amounted to an 'escape' on its own - it's more of a megaweapon ... think the Autonomization of the (technocapitalist) Thing needs more attention ... Reza Negarestani: BTW, think from the ‘empirical’ stand point, 'Kaxužicommando' instead of 'shadow-trooper under taghieh' is more concise and direct. ;) Nick Land: A mistress of invisibility in any case ... (Jay i mean) 1152

northanger: AQ 500 = MISTRESS OF INVISIBILITY = SHADOW WARRIOR TECHNIQUES nick, you really must stop. these wonderful numbers are so scrumptious. Nick Land: northanger - not only exquisite, but exactly on topic ... (you're not feeling sick or anything?) northanger: nick - nope. not sick. wrote another post elsewhere: connection got sidelined for a couple of days. at sister's house right now about to be kicked out. :) Nick Land: "about to be kicked out" - find that hard to believe (is she aiming to retain her sanity or something?) northanger: oh shut up, lol. i'm outta here. see ya later. //////////////////////////////////: stolen from pearsell http://onepearsallandhisbooks.blogspot.com/ Cry of the Neocons: "WE WANT EURABIA!" Or at least, that's the impression you get, that they are desperate for some kind of Muslim takeover of Europe to happen, so often do they chant about it and cheerfully distort the facts to support Bat Ye'or's thesis that Europe is on a course to becoming part of the dar al-Islam. One thing that I've always found laughable about many of the right-wing cheerleaders for the Iraq War is that while they cry crocodile tears over the fate of the Iraqi people under Saddam elsewhere they engage in completely unrestrained racism against other Arab peoples. This is especially the case with the Palestinians, where you have to hold your nose when you wade through the comments sections of any stories dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on blogs like Little Green Footballs, and with Muslim immigrant communities in the West, particularly in Europe. I am hardly an unrestrained Islamophile, but elements of the right have completely lost all perspective in regards to Islam and its interaction with the wider world. There is a vein of current right-wing thought that believes that Europe is so decadent that it is on the verge of handing over the continent to sharia and that fifty years hence all that blonde hair in Sweden will be covered in hijab. To this end I find that many of these American 'conservatives' are actively wishing for some kind of terrible collapse 1153

in Europe, into communal war or economic destitution or whatever. Why? I suppose that it's their own childish posturing reaction to the childish posturing of elements of the European left that cheerlead on the possibility of American military defeat/economic collapse. It's ridiculous. Most Americans (and the overwhelming majority of conservative ideologues) are descended from European immigrants, and why these people want their ancestral lands to suffer is simply beyond me. A classic example of this vein of 'ringing the bells for Europe's demise' is Mark Steyn's column from yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times. Here's a bit of it, along with some comments from myself: "The president, in other words, understands that for Europe, unlike America, the war on terror is an internal affair, a matter of defusing large unassimilated radicalized Muslim immigrant populations before they provoke the inevitable resurgence of opportunist political movements feeding off old hatreds. Difficult trick to pull off, especially on a continent where the ruling elite feels it's in the people's best interest not to pay any attention to them." Here's a prime example of the glib fortune-telling about Europe's future that neocons love to indulge in. They're just as bad as the multiculturalists who say that everything is ok and there are no ethnic/religious problems within Europe. Is major communal violence within European countries possible? Yeah, considering the levels of outcry against immigration and the rising strength of right-wing populism in a range of countries, it is not off the cards. Is it inevitable? No. "CIA analysts predict the collapse of the EU within 15 years. I'd say, as predictions of doom go, that's a little on the cautious side." CIA analysts have a great track record recently, don't they? I'll take that one on faith. Thanks, Mark. "But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up." Bush administration officials have certainly shown themselves to be an impeccably prescient group over recent years, too. Thanks, Mark, I'll go with that one as well. 1154

"For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature." Wow. Where do you start from on this one? Europe certainly has a very serious demographic problem, but this paragraph is so stuffed with misleading statements and outright distortions that, well, I'm not sure how exactly to describe it. Randy McDonald has already done sterling work on the role of Islam in Europe's demographic future that is highly recommended reading, but I have a few general points to make about this paragraph of Steyn's. First off, there is the ludicrous pseudo-stat that "by some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025". Which projections? This is ludicrous. The current 25 EU states have a total population of roughly 450 million, and a Muslim population of around 15 million, or about 3%. So, how will 3% magically become 40% in the space of 20 years? I'm assuming that he is including Turkey as an EU member in this period. Currently, Turkey's population is just over 68 million, of whom over 99% are nominally Muslim. So, if Turkey was admitted to the EU tomorrow, the Muslim proportion of the European Union would soar from 3% to 16%. However, you can not include Turkey in this figure without also including Romania and Bulgaria, both of which are due to join the EU in 2007, and whose presence drops the Muslim population of a putative EU 28 to slightly over 15%. And this is not even counting predominantly Christian nations such as Croatia and the Ukraine that could, quite conceivably, be part of the EU in 2025. In the interests of fairness, in order to find the total Muslim population of 'Europe' (minus Russia) I added to the EU 25 population the populations of Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Albania, Serbia & Montenegro, Ukraine, Belarus, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Moldova. Ultimately, I came up with a figure of 635 million for these 36 countries, with a Muslim population of roughly 90.5 million, or just over 14% of the total. Of course, many of these countries are not going to be joining the EU in the next 20 years (I certainly don't see Belarus, Albania, or Moldova joining), but I still do not see how the Muslim population percentage can possibly hit 40%. Consider that fertility rates 1155

within Muslim immigrant communities have been dropping down towards those of native groups (see figure 8 here), and that many countries, especially Holland and Denmark, have recently been consciously reducing migration levels, and I simply can not see any possibility that in the next 20 years the Muslim population will swell by such an epic rate. It will certainly grow, but it is a bald-faced lie to throw out the 40% figure as a likelihood. Secondly, mosque attendance in Britain has not overtaken church attendance, it has overtaken Church of England attendance, which is not surprising, because the CofE is a decaying entity that no longer really stands for anything. Catholic attendances are still higher than mosque attendances (although down from what they once were) and African immigration has revitalized Evangelical Christianity in Britain. "Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent. And there you go. This is something that he wants to happen. bogstandard: right on //. what is this shit? typical us propaganda too to talk about unsustainable 'welfare' etc. it's like when they get a break from numerology they engage in a little light fascism. wankers Nick Land: //// - reason neocons are dancing on the virtual grave of europe (realistically or not) is quite simple: according to the basic right-wing outlook on the world (based on incentives at every level), what gets punished is discouraged, while what gets rewarded is encouraged. The idea that europe's treacherous and morally supercilious appeasement-based policies could reap any result but catastrophe is thus considered a repulsive one. bogstandard too trollish to deserve even indirect response, but his short outburst contains such a compressed gem of ignorant prejudice it is actually something of a masterpiece (certainly if 'fascism' is taken as anything more than a troll fart) - know who invented 'welfare' boggy? didn't think so ... by the way, 'them' is 'me' (don't think any of the other hyperstitionalists would want to see themselves arbitrarily congregated by a half-wit who can't read a byline) bogstandard: Yes, of course I didn't actually read any of it! where would I find the time? It's just the general flavour of your discourse Nick, it's kinda nasty. don't like 1156

you. but I liked ////// hence the post - no, hyperstasis members are not fascist. I retract that. they're nerds. but their lofty rejection of democracy is quite dangerous I think. Nick Land: /// - lots of interesting stuff in the text you reproduce, but IMHO the only truly sharp-edged one viz Steyn is the demography discussion, which i think still lies ahead here (thanks for passing on McDonald's name, will check it out). Won't say more on this yet, except hoping a realistic, rigorously informed and open-minded discussion on the topic in prospect. No one could be more cynical about govt esp. CIA predictions than Steyn, in fact he makes pretty much identical point to this commentator in previous article, so as a fisk-point it falls quite flat. As for issue already touched upon - why do 'neocons' want to see Europe burning? This sentence interesting: "Most Americans (and the overwhelming majority of conservative ideologues) are descended from European immigrants, and why these people want their ancestral lands to suffer is simply beyond me." 1) Americans fled from despotic persecution, so the notion of ancestral attachment is far from straightforward. 2) 'Suffering' not at all the issue IMHO (they're 'suffering' now from social decay, pessimism, bitterness and justified suicidal self-loathing). What is hoped for is change in the direction of liberty, and only hard economic lessons seem able to bring that about, since (as our trolls regularly demonstrate) reason seems to entirely disappear when it comes to the sacred cows of Eurosoc.ia.list decadence. 3) Since 'Old Europe' is strategically determined to invest its energies in frustrating US policy, undermining its security, giving comfort to its enemies, inspiring its internal leftist constituency (and thus aiming to subvert its constitutional freedoms, dynamism and prosperity), sabotaging the world economy through CAP-driven trade restrictions, waging proxy war against it in Israel and (probably more through negligence than malice) nurturing international islamofascist terrorists in its cities, it's hard to see how any friend of the US could be other than delighted in the misfortunes of the Eurocratic high command (while hoping they will eventually be replaced by market-oriented vertebrates with a sense of global responsibility). 1157

northanger: "BUSH = (yet a goddamnother) 86 (which Northanger knew last October ...)" oops, missed this one. allow me to introduce you to asteroid Pecker (take a bow dudester). named after Jean-Claude Pecker, former general secretary of the IAU. "pecker" american slang for certain (remaining unmentionable) 86ers. yesterday, Pecker (08Ge39) was conjunct asteroid Helionape and fixed star Aldebaran in Gemini and mapping (using my personal astroschizoity) to the 31st prime (127) and pandemon Nuttubab: terrestrial electromagnetism. which means that TE = one "hot blooded man". ok, so our prez likes to take out his pecker & his ruler and prove to all: see, mine *is* bigger! //////////////////////////////////: would love to talk about this as i find it fascinating but don't actually know anything, at all. that's why i used someone elses writing instead of saying anything myself. i decided to give up talking about things i don't know about. i suggest you invite pearsall over as he loves this stuff and he's wel-informed A punter: Are you an ideologue or a philosopher, Nick? Some of us, Hyperstition notwithstanding, still cling to that distinction. Pearsall Helms: hi, it was my blog posting that Luka pasted on to here. You can see the whole thing here: http://onepearsallandhisbooks.blogspot.com/2005/03/cry-of-neocons-we-wanteurabia.html and the comments (if you want to go directly to them) are here: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/pearsall/110963231177614434/ Nick, you're right. The sentence you've pulled out is the weakest part of my whole response. In the update to my post I agreed with a commenter who raised your first point plus I added "I think that there's also a domestic partisan angle that they are working from. Sectarian/ethnic war and/or economic collapse in social democratic Europe would provide a handy stick with which to beat the (relatively) Europhile Democratic Party. It would give them a banner to wave as they dismantled the final remnants of the New Deal and the Great Society programs. A Europe where, 1158

theoretically, the great cathedrals became mosques would provide an intense boost to the siege mentality of American 'muscular Christianity', to the idea of the American believer as a lone soldier in a world overrun by heresy, infidelity, and unbelief." That's just a quick starter, I'm reading through this thread (there's a lot to take in) and so I'll get around to the rest of your points soon. northanger: We are all just prisoners here Of our own device And in the master's chambers They gathered for the feast They stab it with their steely knives But they just can't kill the beast Tachi: Nick - you can access blogspot sites from the PRC. First go to http://www.fastbot.com/ - then for this particular site search "we want eurabia". The first reference that you see should be the one. Click on "Open anonymized". Voila. Nick Land: Tachi - thanks Tachi: Nick - for some reason the link might fail - esp from anonymized window to next anonymized link - but keep the original fastbot search results list open and work from there again - a pain but the only thing I can think of. Maybe U/C can shed some light? 1159

March 2005 Nullified Xenotation Nick Land (March 3, 2005) Before topics wander away from the recent xenotation carnival the contribution from Robin (confusingly/coincidentally 'the other Robin' - not regular numbomechanic uc) on the TX2 thread definitely merits a celebratory post. [I have taken the liberty to engage in some vocabulary tinkering, so my presentation here is eminently contestable] By radicalizing the ordinal plexing, used by Barker to convert a binary cumulation semiotic into the original Tic Xenotation, Robin completes the evacuation of all notational elements other than plexing itself. In his new Nullified Xenotation or 'Nullotation' ('0X'), nothing remains except pure plexion, recursive infolding of a desolated protonomic space (an unformed, unrepresentable 'matter'). The initial 'digits' proceed: [2] ( ) [6] (( ))( ) [3] (( )) [7] (( )( )) [4] ( )( ) [8] ( )( )( ) [5] ((( ))) [9] (( ))(( )) While bound togther with TX by strong formal isomorphy (0X substitutes '( )' for TX ':'), the consumption of unity by zero, and complete break from the privileging of binary powers, opens the exploration of a highly distinctive numerical field - where an immense desolated body without features (fusing 'one' into 'zero') is intricately perturbed by waves, ripples, or foldings to constitute a Natural infinity. And AQ seems to like it: (ZERO = UNIT) = TRUE 1160

Comments: Nullified Xenotation northanger: nick - asteroids ZERO & PRIME are conjunct in Aquarius near fixed star OCULUS in the Capricorn constellation. at the risk of being OT (i'm on another computer here) it should be noted that OCULUS means "eye" and it was an eye doctor (Dr. Martin Nowak in Michelfeld, Germany) who discovered the recent largest prime number. #7919-PRIME {09Aq13} [OCULUS] • Compass Rose: SW by S • 3RD EYE CHAKRA {Anja} • DISTANCE: 218º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 6: INTELLIGENCE of the MEDIATING INFLUENCE–The SIXTH (Original #6) Path is TIPHARET (Beauty) = VI The Hexad (Sices) :: EON PHASE: 23 (Phase Arc 216º ~ Waning Bi-Quintile) : Exploration, Skillfull Creative Power, Plumbing Depths, Actualizating • [[ TX Prime [020] 071 = (((:))::) ]] #28-MINOMMO [AQUARIUS 02º–AQUARIUS 09º] ~ ZONE 8::0 Webmaker: Amphidemon of Submergance; 8th Door (Limbo); Shamanic voyage (dream sorcery and mitochondrial chatter). #4321-ZERO {09Aq45} [OCULUS] • Compass Rose: SW by S • 3RD EYE CHAKRA {Anja} • DISTANCE: 218º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 6: INTELLIGENCE of the MEDIATING INFLUENCE–The SIXTH (Original #6) Path is TIPHARET (Beauty) = VI The Hexad (Sices) :: EON PHASE: 23 (Phase Arc 216º ~ Waning Bi-Quintile) : Exploration, Skillfull Creative Power, Plumbing Depths, Actualizating • [[ TX Prime [020] 071 = (((:))::) ]] #28-MINOMMO [AQUARIUS 02º–AQUARIUS 09º] ~ ZONE 8::0 Webmaker: Amphidemon of Submergance; 8th Door (Limbo); Shamanic voyage (dream sorcery and mitochondrial chatter). ps. asteroid PRIME's number (7919) is the 1,000th prime number. plus, switch asteroid ZERO's number and you get: ZERO, 1, 2, 3, 4. Nick Land: northanger - all this without a telescope? OT, you? [maybe missed the prime thread?] "asteroid PRIME's number (7919) is the 1,000th prime number" - cool, is that deliberate? "#4321-ZERO" works just fine for me ... northanger: nick - "cool, is that deliberate?" - haven't figured out how they number things, but it could be. as far as naming things, asteroid ANNALAURA can be viewed a number of ways. 1161

"all this without a telescope?" - it's difficult, but somebody's gotta do it. i use a papertowel cardboard as a telescope. but an empty beer glass works lots better. thought this connection between NULLIFIED XENOTATION, BLADES and CUT/CUTTING interesting: magic sword of muramasa is from the game of GO; in particular, it is "a colorful name for a joseki". From wikipedia, "joseki" means "set stones", "set pattern" or "set sequence" and involves GO opening game strategies. here's the gematria: AQ 400 = NULLIFIED XENOTATION = MAGIC SWORD OF MURAMASA AQ 460 = THE MAGIC SWORD OF MURAMASA = AXIOMS OF HYPERSTITION = INTRO TO HYPERSTITION AQ 202 = MAGIC SWORD = ABJAD SHIELDS = MECHANOMICS = WAHHABISTIC AQ 159 = MURAMASA = DEADLY GAS = THE AEONS = AETHYRS AQ 123 = JOSEKI = BINARY = THE GON = IPSOS muramasa is the name of a famous japanese swordsmith. the blades were legendary for their sharpness and mythically cursed for a series of murders and suicides. a variation of this joseki was played in 1931 by one of GO's 20th century masters: Go Seigen (who's name, some have said, meant he was born to play the game of GO). AQ 220 = DANIEL C BARKER (220 is another Thelemic number) AQ 358 = SCHIZOTRATEGIC BLADE = DANIEL C BARKER AQ 150 = PLEXING = CHECKMATE AQ 227 = XENOTATION = TRUE THELEMA AQ 238 = NUMBOMECHANIC = BARKER-SPIRAL AQ 286 = ORDINAL PLEXING = TIC XENOTATION GON1 91 = EVACUATION OF ALL NOTATIONAL ELEMENTS = DIVIDE, ADD, MULTIPLY AND UNDERSTAND = NICKLANDREZANEGARESTANI correction: GON1 79 = SCHIZOTRATEGIC BLADE = DANIEL C BARKER 1162

Nick Land: northanger - despite explanatory notes, "MAGIC SWORD OF MURAMASA" is a little hard to take ... GoN# IMHO badly in need of some real knock-down demos (you know, 'greatest hits'), otherwise pervasive sense of utter randomness will persist. (Did the guys who 'invented' this gematria uncover anything remotely consequential with it?) northanger: nick - just equate the GON stuff to more deranged futhnorking gnosis on my part. however, the GON crew did a lot of solid research. but maybe it's the AQ stuff that may need some "real knock-down demos" -AQ 400 = NULLIFIED XENOTATION = MAGIC SWORD OF MURAMASA = MECHANICAL IMPERFECTION Nick Land: northanger "solid research" ??? "Maybe it's the AQ stuff ..." Grrr "MAGIC SWORD OF MURAMASA" - glad to see this still doing stirling work northanger: "solid research" ??? -- absolutely MAGIC SWORD OF MURAMASA = I'M MECHANICAL PERFECTION -- still doing stirling work come to think of it, GON also does a form of decimal reduction. that's economical isn't it? crunch/reduce in one step. Nick Land: "GON also does a form of decimal reduction. that's economical isn't it? crunch/reduce in one step" - it's going to take more than a clever side-step manoeuvre to get you off this hook - what 'solid research?' (assuming some kind of blasphemous spider-god rites ...) northanger: nick - "it's going to take more than a clever side-step manoeuvre" - why thank you. "what 'solid research?' (assuming some kind of blasphemous spider-god rites ...)" nicky, all you care about is khattakoid schizschisms, the naildownable & a weird ababbatokian quest to resurrect number using semioteconomy. leaving you ill1163

equipped to fully appreciate the minommoid finer threads of the arachnaids. such is The GON. you wouldn't appreciate this either: in English Rose Cabala ABABBATOK (Abracadabra) = FOUR-ONE-EIGHT. Nick Land: northanger - slippery astrofied neolemurian futhnorkisms will get you nowhere ... northanger: nick - "nowhere" - um, from a thelemic (and chaotic too methinks) standpoint, nowhere is a good place to go. let's check the number's shall we? NOWHERE = WARWICK (gee, they have nice tadpole thingys, that should be a good place to go) NOWHERE = GOLDEN AGE (nuff said) NOWHERE = BASEMENT - aaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Nick Land: ... ever get that Dawn of the Dead feeling? northanger: XENOTATION = DAWN OF THE DEAD yup. AQ 227 = ( )HOLE COMPLEX = AXSYS-CRASH = CONTINUISM = DAWN OF THE DEAD = EYE OF HORUS = GOD HAS WILLED = PAY TRIBUTE = SARCOPHAGUS = SCIENTISTS = THE ABSOLUTE = THE SON OF GOD = TIME ANOMALY = TRIBE OF JUDAH = TRUE THELEMA = XENOTATION TIME = ALPHA = DEATH = JINN = NEMO ANOMALY = END OF MAN = GOG MAGOG = HUGULU = SEKHMET ANOMALOUS = 223 WOLF MOON = AND THE OMEGA = DEAD LEMURS = IBLIS-DURGA = TRUE WILL = UTTUNUL ANOMALOCARIS = ALPHANUMERIC = LAW OF THELEMA = PLEROMA & VOID = TAKFIRI CULT = THUNDER MIND = TIME CIRCUIT = UNLIFE OF WAR 1164

CAMBRIAN = AXSYS = CTHONIA = GROUND = I AM DEATH = PABBAKIS CAMBRIA = BABALON = BOBOBJA = DECIMAL = NAGUAL = NAVIS = SHAMAN = THE END = URIEL CAMBRIAN DEPOSITS = CHAOTIC XENODEMON = ECHIDNA STILLWELL = END OF EVERYTHING = OBSESSED WITH Y2K = SEMIOTIC TRIGGER = THE WAY TO SUCCEED notes: asteroid ANOMALOCARIS unusual sea species from cambrian period. full "wolf" moon occurred on 23-Feb PST. an "anomaly" - is a "deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule". asteroid ANOMALOCARIS (and CAMELOT) position during moon-antares occultation had it 156° from fixed star YILDUN. #8564-ANOMALOCARIS {07Sg35} [TOLIMAN] • Compass Rose: SE by S • ROOT CHAKRA {Muladhara} • DISTANCE: 156º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 9: PURE OR CLEAR INTELLIGENCE–The NINTH (Original #9) Path is YESOD (Foundation) = IX The Ennead (Neufs) :: EON PHASE: 17 (Phase Arc 154.18º ~ Waxing Tri-Septile) : Recognition, Interplay of Forces, Self-reflective, Attunement • [[ TX Prime [014] 043 = ((::):) ]] #21-PUPPO [SAGITTARY 06º–SAGITTARY 13º] ~ ZONE 7::0 Break-Outs: Amphidemon of Larval Regression; 7th Door (Akasha); Dissolving into slime (masked horrors); Chthonic swallowings. asteroid CHURCH (ecclesia in greek): #10343-CHURCH {26Vi17Rx} [COR CAROLI]• Compass Rose: E by N • HEART CHAKRA {Anahata}• DISTANCE: 85º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 12: INTELLIGENCE of TRANSPARENCY–The TWELFTH (Original #31) Path from Malkuth to Hod = ATU I THE MAGICIAN = MERCURY = BETH :: EON PHASE: 9 (Phase Arc 80º ~ Waxing Bi-Novile) : Lichtung, Ground of Operation, Maturation, Swift Growth • [[ TX Prime [008] 019 = (:::) ]] #12-KUTTADID [VIRGO 24º–LIBRA 01º] ~ ZONE 5::2 Ticking Machines: Cyclic Chronodemon of Precarious States; Prowls Hold-Current; Maintaining balance (calendric conservatism); Exhaustive vigilance. KUTTADID = BABYLONIA in latin, you can think of ANOMALOCARIS as a-1165

333 = DEVIANT CRUSTACEAN asteroid CHURCH {26Vi17Rx} is 85º from YILDUN - very close to 86. asteroid RHIANNON {27Vi28Rx} is 86º from YILDUN; RHIANNON means "queen" in welsh. TX Primes are grouped into threes correlating to the "magic square" of the 31rayed star. the 86th PRIME NUMBER is 443 and is grouped with the following PRIME SERIES: 4 / 51 / 86 = PRIME NUMBERS: 7 / 233 / 443. in GON, 51 = BABALON and during the moon-antares occultation asteroid BABYLON {04Le38Rx} was at TX Prime [004] 007 = (::). #15417-BABYLON (IRAQ) {04Le38Rx} [PRAESAEPE] • Compass Rose: NE by N • THROAT CHAKRA {Visuddhi} • DISTANCE: 33º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 14: ILLUMINATING INTELLIGENCE–The FOURTEENTH (Original #29) Path from Malkuth to Netzach = ATU III THE EMPRESS = VENUS = DALETH :: EON PHASE: 2 (Phase Arc 0º ~ Waxing Semi-Sextile) : Germination, Emergent, Fluid, Coming into Focus, Trad vs. New • [[ TX Prime [004] 007 = (::) ]] #05-IXIDOD [CANCER 28º–LEO 05º] ~ ZONE 3::2 The Zombie-Maker: Amphidemon of Escape-velocity; 3rd Phase-limit; Crises through excess (micropause abuse); Illusion of progress (out of the frying-pan into the fire). #16912-RHIANNON {27Vi28Rx} [COR CAROLI] • Compass Rose: E by N • HEART CHAKRA {Anahata} • DISTANCE: 86º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 12: INTELLIGENCE of TRANSPARENCY–The TWELFTH (Original #31) Path from Malkuth to Hod = ATU I THE MAGICIAN = MERCURY = BETH :: EON PHASE: 9 (Phase Arc 80º ~ Waxing Bi-Novile) : Lichtung, Ground of Operation, Maturation, Swift Growth • [[ TX Prime [008] 019 = (:::) ]] #12-KUTTADID [VIRGO 24º–LIBRA 01º] ~ ZONE 5::2 Ticking Machines: Cyclic Chronodemon of Precarious States; Prowls Hold-Current; Maintaining balance (calendric conservatism); Exhaustive vigilance. another way of looking at this: RHIANNON is on PRIME SERIES: 8 / 55 / 78 = PRIME NUMBERS: 19 / 257 / 397. in AQ 55 = ADAM = IDEA = MAN and 110 = IDEA MAN = BABALON. ----------------------------------------------888 = EXTINGUISHED, EXPIRED, EXTINCT DEVIANT CRUSTACEAN DR 24 = THE UNFRAGMENTARY NON-ATOMIC FACT OF MY UNIVERSALITY 1166

http://lilytears.com/spirituality/thelema/bookoflaw/i.htm 24 = EA = O EA is the ancient sumero-babylonian god of the "sweet waters" and one of the creators of mankind. he was attended by ishtar (venus) & the bird ANZU (or, ANZU was the valet of ELLIL) – “Pazuzu (The Dust Enforcer)” reza's post has a link to "The Pazuzu-Humwawa-Asmodeus Connection" -PA=RIVER, ZU=WISDOM, TO KNOW. 555 = EXTINGUISHED, EXPIRED, EXTINCT = HIDDEKEL, THE EASTERN RIVER OF EDEN #2174-ASMODEUS {09Le49Rx} [PRAESAEPE] • Compass Rose: NE by N • THROAT CHAKRA {Visuddhi} • DISTANCE: 38º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 14: ILLUMINATING INTELLIGENCE–The FOURTEENTH (Original #29) Path from Malkuth to Netzach = ATU III THE EMPRESS = VENUS = DALETH :: EON PHASE: 3 (Phase Arc 0º ~ Waxing Decile) : Revelation, Pivot/Decision Point, New Qualities, Differentiating • [[ TX Prime [004] 007 = (::) ]] #06-KRAKO [LEO 06º–LEO 13º] ~ ZONE 4::0 The Croaking Curse: Amphidemon of BurningHail; 4th Door (Delta); Subsidence, heaviness of fatality. asteroid ASMODEUS {09Le49Rx} is 5° from BABYLON on the same path & prime; but different p-demon & phase arc. BABYLON is emergent and ASMODEUS provides the revelatory pivot point. ------the "sweet waters" of EA are related to the link in the TOO MUCH MATHS? referring to SALTWATER KEYNESIANS AND THEIR SWEETWATER CRITIC my astro system takes a macro event (global or astronomical) and crunches a bunch of planetary and star positions. everything *does* connect to everything. the critical issue is determining where the "problem" and its "solution" are located in any given spread. still working that out, but one idea involves the union of fire and water: ANTARES (FIRE-WAR) and MOON (WATER-PEACE). Nick Land: [brain aching] northanger: nick - brain aching = war machine. are you serious? lol. 24 = EA = O 1167

115 = LIBER O = AZOTH = DJUDDHA = DZYAN = FOLLY = LOCUS = OM-KALI = PALLAS = PROOF = ROBOT = SEKHEM = WAHHABI = WOMEN = WRATH LIBER O VEL MANVS ET SAGITTAE (Book O, or The Book of the Hand & the Arrow) http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/libero.html In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them. The advantages to be gained from them are chiefly these: ("a") A widening of the horizon of the mind; ("b") An improvement of the control of the mind. The student, if he attains any success in the following practices, will find himself confronted by things (ideas or {13} beings) too glorious or too dreadful to be described. It is essential that he remain the master of all that he beholds, hears or conceives; otherwise he will be the slave of illusion, and the prey of madness. http://www.techcentralstation.com/030205A.html The most distinctive trend in economic research over the past hundred years has been the increased use of mathematics. In the wake of Paul Samuelson's (Nobel 1970) Ph.D dissertation, published in 1948, calculus became a requirement for anyone wishing to obtain an economics degree. By 1980, every serious graduate student was expected to be able to understand the work of Kenneth Arrow (Nobel 1972) and Gerard Debreu (Nobel 1983), which required mathematics several semesters beyond first-year calculus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arrow American economist; Along with Paul Samuelson, he is considered one of the founders of modern (post World War II) neo-classical economics. His most significant works are his contributions to social choice theory, notably "Arrow's impossibility theorem", and his work on general equilibrium analysis. He has also provided foundational work in many other areas of economics, including endogenous growth theory and information economics. Arrow's impossibility theorem was set out in his Ph.D. thesis, Social choice and individual values. In its final form it states the 1168

following: given the conditions of Pareto Optimality (P), Unbounded social choice (S), Independence of choices (I) and non-Dictatorship (D), it is impossible to formulate a social choice function which statisfies all of them. This has tremendous implications for welfare economics and theories of justice. It was extended by Amartya Sen to the Liberal Paradox which argued that given a status of "Minimal Liberty" there was no way to obtain Pareto Optimality, nor to avoid the problem of social choice of neutral but unequal results. Arrow (disambiguation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_%28disambiguation%29 A village called Arrow in Warwickshire,England. hodology is the study of pathways & appears in literature involving the study of the brain, dynamic groups, architecture, theatre, etc. esoterically, hodology is related to the study of the paths on the tree of life. the lightning bolt (777) created the spheres & the serpent created the pathways. frater achad's revelation (which my astro system is based on): "The symbolism of the Paths is more important when considered from the BOTTOM TO THE TOP OF THE TREE." the largest cycle this astro system utilizes is TIME (enochian & thelemic calendars). the 31-star expresses the 93-CURRENT by dividing 93 / 3. 3 represents SATURN, Mystic Number of Chokmah, Father (Time), To Come, To Go. additionally, the magic square i decoded that creates these "stars" are also based on the number 3. the 93 "magic square" takes the numbers from 1 to 93 and organizes them into 3 rows of 31 numbers. each column equals 141 = PRIMA = TRUSTY = PRECEPT. adding 141 + 3 = 144 = ANTERIUS; The East; Days First of the First = 12 to the 2nd Power. + 144 is also the number of CURRENT 144 that samuel23 talks about at key23.net http://www.key23.net/occulture/archives/2005/02/27/time-magick-and-theflower-of-kairos/ + ANTERIUS is ANTARES if you add 3 "empty" degrees to LURGGO on the zodiac wheel you transform the wheel from 360° to 363° where 363 = ShDY AL ChY (The Almighty and Ever-Living God). in AQ 53 = GOD = AKAD = LAM = 19x19. 19 x 19 = 361 = 19 to the 2nd 1169

power AND the 3 supernals, 6 lower spheres, 1 malkuth. 361 was the last working gate prior to my introduction to hyperstition. 19x19 also represents [a] a GO board & [b] Deleuze and Guattari’s game examples of GO and CHESS to represent Smooth and Striated Space. in a nutshell, this astro system is not transformative or predictive astrology. it is a highly compressed symbol system designed to be understood by thelemites, chaotes -- and hyperstitionists. hyperstition, in its simplest sense, is fictions becoming real. in a sense, you can ask yourself, what is the ( )Hole Complex this system describes? what hyperstitional carriers can be sent through these holes with the best chance of becoming real. (or something like that, you can phrase it better). ((there is no right or wrong way to read this)) see “Machines are digging” Holey Space or as we call it here, ‘( )hole Complex’ (with an ever-evaporating W) indeed composes, triggers and facilitates the emergence of the Unlife and its convoluting, holing, coring out processes -- vermiculating lines or tendrils of Anonymous-until-Now (see previous posts) -- that eventually transform into a violent process of ungrounding, re-inventing the Earth as an Unground or what Deleuze and Guattari slyly appropriated as “the New Earth”. The question is: The Tellurian– Omega or the Unground can still be called Earth? And then according to what chronologic current or based on what calendar, according to what becoming, it can be mapped as NEW (the new earth)? Tellurian-Omega is an unground, a shadow out of time. jupiter (expansion / boom / bull) and saturn (contraction / bust / bear) describes the flow of money - their positions during the recent moon-antares occultation - please note jupiter's katakian influence: [PLANET] - JUPITER {17Li32Rx} [FORAMEN] • Compass Rose: E by S • SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA {Manipura} • DISTANCE: 106º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 11: SCINTILLATING INTELLIGENCE–The ELEVENTH (Original #32) Path from Malkuth to Yesod = ATU 0 PURE FOOL = AIR = ALEPH :: EON PHASE: 11 (Phase Arc 101.52º ~ Waxing Bi-Septile) : Intercession, Mysterious Agencies, Creative Will, Internalizing • [[ TX Prime [010] 029 = (((:)):) ]] #14-KATAK [LIBRA 10º–LIBRA 17º] ~ ZONE 5::4 Desolator: Syzygetic Chronodemon of Cataclysmic 1170

Convergence; Feeds Sink-Current; 5th Phase limit;Tail-chasing, rabid animals (nature red in tooth and claw); Panic (slasher pulp and religious fervour). [PLANET] - SATURN {20Cn42Rx} [SIRIUS] • Compass Rose: N by E • HIGHER CROWN CHAKRA • DISTANCE: 19º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 15: CONSTITUTING INTELLIGENCE–The FIFTEENTH (Original #28) Path from Yesod to Netzach = ATU VII THE CHARIOT = CANCER = CHETH :: EON PHASE: 1 (Phase Arc 0º ~ Conjunction) : Unrealized Potential, Karios, Morphic Fields, Archetype • [[ TX Prime [002] 003 = (:) ]] #04-IXIGOOL [CANCER 20º– CANCER 27º] ~ ZONE 3::1 Over-Ghoul: Amphidemon of Tridentity (Sphinxtime); Unimpeded ascent (prophecy); Ultimate implications, (as above so below). note: i am using asteroid HOPI to analyze global / end-of-the-world / apocalyptic strategis & tactics. HOPI is located 48° from YILDUN near fixed star PHERKAD. the group of asteroids constellating near PHERKAD are: LEV TOLSTOJ, GIZA, HOPI, NICCOLO (you, but see also SHANGHAI & CHINA), IRANI (reza, but see also AZERBAJDZHAN conjunct MARS; MESOPOTAMIA), TRUE APOGEE (Dark Moon or Dark Earth), EMPEDOCLES, ORCUS (god of the underworld), MISTO, ISIS-TRANSPLUTO (Hodological Space; Trauma, shock, resurrection; Rites of passage). The TRUE APOGEE is 51° from YILDUN (51 = BABALON in GON). [LUNAR] - TRUE APOGEE {22Le44} [PHERKAD] • Compass Rose: NE • CROWN CHAKRA {Sahasrara} • DISTANCE: 51º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 29: CORPOREAL INTELLIGENCE–The TWENTY-NINETH (Original #14) Path {3rd Reciprocal Path} Binah to Chokmah = ATU XVII THE STAR = AQUARIUS = TZADDI :: EON PHASE: 5 (Phase Arc 45º ~ Waxing Octile) : Restriction, Inadequate Knowledge, Shadow Elements, Shock to System • [[ TX Prime [005] 011 = (((:))) ]] #08-SKOODU [LEO 22º–LEO 29º] ~ ZONE 4::2 The Fashioner: Cyclic Chronodemon of Switch-Crazes; Shadows Hold-Current; Historical time (eschatology); Passage through the deep; Cyclic reconstitution and stability. ps. been tracking sunspots as they rachet up to 777 (we're currently at sunspot #742) after the big #720 sunspot. Franz Kaiser discovered asteroids: 720 Bohlinia, 721 Tabora, 738 Alagasta, 742 Edisona, 743 Eugenisis, 745 Mauritia, 746 Marlu, 759 Vinifera, 760 Massinga, 761 Brendelia, 763 Cupido, 764 Gedania, 765 Mattiaca, 766 Moguntia, 773 Irmintraud and 777 Gutemberga. 1171

asteroid FRANZKAISER was 1° from ANTARES, 1° from hypothetical transneptunian CUPIDO (note: not asteroid CUPIDO) & 3° from ANOMALOCARIS during the recent moon-antares occultation: #3183-FRANZKAISER {10Sg40} [ANTARES] • Compass Rose: SSE • 3RD EYE CHAKRA {Anja} • DISTANCE: 159º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 24: IMAGINATIVE INTELLIGENCE–The TWENTY-FOURTH (Original #19) Path {2nd Reciprocal Path} from Geburah to Chesed = ATU XIII DEATH = SCORPIO = NUN :: EON PHASE: 17 (Phase Arc 154.18º ~ Waxing Tri-Septile) : Recognition, Interplay of Forces, Self-reflective, Attunement • [[ TX Prime [015] 047 = (((:))(:)) ]] #21-PUPPO [SAGITTARY 06º–SAGITTARY 13º] ~ ZONE 7::0 Break-Outs: Amphidemon of Larval Regression; 7th Door (Akasha); Dissolving into slime (masked horrors); Chthonic swallowings. finally, the SGR 1806-20 cluster inclues: CLAUSEWITZ (strategy & tactics), ISIS, AGAMEMNON (asteroid 911), MAGDALENA, OPPORTUNITY, GODEL, WOLLSTONECRAFT, KARL MARX, LONDON. LONDON conjunct MATEO near VEGA (moveable type software located in san mateo california). your head should hurt. lol. i'll jump up to your recent post now and analyze that sweet/salt water bizness. Nick Land: northanger - crystal meth? or natural excitability? "your head should hurt" - djathink? "chaotes" - ah ha northanger: nick - "crystal meth? or natural excitability?" natural excitability. (is caffiene a form of crystal meth? i've had 3 cups of espresso so far). CHAOTES = GO MODEL = BABYLON = UNITY = VIRUS 1172

Too Much Maths? Nick Land (March 8, 2005) On understanding economies as intelligences: “An Important Emerging Economic Paradigm”88 Comments: Too Much Maths? northanger: nick - excellent article. today, i discovered that the "force" that keeps this whole economic ball of wax together is not MONEY, but PRICES. i probably can take another look at your mechanomics with more clarity. (Kohn's paper mentions "atheoretical econometric methods" -- maybe that's you). TOO MUCH MATHS refers to "mathematizing the theory of value" where the traditional economic Value Paradigm is top-down, rational, maximizing and unrealistic. VP does not reflect what is occurring in the market, doesn't correctly identify all players, and somehow magically produces PRICE without the direct interaction of any individual (ie, the price is what it is and cannot be changed). otoh, the Exchange Paradigm is realistic, bottom-up (and therefore emerges from actual behavior), prices must be set by someone, and it recognizes that exchange is not "costless". "Since the exchange paradigm builds up from individual behavior rather than down from trading equilibrium, any systematic pattern of behavior will do. Indeed, economics as a discipline has no special claim to understanding the nature of individual behavior; presumably psychologists and cognitive scientists have much more to say about it. The stock in trade of economics, rather, is its understanding of the _aggregate outcome_ of individual behavior—or more precisely, of the 'unintended consequence of intended actions.' For that purpose, we are not obliged to assume individual behavior; we may ask what it actually is." in a nutshell: VP is more dogmatic & rational and humans are viewed as maximizing robots (ok ok, i get cold rationalism now) vs. EP which is more naturalistic, irrational & based on actual market realities. btw, Kohn's paper does a great job defining both paradigms. 88 http://www.techcentralstation.com:80/030205A.html 1173

i loved reading all this because it helps me understand my astro system as defining an "aggregate outcome" -- the AO-extraction of several hundred astronomical points. these points traverse smooth path-sphere intelligences blending individual, tellurianomegic & intergalatic forces emerging irruptive autophagic outcomes. a lot to consider. peacepostulatorpiet: i do be concerned about your sidder tellUtuureluurs from watching in-, un- and declenation (let alone cleavage, since the once upon a time of fitness is really too much to ask; no way the worn puzzle pieces of a long since destroyed planet milldyke can hopi da dopi or humble da dompel) yet????? October 04, 2004 Nonhuman primates discovered to have a sense of fairness (by a dutchman with lovely assistence) MONKEYS REJECT UNEQUAL PAY http://www.dangoldstein.com/dsn/ decision science news I never know exactly what to expect (before opening rock up to turn some weather in before it comes out any better) either http://www.dangoldstein.com/dsn/archives/2004/10/nonhuman_primat.html the more specific url more on decision/urteil/oordeel youknit of aggreglomerates which used to a mere one in the whorecoves northanger: hey piet, you may like this. primatologist phyllis c. lee reports in science mag about tool use in capuchin monkeys: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041210/D86SGH580.html #556-PHYLLIS {04Ta58} [HAMAL] • Compass Rose: NW by W • HEART CHAKRA {Anahata} • DISTANCE: 303º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 2: 1174

ILLUMINATING INTELLIGENCE–The SECOND (Original #2) Path is CHOKMAH (Wisdom) = II THE DYAD (Deuces) :: EON PHASE: 31 (Phase Arc 300º ~ Waning Sextile) : Implementation, Forces of Integration, Whole-Seeing, Accepting • [[ TX Prime [028] 107 = ((::)::) ]] #39-UNUNUTTIX [TAURUS 00º– TAURUS 07º] ~ ZONE 9::3 (Tic) Particle Clocks: Chaotic Xenodemon of Absolute Coincidence; Numerical connection through the absence of any link. AQ 556 = UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF GAINS piet: talk about schwindlig, tureluurs, dizzy and such .. .. look what I just found, got sent even: http://www.shamantrix.net/ is this a correct modeling of the asteroid weaveil? northanger: piet - shamantrix.net - awe..some! "we a veil"? yeah, i guess so. (but don't tell vauung tho). Frater Achad's :The Anatomy of the Body of God: http://www.hermetic.com/browe-archive/achad/anatomy/anatomy1.htm just added a ton more stuff to the big list, should post it in the next half hour. is hyperstition on hiatus? Nick Land: web hell this end - don't think "hiatus" will be very prolonged (sitting on some stuff (on Shoggoths) to stick up once i can get into MT) northanger - been checking out your site, admit to being somewhat overwhelmed (especially by 'biglist'). All the nomad stuff calling out for a response too ... (haven't had a chance to follow up all your links yet ...) Didn't see anything on striking monkeys though. northanger: that's pretty damn good piet.etc, (on the 23rd prime with RADIOCOMMUNICATA, hmm) 1175

AQ 248 = SKIZKAPITOL = CTHULHU CULT #3-JUNO {09Pi25} [SKAT] • Compass Rose: WSW • SACRAL CHAKRA {Svadisthana} • DISTANCE: 248º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 20: INTELLIGENCE of WILL–The TWENTIETH (Original #23) Path from Hod to Geburah = ATU IX THE HERMIT = VIRGO = YOD :: EON PHASE: 25 (Phase Arc 240º ~ Waning Trine) : Re-evaluation, Holistic Insight, Seeing Big Pic, Emerging • 31-STAR PRIME SERIES: [23]-[39]-[79] :: PRIME NUMBERS: [83]-[167]-[401] -[[ TX PRIME [023] 083 = (((:)(:))) ]] #32-NUMKO [PISCES 04º–PISCES 11º] ~ ZONE 8::4 Keeper of Old Terrors: Cyclic Chronodemon of Autochthony; Prowls Sink-Current; Necrospeleology (abysmal patience rewarded); Subduction (and carnivorous fish); Vulcanism (and bacterial intelligence). nick - "overwhelmed" - yeah right, lol. what current are YOU on? i can feel it over here. "nomad stuff" - jane austen! smokin'. awesome paper. "striking monkeys" - you think i should use asteroid #13681 monty python to represent the ccru? or maybe the #8749 beatles. which one works best? or maybe #1543 bourgeois... #28516-MOBIUS {17Sg17} [ANTARES] • Compass Rose: SSE • 3RD EYE CHAKRA {Anja} • DISTANCE: 166º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 24: IMAGINATIVE INTELLIGENCE–The TWENTY-FOURTH (Original #19) Path {2nd Reciprocal Path} from Geburah to Chesed = ATU XIII DEATH = SCORPIO = NUN :: EON PHASE: 18 (Phase Arc 160º ~ Waxing Quad-Novile) : Protection, Test of Fitness, Viable Qualities, New World Order • 31-STAR PRIME SERIES: [15]-[62]-[64] :: PRIME NUMBERS: [47]-[293]-[311] -- [[ TX PRIME [015] 047 = (((:))(:)) ]] #22-BUBBAMU [SAGITTARY 14º–SAGITTARY 21º] ~ ZONE 7::1 After Babylon: Cyclic Chronodemon of Relapse; Prowls Surge-Current; Hypersea (marine life on land); Aquassassins (Black-Atlantis); Seawalls (dry-time, taboo on menstruation). #1294-ANTWERPIA {01Le19Rx} [POLLUX] • Compass Rose: NNE • THROAT CHAKRA {Visuddhi} • DISTANCE: 30º FROM YILDUN @ PATH 30: COLLECTING INTELLIGENCE–The THIRTIETH (Original #13) Path Tiphereth to Kether = ATU XX THE AEON = FIRE = SHIN :: EON PHASE: 2 (Phase Arc 0º ~ Waxing Semi-Sextile) : Germination, Emergent, Fluid, Coming into 1176

Focus, Trad vs. New • 31-STAR PRIME SERIES: [3]-[50]-[88] :: PRIME NUMBERS: [5]-[229]-[457] -- [[ TX PRIME [003] 005 = ((:)) ]] #05-IXIDOD [CANCER 28º–LEO 05º] ~ ZONE 3::2 The Zombie-Maker: Amphidemon of Escape-velocity; 3rd Phase-limit; Crises through excess (micropause abuse); Illusion of progress (out of the frying-pan into the fire). oops. Phase Arc 30º ~ Waxing Semi-Sextile Nick Land: It's going to take weeks just to work out remotely what's been going on here ... northanger: nicky - the challenge with "quasi-hippy-cum-cult-initiation" is that you must jump in at the very deep end of the pool. no lifeguards are present. Nick Land: "gwendyloon" - harsh! northanger: me harsh? *me* :squeek: here's something you might find useful related to shoggoth (too scared to post over there since it may get a, um, harsh response) descent into the maya underworld http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0411/feature2/index.html sneaked out my compass. To my astonishment, in this cloud-blinded hollow in the forest, the ajq'ij had somehow placed the bottles exactly at the points of the four cardinal directions, with the beer-and-liquor pairing to the east, the most sacred direction. The lilting, ballad-like music went on and on. We were all offered food and entreated to down yet more aguardiente. The ajq'ij himself had drunk far more than anyone else. Now he placed half the candles upright, digging little holes in the earth to support them, the whole design making a dotted square divided into four quadrants. Among the candles he placed cigarettes, half also upright. Then he lit the upright candles and cigarettes. At one point a candle drooped toward an unlit cigarette. One of the other men started to right it, but Juan stopped him with an urgent gesture. As we watched, the candle dipped by itself and lit the cigarette. This, we learned later, was the best 1177

possible sign, indicating that the ancestors, who "eat light," were accepting the offering. also check out this splendid flash feature including the creation myth of the hero twins: (flash required) http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0411/sights_n_sounds/media1.html gwendyloon: nicky - what? do you want me answer questions in here or deal with shoggothic stuff? you choose. greygnagwen: actually, i like this one better. Nick Land: northanger - 'harsh' comment addressed to piet (obviously! - the crystal meth is clearly driving you into paranoid delirium) gwendyloon - you've been ectplasmoido-hyperstitionally manifested!! [attaches cold compress] northanger: well gee nick. see, that's the difference between you & me on the etc.piet.etc-warfront. "gwendyloon" was a term of endearment. yeah. http://www.cyberaxis.net/assets/imgs/northanger/djed.gif At the Ring's mid point, you hit the Oracle trip switch. On the morning of Resonant Moon 15, your crown has become your root and your root has become your crown the three root chakras have traded places with the three crown chakras. But your heart chakra remains constant. You are being transformed into your True Self. The Ring oracle which codes the Day out of Time takes the crown. The last shall be first, the lowest shall be raised to the highest. That which crowned the affair of the Ring when the orbit was initiated now becomes the root. The high mountains are made level. The water drains back into the Earth. The Bolontiku, Lord of the Ring, becomes equalized in itself. Heaven descends to Earth, Earth ascends to Heaven. The crystal core of Earth is the crown upon the noosphere by which the Bolontiku-Lord of the Ring becomes a living Fifth Force guardian of V.24.3. Seven Lords of the Ring, Seven Fifth Force Guardians of the Earth. To awaken one Lord of the Ring, is to awaken 1178

its circuit within yourself. Time recycles your soul, as your mind is recycled by the Lords of the Ring. http://www.panmodern.com/epoem.html "I know this is the 'path beyond technology', but the paradox is that sometimes to get beyond technology, we have to use it." where did that come from? fivedoves.com, yeah (seen this before - biblewheel.com - shades of jacobs wheel -http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/leadbeater/0/231gatesmain.htm) people are seeing the same patterns. (reminds me of close encounter of the third kind) ((we're infected!!)) 144 = 72 Goëtia + 72 ShemhaMephoresh (dna. cns. better get that right. or else you create a monster. double-zodiac means 6 signs in / 6 sign out. connectors at: RED TRIANGLE LEO 15°-20°, SAG 15°-20°, ARI 15°-20° + BLUE TRIANGLE GEM 15°-20°, AQU 15°-20°, LIB 15°-20°) 1+4+4=9 AQ 144 = THE RING = ANOMALY GON1 144 = The Field of Operation in which the Universe Can Manifest AQ 960 = The Field of Operation in which the Universe Can Manifest northanger: http://www.rgrace.org/ - whoa http://www.photon.cc/pipermail/telektonon/2001-September/000008.html Think about these things. In the Dreamspell Book of Kin who is the speaker? Who is the “I” that speaks? “I perfect in order to equalize/producing opportunity/ I seal the store of death with the planetary tone of manifestation/ I am guided by the power of timelessness” Who is this “I”?It is the fourth dimensional “I” of the autonomous anonymous universal collective mind of the galactic brain, and not the “I“ presumed upon by the egoic individual being. the calendar is not an "outie" - it is an "innie" 1179

imho, the calendar is not an "outie" - it is an "innie" lol, hehe doesn't "IMHO" fail e-prime? peacepostulatorpiet: only those who haven't evolved beyond the painterly 'alltogether' perspective of crayon boxic, perfectly fantastic compile ups and crosscultural panorama like (wonderful arguelles quote at the dread link) suffer the illusion of being realistic rather than from monolithimania contrast with a good quote from the (nevertheless equally unsuccesful) community intended group: "Well, I guess I'm a bit more radical than that. As with any seed, it starts out as a protective bubble. But when conditions are favorable it germinates. Given time and proper inputs, a Redwood forest can begin to change first the microclimate and eventually, the climate of an entire region. We've got to be thinking long term, not just about what might make our lives better. How can we explain what we're doing to the middle-class suburbanites on whose land the food will need to be grown when the oil runs out?" you didn't know robert grace yet?????? I almost told you about him yesterday I am expecting a long silence now .. .and I'll go eat something .. . if only I was a cyberaxis ringlord, I wouldn't need to .. . I'd be fed current constantly and steadily .. . or be printed to hang on a wall prettily with all my buddies for a while . . .all to gather father and lather .. .bother the mother no more. northanger: http://members.lycos.nl/vadercats/jan04.htm My idea of speeding this up is for each person to take a square noteslips with sticky edge and put it on the centrally suspended icosaface carrying his seal; of course, since Kernel chucked me from the board and I am not about to join the msn group PANEuropeweb yall have to come and read this here. http://members.lycos.nl/vadercats/jan04.htm keyword calls and cues can kindle consensus? 1180

This disregard for grammar often leads to more confusion than it tries to avoid. The reinvention of divination tools to count and account for now as ever ubiquitous and relentless change such as ccm is such a case in question. Their categorical compartmentalization cuts conversation short alright, presumably to leave more time for action (the selfsufficient, native culture like community founding, permaculture practise, etcetera type) but if it is true that hundreds of thousands of folks take this calendar seriously they must still be getting their minds around it to such a timeswallowing extent that little is left for working on such recommendations, even though they come from the highest and highly apocalyptic levels of cultish movement authorities. -- Besides, what's the point if as always, meaning erodes, distinction swims, definition sways and boundaries crumble and blur? No lense stays static, take heart, no beginning is final, our task remains, eternally. Of the three small and strongly urging but stagnant movements I have made close study in the last 20 years the first remains my favorite; lemme do a rough inventory: 1) local/body/will ------------ replenish trace mineral content and interactivity worldwide since it is vital to all parts of the biosphere, beginning with foodstuffs. You just won't be gripping in a thrillingly healthy sense before you've gotten grip to this fact of life. Hint: equate time-rock-emit let splendidate piet demonstrate that splinter and fract acts allows information to enter formerly compact and that all blessing flows from there in fact. 2) regional/mind ----------- employ community currencies where appropriate (to execute provision of and cover of basic needs; Hint: equate time-emit - subject); a region with balanced gender relations will surely show them to be competitive with private ones and hold the latter in check). 3)global/spirit ----------- a synthesis of these two may well lead to sightsetting beyond our solar system but that won't be any easier than pulling of the frontforming with islam and hippydom as components such as Arguelles seems to be shooting for (he says: GOD = number (and particularly fond of the Quranic code's fetish fraction: 19); GOD = Galactic Ordering Dynamic - Tzolkin = it's all kin) http://members.lycos.nl/vadercats/jan04.htm HOUSE OF CARDS .. . . . . .. . . . . . 7. Bhille wanted to read about his cards so he learned how to read. One day he saw a newspaper headline that said: Plan, House of Cards. Bhille could not understand the plan for it was too complex for him. He was happy that the wise leaders based their work on the cards. He was inspired to record 1181

his own thoughts in a notebook. He wrote: Diamonds represent wealth. Spades, labor. Hearts, health. Clubs, freedom of assembly and speech. Diamonds are useless without spades, worthless without hearts, vulnerable without clubs. Defend property. Spades are enslaved without clubs, idled without diamonds, enfeebled without hearts. Protect wages. Clubs are powerless without hearts, immobilized without spades, hobbled without diamonds. Hold elections. Hearts are broken without diamonds, exposed without clubs, flabby without spades. Train doctors. Respect all cards regardless of size or color. Each one can bring victory. And this, I believe, is most important. Always play with a full deck. i'm going to bed then. "you didn't know robert grace yet??????" nope, good link. northanger: A Dissident View of Relativity Theory http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue59/adissidentview.html No doubt the average citizen assumes that relativity theory is vital to our modern society. In truth it has almost no role to play, except in a few narrow branches of science. For example, the Apollo program to land a man on the moon was a complete success as a result of the physics of Sir Isaac Newton—relativity theory did not play a role. Einstein’s work on Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect was far more important than relativity. This may come as a shock, but Einstein’s theory of relativity is not part of the design of nuclear weapons! As proof, here is an excerpt from The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How To Build an Atomic Bomb, "Section 2. Energy of Fission Process," page 7: Somehow the popular notion took hold long ago that Einstein’s theory of relativity, in particular his famous equation E = mc2, plays some essential role in the theory of fission. Albert Einstein had a part in alerting the United States government to the possibility of building an atomic bomb, but his theory of relativity is not required in discussing fission. The theory of fission is what physicists call a nonrelativistic theory, meaning that relativistic effects are too small to affect the dynamics of the fission process significantly." hmm. nicholas as baphomet. 1182

144 = NIKOLAS 156 = NICKOLAS 152 = NICCOLES = BAPHOMET = BLACK MAGIC = CHTHONIC = INCUBUS = LAMPBLACK = OEDIPUS = TENTACLE it's official then. Niccoles is Baphomet! hyperstitionally speaking, of course. piet - can't figure out whether you're pithy, piercing, punning, phunning, phuming, phreaking or just plain nuts. you're my kinda person. UN hits bottom http://www.oprano.com/msgboard/index.php?act=ST&f;=1&t;=11518 what are you going on about Ward Churchill. where's the link? AQ 257 = WARD CHURCHILL = HUGH OF THE BORG piet: -- he would at least be somewhat familiar with real alternatives to his provocatively successful but of course, but, like they all do, slightly backfiring polarizations (holding up a tiny little mirror to big bully brother doesn't give you enough cover either way, the target don't really see, much less recognize sordidity nor does it prevent target (over)looking right past it, see who is trying to hold it up and target liddul sibling in turn); would be nice to say something truly radiant along these lines now that he's got everybody's attention instead of the somewhat lame standoff tonedown backpeddle sell and buy out invitation 'obey the law' he intones. northanger: piet. reading up on your churchill obsession to determine what said exactly (and when) & researching eichmann. much to my surprise... EICHMANN = YILDUN ADOLF EICHMANN = [WOMAN=OTHER] additionally, "obsess" shares same root as "nick" meaning "shallow notch, cut, or indentation on an edge or a surface". my father described success as "a notch on the 1183

belt" (as in winning the gunfight at the ok corral). going to show that when one follows an obsession to its natural conclusion it is a NOTCH on the belt. while WC's heart was in the right place (i'm gathering from your comments) his strategy / tactics questionable. certainly american public needs to know the effects of its foreign & domestic policies - this approach probably too destructive when cognitive dissonance is perhaps the first response. (must point out though: decision to not address slavery in 1776 ((all men created equal yadda yadda)) with complete awareness by founding daddies it would come back to bite everyone in butt - frederick douglass, if not mistaken, said american civil war issue = state sovereignty). while WC's presentation a little dicey - wasn't original piece written right after 911? so why the explosion now? hyperstitional minds wanna know. piet: I just answered Dianna's answer: www.pirateballerina.com/blog/entry.php?id=36 dutch radio report this morn: modern slavery in holland now; illegal migrant labour earning as much as 2 euro an hour; they are recruited from assorted central stations. Why now? Michael Albert's weird take: ZMag publisher on Ward: Why Ward Churchill? I think Ward would probably say it is because what he is doing is very effective. Ward may even see the attacks on his essay as evidence that the essay had great dissident merit. I think Ward would be wrong in that. Ward is being attacked not because he is the strongest possible target, but because he is one of the weakest possible targets. His essay is featured not because it was seriously threatening, but because it is easily ridiculed. Ward provided right wingers fodder they could manipulatively use. The right wingers are hoping that Ward has sufficiently irritated those who would otherwise defend him so that he is left without defenders. We can't allow that. The right is a long way from going after stronger targets. Everyone on the left has to be sure no targets they do go after are vulnerable. Piet: Not my feelings or estimates at all Albert; I guess it's no wonder we don't read each other!!!! --1184

Richard Oxman doesn't like Albert's take either and intersperses it with comment IN CAPS (even). ps: I've just made a Meg worth of flat text into a 'prfr' (peculiarly formated 'read' .. which I stopped presenting to the public years ago due to complaints from the indyans and it does cost time to make them) on the subject (only a fraction of all the stuff I looked at, downloaded and looked at a little better) .. . . . looks like I'll have a chance to read it next week too. northanger: yup. here's the original piece... http://www.darknightpress.org/index.php?i=news&c;=recent&view;=9&long;=1 Michael Albert’s Head Downer: No Alberich’s Cloak for Churchill, Please http://www.selvesandothers.org/article8532.html northanger: piet. you know this bizness better than me. did churchill make any moves on the original piece that made it come back up to position it for attack? or did this come from another direction? if latter, where? rephrase: what is ground zero for churchill brouhaha. curious subhyperoids = thank you for enriching the vocabulary. OPERA = ZERO opera is italian for "work, service" from the root OP "to work, produce in abundance" - derivatives include maneuver, manure, operate, operose, cooperate, inure, officinal, stover, omnibus, omnium-gatherum (a hodgepodge), optimum, copious, copy, opulent, and cornucopia (co-, collective and intensive prefix; see kom). interestingly, ADOLF EICHMANN = ACTIVE VAGINA phunnily, ROLLED-UP CONDOM = NUCLEOTIDES G-A-T-C (rotflmao) 1185

Shoggoth Materials Nick Land (March 10, 2005) In preparation for an extended excursion into xenoplasmic extra-territoriality - on the trail of 'Doctor' Hank H. Hackhammer's 'Shoggothic Materialism' - here are some relevant passages from Lovecraft's epic The Mountains of Madness (with minimal commentary). A little preliminary context: "For this place could be no ordinary city. It must have formed the primary nucleus and center of some archaic and unbelievable chapter of earth's history whose outward ramifications, recalled only dimly in the most obscure and distorted myths, had vanished utterly amidst the chaos of terrene convulsions long before any human race we know had shambled out of apedom. Here sprawled a Palaeogaean megalopolis compared with which the fabled Atlantis and Lemuria, Commoriom and Uzuldaroum, and Olathoc in the land of Lomar, are recent things of today - not even of yesterday; a megalopolis ranking with such whispered prehuman blasphemies as Valusia, R'lyeh, Ib in the land of Mnar, and the Nameless city of Arabia Deserta." Deep inside the ancient catacombs our intrepid explorers are drawn into the intricate dot-patterns that relate the abysmal history of the Old Ones: "The prime decorative feature was the almost universal system of mural sculpture, which tended to run in continuous horizontal bands three feet wide and arranged from floor to ceiling in alternation with bands of equal width given over to geometrical arabesques. There were exceptions to this rule of arrangement, but its preponderance was overwhelming. Often, however, a series of smooth cartouches containing oddly patterned groups of dots would be sunk along one of the arabesque bands. When cartouches with dot groups appeared - evidently as inscriptions in some unknown and primordial language and alphabet - the depression of the smooth surface was perhaps an inch and a half, and of the dots perhaps a half inch more." "The things once rearing and dwelling in this frightful masonry in the age of dinosaurs were not indeed dinosaurs, but far worse. Mere dinosaurs were new and almost brainless objects - but the builders of the city were wise and old, and had left certain traces in rocks even then laid down well nigh a thousand million years - rocks laid down before the true life of earth had advanced beyond plastic groups of cells - rocks 1186

laid down before the true life of earth had existed at all. They were the makers and enslavers of that life, and above all doubt the originals of the fiendish elder myths which things like the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon affrightedly hint about. They were the great 'Old Ones' that had filtered down from the stars when earth was young - the beings whose substance an alien evolution had shaped, and whose powers were such as this planet had never bred. ... Of course, the infinitely early parts of the patchwork tale - representing the preterrestrial life of the star-headed beings on other planets, in other galaxies, and in other universes - can readily be interpreted as the fantastic mythology of those beings themselves; yet such parts sometimes involved designs and diagrams so uncannily close to the latest findings of mathematics and astrophysics that I scarcely know what to think." Better not even to mention such things ... "But it had to be; for we could not issue our warning intelligently without the fullest possible information, and the issuance of that warning is a prime necessity. Certain lingering influences in that unknown antarctic world of disordered time and alien natural law make it imperative that further exploration be discouraged." Been thinking for a while that we need an Antarctic agent. Shoggoths coming up ... "It was under the sea, at first for food and later for other purposes, that they first created earth life - using available substances according to long-known methods. The more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic enemies. They had done the same thing on other planets, having manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of molding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community. These viscous masses were without doubt what Abdul Alhazred whispered about as the 'Shoggoths' in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existed on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb." It has been plausibly rumoured that the 'Mad Arab' Abdul Alhazred (note to Thelemites - 'AL has read') was in fact at least half-Persian and conducted his most notorious sorceries in Qom, prior to being devoured alive by a Shoggoth in the centre of Damascus. 1187

But back to Shoggoths ... "When the star-headed Old Ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome. With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small, low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone not unlike those which later rose on land. ... The steady trend down the ages was from water to land - a movement encouraged by the rise of new land masses, though the ocean was never wholly deserted. Another cause of the landward movement was the new difficulty in breeding and managing the Shoggoths upon which successful sea life depended. With the march of time, as the sculptures sadly confessed, the art of creating new life from inorganic matter had been lost, so that the Old Ones had to depend on the molding of forms already in existence. On land the great reptiles proved highly tractable; but the Shoggoths of the sea, reproducing by fission and acquiring a dangerous degree of accidental intelligence, presented for a time a formidable problem." The bionic tools of an unutterably alien civilization, the 'Shoggoth Mythos' (shared by the Old Ones themselves) is that of autonomizing technology, in which megabacterial technoplasma - owing nothing to a nature that is not already artifice - grope their way to a line of catastrophic escape. "They had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestions of the Old Ones, and had modeled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs; but now their self-modeling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion. They had, it seems, developed a semistable brain whose separate and occasionally stubborn volition echoed the will of the Old Ones without always obeying it. Sculptured images of these Shoggoths filled Danforth and me with horror and loathing. They were normally shapeless entities composed of a viscous jelly which looked like an agglutination of bubbles, and each averaged about fifteen feet in diameter when a sphere. They had, however, a constantly shifting shape and volume - throwing out temporary developments or forming apparent organs of sight, hearing, and speech in imitation of their masters, either spontaneously or according to suggestion." Bubbling, shape-shifting, imitative, hyperplastic, technobiotic abominations - easy to see why Hackhammer would be so excited by them. 1188

"They seem to have become peculiarly intractable toward the middle of the Permian Age, perhaps one hundred and fifty million years ago, when a veritable war of resubjugation was waged upon them by the marine Old Ones. Pictures of this war, and of the headless, slime-coated fashion in which the Shoggoths typically left their slain victims, held a marvelously fearsome quality despite the intervening abyss of untold ages. The Old Ones had used curious weapons of molecular and atomic disturbances against the rebel entities, and in the end had achieved a complete victory. Thereafter the sculptures showed a period in which Shoggoths were tamed and broken by armed Old Ones as the wild horses of the American west were tamed by cowboys. Though during the rebellion the Shoggoths had shown an ability to live out of water, this transition was not encouraged - since their usefulness on land would hardly have been commensurate with the trouble of their management." Patience ... "Decadent though their style undoubtedly was, these latest carvings had a truly epic quality where they told of the building of the new city in the cavern sea. The Old Ones had gone about it scientifically - quarrying insoluble rocks from the heart of the honeycombed mountains, and employing expert workers from the nearest submarine city to perform the construction according to the best methods. These workers brought with them all that was necessary to establish the new venture - Shoggoth tissue from which to breed stone lifters and subsequent beasts of burden for the cavern city, and other protoplasmic matter to mold into phosphorescent organisms for lighting purposes. ... At last a mighty metropolis rose on the bottom of that Stygian sea, its architecture much like that of the city above, and its workmanship displaying relatively little decadence because of the precise mathematical element inherent in building operations. The newly bred Shoggoths grew to enormous size and singular intelligence, and were represented as taking and executing orders with marvelous quickness. They seemed to converse with the Old Ones by mimicking their voices - a sort of musical piping over a wide range ... - and to work more from spoken commands than from hypnotic suggestions as in earlier times. They were, however, kept in admirable control. ... To keep on with the work of the upper world it had become necessary to adapt some of the amorphous and curiously cold-resistant Shoggoths to land life - a thing the Old Ones had formerly been reluctant to do." Shoggoth surfacing - their becoming terrestrial, or (more exactly) amphibious - seems to fill Lovecraft with obsessive horror. Suddenly Danforth screams: 1189

"I came only just short of echoing his cry myself; for I had seen those primal sculptures, too, and had shudderingly admired the way the nameless artist had suggested that hideous slime coating found on certain incomplete and prostrate Old Ones - those whom the frightful Shoggoths had characteristically slain and sucked to a ghastly headlessness in the great war of resubjugation. They were infamous, nightmare sculptures even when telling of age-old, bygone things; for Shoggoths and their work ought not to be seen by human beings or portrayed by any beings. The mad author of the Necronomicon had nervously tried to swear that none had been bred on this planet, and that only drugged dreamers had even conceived them. Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes viscous agglutinations of bubbling cells - rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile - slaves of suggestion, builders of cities - more and more sullen, more and more intelligent, more and more amphibious, more and more imitative! Great God! What madness made even those blasphemous Old Ones willing to use and carve such things?" Hehehehe ... "And now, when Danforth and I saw the freshly glistening and reflectively iridescent black slime which clung thickly to those headless bodies and stank obscenely with that new, unknown odor whose cause only a diseased fancy could envisage - clung to those bodies and sparkled less voluminously on a smooth part of the accursedly resculptured wall in a series of grouped dots - we understood the quality of cosmic fear to its uttermost depths." Dot-speckled Shoggoth nightmares ... Traumatized beyond the elastic bounds of sanity, Danforth began to behave like a typical Hyperstition commentator: "He has on rare occasions whispered disjointed and irresponsible things about 'The black pit,' 'the carven rim,' 'the protoShoggoths,' 'the windowless solids with five dimensions,' 'the nameless cylinder,' 'the elder Pharos,' 'Yog-Sothoth,' 'the primal white jelly,' 'the color out of space,' 'the wings,' 'the eyes in darkness,' 'the moonladder,' 'the original, the eternal, the undying,' and other bizarre conceptions; but when he is fully himself he repudiates all this and attributes it to his curious and macabre reading of earlier years. Danforth, indeed, is known to be among the few who have ever dared go completely through that worm-riddled copy of the Necronomicon kept under lock and key in the college library." 1190

Comments: Shoggoth Materials northanger: asteroid ANTARCTICA conjunct ASMODEUS at Leo 9 (no comment) - on 31-STAR PRIME SERIES: [4]-[51]-[86] :: PRIME NUMBERS: [7]-[233]-[443] GON1 51 = BABALON AQ 233 = SHANGHAI STAR = WAR-AS-A-MACHINE = THIRTY-SIX p-demon DJYNXX has Ciphers Gt-36 and rules evil degree (Scorpio 19). 86, natcherly. 443 = HYPERSTITION IN ACTION forgot, in GON1 51 (BABALON) - 15 (AL) = 36 (OBLIGATION) ps. GON1 51 (BABALON) + 15 (AL) = 66 (JAMA'AT-E-TAKFIR) AQ 233 = JAMA'AT-E-TAKFIR AQ 155 = TEKELI-LI = DJYNXX = MINOMMO = CHRONOS = DRACONIS = NUMBERS = REALTIME = STARRY = V.V.V.V.V. DR 11 = ( )HOLE COMPLEX farpoint on biglist is KRONOS - or - what the moon-antares occultation manifests. AQ 110 (BABALON) + 31 (AL) = 141 (ANTARES, GAME OF GO, ROW TOTALS FOR 31-RAYED STAR) AQ 110 (BABALON) - 31 (AL) = 79 (ABSU, ALLAH, BINAH, DAATH, MARK, NOW, SIX, TICK) AQ 31 = AL = HE = ID = V AQ 79 = ABSU = ALLAH = ANEMA = BINAH = BOOK = BREED = CAMEL = CAST = DAATH = DISK = DOES = EHBEN = GIVE = GOAT = GRACE = GUNA = HAWK = JILL = LEFT = MARK = MBUG = MUR = NOW = ORAI = OWN = SEEN = SIX = THAN = TICK = WIFE 1191

AQ 110 = ATTACK = BABALON = BOBOBJA = CAMBRIA = CHASTE = DAIMON = DECIMAL = DRESS = EATING = FRIEND = HYMEN = JANUS = KABBALAH = LAKINI = LIFTED = LINKS = MEDICAL = MERTI = MEZLI = MUSIC = NAGUAL = NAVIS = REBUS = SCRIBE = SEEDER = SEVEN = SHAMAN = SIREN = SOLAR = SPARK = STATE = TACTIC = TASTE = THE END = THREAD = TOKEN = URIEL = WHITE AQ 141 = 1ST DEATH = ABROGATE = ANGEL HUA = ANTARES = BEOWOLF = BRANDING = CO-OPTED = CRUSHED = DECEMBER 26, 2004 = DRAGONS = EGO-FLARE = ENOCHIAN = EUNOMIA = GAME OF GO = GARMENT = GENESIS = HARI RAMA = HUN AB KU = INTEGER = KAMAKAZE = KURTZ = LONGING = MARIVAN = MISTAKE = MUSLIM = NESHAMAH = NINETY = ORANUR = PARADIGM = PRIEST = SCARLET = TAHASON = THE EAST = THE PATH = THE SUN = TRULY = TWELVE = UNIQUE = VEILING = VISIBLE = WAMPUM = WATCHER = YAB-YUM *ROW TOTALS FOR 31-RAYED STAR column totals, actually. http://www.cyberaxis.net/assets/imgs/northanger/misc/93-table.gif Nick Land: northanger - what's the 'biglist' all about? PS. even by your standards this is a veritable miracle of staying relentlessly off topic ... (weren't you worried you might mention Shoggoths by mistake at some point?) northanger: um, once i saw SHOGGOTHIC MATERIALISM = STUPID LITTLE CHILDREN i got stuck. but! TEKELI-LI is on topic and i thought it tied the whole thing up quite nicely :( i'm only on my 2nd cuppa java. warming up. think there's a shoggothic + parasite eve connection. rethinking antartic expeditions (especially those that failed like john franklin's). post something more OT in a bit. nick - well, while i investigate parasites, symbiosis, slime, amoebas, membrane-bound organelles, 23rd path (only way out is in), X-bacterium, bionomial nomenclature, lemurian fundamentalism, boundary violations & other shuggothic problems & mysteries ... you can address some initial Q's about Hackhammer. i find it interesting when a name reflects deeply embedded obsessions: 1192

AQ 171 = HACKHAMMER = SHOGGOTH AQ 156 = SUMATRA = ABRAHADABRA = CTHULHU = M-PRIMES the magnitude 9 earthquake on 26-Dec-2004 occurred off the coast of northern Sumatra. hackhammer quote: "It had all gone to hell out there. The Sumatran expedition rotting down to disconnected threads of fever, madness, and atrocity." "SHOGGOTH" mentioned: [3] times Nick Land: northanger - OK, we'll make a Shoggothic materialist of you yet ;) PS. Special apologies for missing TEKELI-LI among your last 9,745 gematria samples. PPS. "AQ 171 = HACKHAMMER = SHOGGOTH" - that is SOoo on topic :)) PPPS. "think there's a shoggothic + parasite eve connection" - certainly hope so ... PPPPS. Do you do an intro. to the 'biglist' anywhere? greygnagwen: PPPPS - sigh, where is the HYPERSTITION intro, eh? what do you want me to say about it? where are you stuck? PPPS - there certainly is! PPS - ain't it though? scrumptious! PS - admit it, perfect example of gematric elegance how that all ties in together. (thinking: Katak's "Eternal Revolution" related to perpetual motion) (more thinking: heh, don't the numogram look like a blob to you? yup, looks kinda amoebalike to me - kinda DJYNXXi -- "TWO discrete Xenochronic regions" - blavatsky's horseshoe?) Shoggothic materialist = aye carumba "SHOGGOTH" mentioned: [1] times (previous post) "SHOGGOTH" mentioned: [2] times (this post) ((whew, we're on topic)) Tech Flesh 4: Mitochodrial Combustion at Club Parasite 1193

An Interview With Hideaki Sena http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=26 Hideaki Sena is most likely the only untranslated contemporary Japanese science fiction writer with a cult following in the United States. His 1995 novel, Parasite Eve, was made into a Playstation game soon after it became a bestseller in Japan. Since then, over 1.5 million copies of the game has been sold and the American film rights to the novel have been optioned by the singer Madonna. Finally, there are plans underway to translate the novel into English. Sena is a bit stunned by the success of his work both in Japan and internationally: a pharmacology graduate student, he didn't imagine there would be such a tremendous response to a story about human mitochondria that plan a coup against the human race. Parasite Eve takes as its starting point the 1987 announcement by a team of American molecular biologists that they had discovered the ancestral origins of homo sapiens. Working on the assumption that the DNA of mitochondria (complex organelles that exist within cells and provide energy for respiration and metabolism) have been passed down more or less intact through the maternal lineage since the beginning of humankind, the team collected mitchondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 136 women of diverse geographic and racial origins. Running their data through a computer, the biologists then matched their findings to a single ancestral mtDNA molecule (believed to be from an African woman just under 200,000 years old). Paleontological evidence and statistical reshuffling have since undermined African Eve's legitimacy as a historical reality, but during the late 80s and early 90s she was a persistent icon, appearing on the cover of Time and Newsweek and sparking both scientific and social debate. At the time, most commentators seemed to find the idea of a common African ancestor comforting, symbolic perhaps of the primacy of human connectedness over racial divisiveness. Sena, however, saw the dark potential of this retelling of the "human family." He conceived of a grim fantasy inspired by the pairing of the African Eve hypothesis with the theory of the endosymbiotic origins of mitochondria (the idea that mitochondria might have evolved from symbiotic bacteria that once lived within the cells of other organisms). What if, he speculated, the very mitochondria of "African Eve," passed down through countless generations as organelles subsumed within human cellular structure, suddenly decided to assert their biological right to autonomy? If that were to occur, the common mtDNA that bound together the human race could be, to put it mildly, a nasty liability: it would be 1194

as if a dormant, united army within our collective selves suddenly awoke and declared it was independence day. This, more or less, is the plot of Parasite Eve: a colony of mitochondria, assembled in one unsuspecting human host, attempt a takeover of the planet. The host (a young woman named Kiyomi ) happens to be the young wife of a genetic scientist, Nagashima Toshiaki. When Kiyomi is rendered brain-dead in a car accident, Toshiaki decides to keep her alive by cultivating tissue from her liver. Soon, however, Toshiaki discovers that he has been manipulated: the tissue, which Toshiaki calls "Eve-1," becomes a dense culture of sentient mitochondria, which then incorporate into an entity resembling his dead wife. Toshiaki is a classic Frankenstein figure updated for the 21st century; his pride and selfishness cause him to bring to life a destructive force he cannot control, and his sheer love of the technologies of genetic engineering blind him to his very human limitations. Mitochondria: the Sleeper Cell Within http://vortexegg.blogspot.com/2004/08/mitochondria-sleeper-cell-within.html Thank you to John Fenderson for pointing out The Mitochondria Conspiracy to me. This one sentence sums up my point as succinctly as a sack of bricks falling on your head: "Their real purpose? Conquest!! Eons ago these nasty wee beasties invaded the happy eukariotes off Pangaea'a shores, convincing them with slick tongues and fancy minichromosomes to enter into a bargain, and it was a Bargain With The Devil!" PEST (part I) http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004473.html ‘Pest’ combines at least three crypto-genetic strains; each one can introduce itself as an underlying hyperstition-agitator for the rest of them. 1. Bio-infernomatics (Old Growth) / Cosmic Abomenon (Drujaskan) 2. Forbidden / Anti-Genesis Mythos 3. Germinal / Epidemic polytics ..... 1195

1. Bio-infernomatics (Old Growth) / Cosmic Abomenon The difference between parasitism and symbiosis is very slippery, as you suggest. Merely contributing to stability can be construed as a cooperative function, whilst at the other pole the recent movie Parasite Eve anticipates a mitochondrial insurgency – triggered at a threshold of biomolecular science – that unmasks the ‘symbiotic’ mitochondria as strategic parasites. The trend of the Parasite Eve story is to dismantle apparent agencies into ‘deep biopolitics’ or interphyletic collisions. The refrain ‘I waited so long for you’ slides from human lyricism into microbial megatrategy, spanning aeons yet dissociated entirely amongst a diffuse distribution of bioparticles (and patently subverting the story’s romantic resolution). Mitochondria are ‘descendents’ of the prokaryotic Old Ones, overcoded-relics of a decentralized microbial bio-plane that has been taken up into eukaryotic cells and multicellular organisms. They have attained a starring role within bioinformatics due to their autonomous ‘genetic lineage,’ popularized through the discovery of the human ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ – from whom they have propagated ameiotically along an asexual egg-current on the female side. (All the ambivalence of the asexual egg is ‘pregnant’ with Pest-parthenogenesis). Margulis has long suggested that mitochondria instantiate a non-nuclear ‘bacterial’ order within the nuclear regime of the hierarchical organism (inside the cell, but outside the nucleus), whilst functioning symbiotically within the organism as sub-cellular energy modules. These precursors ensure that Mitochondrial Eve (the pulp-entity) inherits both a biophysics of exploitation and an alien sex-politics, slanting the direction of anticipated social conflict in sinister directions. Despite genre differences, GAS seems to exhibit features of Parasite Eve. Both interconnect with Pest, or meltdown-plague, since they conceive strategy as an emergent wave arising out of tactical multiplicities and their ‘coincidences,’ propagating as a hypermutative virus. ..... Follow the dark line, that is what Pest insinuates. It is patently demonic in this sense. It is the ‘erroneous’ path, a trajectory abominated as malignant both to God and to Man, and placed by Eliphas Levi under ‘a spirit of agitation and subversion.’ It tells females forbidden secrets (in the way of the nephilim): Octavia Butler understood it well. It is also, therefore, the subterranean target of misogyny and vicarious fascination: the XX-monstress, Hecate, or whatever she might be called, whose 1196

influence is felt in an epidemic of lesbo-vampiric Zombis (in the old African sense of pythonesses), witch-craze undercurrents, transexuation out of primate gendersystems and hypersavage erosions of phallic dominance. Pest leads into the transsatanic gulfs of Old Night. Nick Land: greygnagwen - are you the 'On Topic Northanger'? (long imagined be no more than an implausible myth) Parasite Eve / Shoggoth cross-currents extremely productive - return of the Old Ones - as well as raising intriguing questions about xenoplasm vs terrestrial biogenesis. 'They're already inside.' Hackhammer on Shoggothic Materialism (explaining why he dismantled his genotech lab and took his 'research' in another direction): "The Old Ones spent many millions of years tweaking these puppies - so there's no way a little dilettante gene-splicing is going to contribute anything substantial .." northanger: forgive me for posting all of that. but, this subject is so broad all you can do is chunk to grok. what is the difference between uni- and multi-cellular life forms? the amoeba is THE "representative unicellular organism" -- amoeba proteus named after a shapechanging god. it's clear the Shoggoths (shapechangers) are multicelluar live forms created by the Old Ones. not clear whether the Old Ones were unicellular. basically, the Herxheimer Effect is when you get sicker (flu-like symptoms) because of bacteria die-off: "In all cases of the Herxheimer, there is the appearance of a war or tussle going on inside the body akin to the antigen/antibody warfare, where the body produces fever, sweat, aching and swollen joints, diarrhea, nausea, and so on, in varying proportions with varying degrees depending upon state of metabolism, genetics, source of disturbance and so on." it has been said that the stuff of humans is just like the stuff of the stars. every known chemical in our makeup is in the stars. Hakim Bey :: Boundary Violations Physicist Nick Herbert likes to point out that for life here in the mesosphere (i.e. between stars and quarks), here where we actually live, juice and slime play an indispensable biospheric morphic role. Juice and slime are the ultimate freeform 1197

connective and penetrative tissues of living systems. Life clearly has no interest in the antibiotic hermetism implied in such phrases as "boundary violations". Life uses borders and life violates borders and life constructs media of its own to fill up the extr a spaces. The ameoba and the fertilized egg are both sacs of juice and slime -- one grows by splitting itself, the other by being split. Viral-like DNA is "freely exchanged" in gushes of juice and slime -- liquid with paradoxical form -- the very liminality of form itself -- secret secretions -- the viscous slippery in-betweeness of the organic -the placental wetness of becoming. .......... parasites cannot survive without a host, certain amoebas are responsible for human diseases (malaria) -- not all parasites harm a host, but they certainly do it no good. versus symbiotic (dependent) relationships which are beneficial to both participants. it is possible that parasitic / symbiotic relationships can suppress or prohibit (target) certain genes. (the war is not outside, it is inside). Kwang Jeon discoveries are telling. are we dealing with a symbiot or a parasite (or maybe both - an inside war). Darwin's Blind Spot: Evolution Beyond Natural Selection http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?textType=excerpt& titleNumber;=698167 nick "greygnagwen - are you the 'On Topic Northanger'?" - lol, yeah. i was lazy & didn't change the comment box. it should be known that northangers are always on topic. just misunderstood. 'They're already inside.' yes indeedy. btw nick. didn't see your 08:41AM post until after i posted 09:17AM. the question is how/when did "they" get "inside"? think they've always been there. "what's the 'biglist' all about?" 1198

i have consumed my sushi. have a fine bottle of cabernet. give me three hours and i can give you three paragraphs on the biglist. :)) .somewhat of an intro to the biglist. imho, Liber 777 is like a disabled antikythera mechanism. you (nick) should be familiar with the excel file of the grid. even though grid assignments differ from Liber 777 it is essentially the correspondences of magical elements. ancient examples of these correspondences occur in some type of circular arrangement for egyptian, alchemical & magical works. in particular, the grid and the biglist are a form of zodical magic. Lon Milo DuQuette does an amazing job of organizing & integrating all these bits in his Ceremonial Tarot (I Ching, Enochian, ShemhaMephoresh, Goetia, Liber 231, Kitchen Sink) & is the main inspiration for my work. however, i overlay a calendar on the magical correspondences + overlay Kabbalistic 231 Gates on Sigillum Dei Æmeth (a particular feature of the Enochian system). "Zodiacal magic is one of the most sophisticated and significant forms of ritual that an aspiring magician can undertake ... The purpose of zodiacal magic is allow the magician to approach, contact, and direct the energies of each of the Signs of the Zodiac." —Mark Stavish, Commentary on Zodiacal Magic "The complaints of over-elaborateness stem from the fact that it is impossible to perform any significant part of the works in a single session. This is perfectly correct, and is done deliberately. My experience has been that the rewards given to the magician by the "angels" of the Enochian system are very precisely gauged to the amount of care and effort the magician puts into the work. Works that are planned, rehearsed, and carried out over a period of weeks or months are much more likely to produce significant initiations than any number of single-session efforts. The present work was designed to be performed in stages, with the expectation that each stage will be performed until the powers invoked achieve a self-sustaining presence in the magician’s temple before he passes on to the next stage. It can be expected that the rewards will be commensurate with the effort involved." —Benjamin Rowe, Comselha: An Enochian Macrocosmic Ritual unfortunately, the static mechanism (excel file) of the grid cannot illustrate the dynamic movement of astronomical events. the biglist is the current version of a Dharma Report created several years ago based on techniques used by Siregar & Meyer to provide a dynamic interpretive system. selected fixed star YILDUN as zero 1199

point (start of the zodiac wheel normally Aries 0°) because it is ruled by Goëtic demon BUER—the only demon Crowley mentions by name in Liber 777. Siregar & Meyer use the lunar archetype - (perfect since i'm lunarloony): "The Hindu concept of Dharma is that we each have a natural, rightful place or duty to fulfill in the social order. Your Dharma may be to be the president, and mine may be to wash your clothes, etc. etc. This "Dharma Point" indicates one's Dharma, and that Dharma can be anything. It might be your dharma to spend your life playing. It might be your dharma to spend your life largely alone. It might be your dharma to teach first grade, or to teach religion. Whatever it is, our Dharma point points us in the direction of the best role for us to play, as if we are one _CELL_ in the larger body of humanity. Each _CELL_ has one duty that is its own. To align with and live that purpose is to be fortunate and happy. To miss your dharma is to live in confusion and frustration. The Dharma Point is intimately related to the lunation cycle, and this explains why it shows how we can organically fit into our most natural place as a human being—the lunation cycle is the most obvious astronomical event surrounding our birth, other than the time of year we are born." —Moses Siregar, Interpreting The Dharma Point/Part of Fortune "Aspects in astrology are particular arcs between the zodiacal positions of two planets. A cycle of planetary relationship begins when a pair of planets occupy the same degree of the zodiac. This originating aspect is known as the conjunction. Its arc value is zero. The New Moon is the archetypal conjunction. In time, the faster moving planet rushes ahead of the other in the sky. The arc measuring the cyclic distance between the two grows. Eventually the opposition aspect of 180 degrees is met. The Full Moon is the archetype of this aspect and its symbolism is known to anyone who has watched the sun set while the moon rose. After the opposition, instead of moving away from the other body, the faster planet begins to move toward the other. Finally the two once again meet in conjunction, further along the geocentric zodiac than their last conjunction. Aspects are important arc encountered along the cycle of unfoldment from 0 to 360 degrees." —Michael R. Meyer, The EON: The 36 Cyclic Aspects Symbolically Depicted grid is calendar-based (thelemic+enochian) biglist is event-based (astronomical events) (these two connect with each other but, a lot of my stuff went keblewy around nov) 1200

thelemic = start day (01-April-1904) & enochian = 360-day calendar. enochian calendar includes 4 uncounted days representing equinoxes + solstices. year one, day one is 01-April-1904 (the only intercalation involves moving one week forward from 08-April-1904). all ephemerides calculated for Cairo noon. the 360-day calendar is divided into thirty 12-day cycles corresponding to zodiac houses. twelve houses divided into 72 quinaries corresponding to ShemhaMephoresh & Goëtia. structure ensures that each year begins on FRIDAY (tgif ruled by Venus). current "year" began 26-Nov-2004 -- 3031st 12-day cycle since 01-April-1904. moon-antares occultation occurred during 03-Mar-05 to 14-Mar-05 cycle: 9th cycle of the year & 3039th cycle since 1904 & occurs in first house, first quinary of the grid (BUER). (in traditional astrology first house represents personality + cancer represents moon & emotions). two difficulties: {1} establishing interpretive system based on Law of Thelema; and {2} integrating tree of life pathworking. primary focus of biglist deals with problem #2 and also deals with the problem of adding 45 Pandemonium Demons to the system. note: all stars, planets, asteroids, hypotheticals, etc., are referred to as points. essentially, the old Dharma Report forgoes all traditional astrological aspects and considers 3 primary relationships: {a} Yildun's relationship to all points based on EON Phase, {b} all points in the same EON Phase, and {c} conjunctions within 10°.; additionally, FARPOINT (last one in) and the SEED RELEASED during EON Phase 34 provide info on astro-event's central themes. from my experience only 2 to 6 points ever show up in phase 34. during moon-antares occultation these points on phase 34: SALTIS, ADMETOS, HEGEL & NIBIRU... http://www.livejournal.com/users/northanger/30845.html ... however, biglist blasts this wide open with the BIG P's: pretzels, primes, pathworking & pandemonium (pretzels = chakras). and now you're hitting my gray area because the interpretive process has become a wee bit .... complex & chaotic. yippee (that's what we want!). here are some ideas on how to interpret phase 34 on the biglist -- only to get you started though. ((kronos should be obvious)) 32 Fixed Stars at above link represent 32 Paths. all points align with one of these paths. therefore, Phase 34 is at fixed star ALGOL on the 17th path: PHASE 33 :: MASSINGA, ATHANASIA, PROTOGENEIA, TISIPHONE, ARABIA, INGWELDE +++ PHASE 34 :: [SALTIS - ADMETOS - HEGEL - NIBIRU]. 1201

after ALGOL is ALCYONE and the first point there is CHILD (child archetype so close to "seed released" is somewhat suggestive). Unnutchi is the pandemonium demon from Taurus 24°–Gemini 01° ruling NIBIRU, ALGOL, CHILD, ALCYONE (Unnutchi is crossing paths + 333° aligned to ALCYONE ruled by NUTTUBAB). Zone 9 is Pluto currently on the same path as China, Galactic Center, NASA, _PROTOS_ etc. (and there are several plutonian hypotheticals related to Unnutchi - pluto represents destiny & transformation -- astrologer juan revilla thinks pluto = "the force" // uranus = darth vadar). Unnutchi represents tachyonic immobility (slow vortex): Chaotic Xenodemon of Coiling Outsideness; Asymmetric zygopoise (and cybernetic ANOMALIES). above you mention protoplasmic matter & protoShoggoths & i mention amoeba proteus named after the god Proteus --- there are two separate but connective pings for PROTOGENEIA and PROTOS. it is UNNUTCHI that connects CHILD with PHASE 34. • In Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea," whose name suggests the "first," as protogonos is the "firstborn." • PROTEUS was an ancient SEA-GOD and the herdsman of Poseidon's seals. Like the other sea-gods he had the gift of prophecy and the ability to change his shape at will. • THE PROTOGONOI were the first born immortals whose forms made up the very fabric of the universe. They emerged at creation. The first of the Protogonoi emerged from NOTHINGNESS, and rest were the offspring of these. EROS, KHAOS, KHRONOS & NYX are some of the protogonoi and are also asteroids on the biglist. asteroid EROS is related to ANTARES, CHAOS is related to ALDEBARAN, NYX is conjunct YILDUN, and KRONOS is FARPOINT. prime numbers matching upcoming thelemic cycles: 3037, 3041, 3049: 3037 ~ 07-Feb-05 to 18-Feb-05 1202

3041 ~ 28-Mar-05 to 08-Apr-05 (DR this = #8-FLORA, checkout her child history) 3049 ~ 03-Jul-05 to 14-Jul-05 asteroid #2938-HOPI went retrograde on 16-Dec-2004 about the time hyperstition had its troll problem. HOPI goes direct approximately 14-April. during the occultation HOPI-NICCOLO-IRANI conjunct PHERKAD on 29th path, phase 5, fifth prime (11). fixed star PHERKAD with -Alpha (Polaris), beta (Kochab), gamma (Pherkad) delta (Yildun), and epsilon constituted the group Circitores, Saltatores, Ludentes, or Ludiones, the "Circlers", "Leapers", or "Dancers" around the early pole, well known from classical times to late astronomy. past pherkaddian influences: {a} May 29th 1953 Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing reached the summit of Mt Everest - Pluto/Pherkad {b} April 12th 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing. - Uranus/Pherkad {c} May fifth, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Junior became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute sub-orbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. - Uranus/Pherkad {d} April 20th 1971, the Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools. - SNode/Pherkad ps. i posted info on HOPI before the occultation saying i'd be looking at that to determine hyperstition's "end of the world" strategies. pps. never used 2/3rds of these asteroid before (my list is different), it is based on hyperstition themes, influences, etc. ie, if i went to another blog i'd come up with different stuff and not be looking at Hopi, Prime Numbers, etc. pps. this here ends the biglist intro. ppps. PHERKAD = AIWASS 1203

LINKS.......................................................... • Commentary on Zodiacal Magic http://www.hermetic.com/stavish/rituals/zodiac.html • Comselha: An Enochian Macrocosmic Ritual http://www.hermetic.com/browe-archive/papers/comselha.htm • Interpreting The Dharma Point/Part of Fortune http://www.astrologyforthesoul.com/dharmapointpartoffortune.html • The EON: The 36 Cyclic Aspects Symbolically Depicted http://www.khaldea.com/eon/eonintro.shtml • The New Aeon: A Consideration of the Astrological Symbolism http://www.hermetic.com/browe-archive/agesnew.htm • Enoch Calendar Testifies of Christ http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2001/enoch_cal.html • Book III: The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/enoch.html#71 • Shem ha-Mephoresh, The Divine Name of Extension http://www.hermeticgoldendawn.org/Documents/Essays/shemha.html • Darth Vader and Star Wars http://www.expreso.co.cr/centaurs/posts/bio/vader.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus http://www.theoi.com/Kronos/Proteus.html http://www.theoi.com/Khaos/Protogonoi.html if you're wondering (what a pest am i!) whether this is shoggothic... 1204

FARPOINT = SHOGGOTH Nick Land: northanger - thanks for biglist info. - obviously requires some digesting ... piet: We know almost nothing about the germs around us (NewSci) http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7138 via robotwisdom.com made a restart after a royal(ly secret) sabbatical YIPPPPPIIEDEPIPPEEEE!!!! We know almost nothing about the germs http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7138 around us (NewSci) via robotwisdom.com made a restart after a royal(ly secret) sabbatical YIPPPPPIIEDEPIPPEEEE!!!! Cool pic(s) of tiger in Sumatran wild biting the camera (NewSci) 1205

Bioliberation Nick Land (March 16, 2005) Can Kass and set the Shoggoths free: “Bioethics Panel Illustrates Scientific Ethics' Complexity”89 by Iain Murray Comments: Bioliberation northanger: [ ] Fire Kass and set the Shoggoths free. [ ] Can Kass and Set set the Shoggoths free? [ ] Can Kass set the Shoggoths free? is this a no-gematria zone? bioliberation is, ah, kinda tasty. Nick Land: this is cool: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1437701,00.html Mouse-human hybrids - if they start acting human, scientist promises to kill them "no-gematria zone" - are there such things? PS. Kass is pure Anthropol - quite a gothic writer too, think one line goes: "Shallow are the souls who have forgotten how to shudder" http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/360mvea t.asp No! Promote it vigorously ... northanger: ok. you've got poe, lear, yellow matter rights & other discordia. and here i just figured out how to work the ABJAD on the biglist and this nonsense flies by like lucy in the sky. 89https://web.archive.org/web/20061011061320/http://www.techcentralstation.com:80/031505C.ht ml 1206

"We are repelled by the prospect of cloning human beings not because of the strangeness or the novelty of the undertaking, but because we intuit and we feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things that we are right to hold dear. We sense that cloning represents a profound defilement of our given nature as procreative beings, and of the social relations built on this natural ground. We also sense that cloning is a radical form of child abuse. In this age in which everything is held to be permissible so long as it is freely done, and in which our bodies are regarded as mere instruments of our autonomous rational will, repugnance may be the only voice left that speaks up to defend the core of our humanity. Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder." "I am the eggman, They are the eggmen, I am the walrus" Nick Land: "a profound defilement of our given nature" - Yessss "Recreationism" also superb coinage (Kass quoted in Weekly Standard article cited comment 02:10 AM (210 = COUNTDOWN)) northanger: CURRENT-266 and of course, CURRENT-210 Nick Land: We want our tentacles back! northanger: crikey. of course there's no ABJAD entry on the hyperstition dynamic indexxer. nicholas. before i was so rudely interrupted i was working an LJ post on "ERIDA" the goddess of hate, aka ERIS, the goddess of discordia. being that you two are in such tight conjugial junction, i'm sure -- if you appeal to her better side -- she will be more than happy to re-tentacle you. AQ 82 = ERIDA = BEGIN = BEING = BEST = BODY = BOHU = DAUT = DOVE = DUAT = DUNG = ESAU = EVEN = FLAME = GULF = HADES = HERO = I DARE = KABALA = KANT = LINK = PAEAN = PLACE = SKY = TEACH = THEM AQ 152 = TENTACLE = BAPHOMET = BLACK MAGIC = EGREGORE = CANOPUS 1207

AQ 180 = TENTACLES = FULL MOON = THE BLACK EGG = EGREGORES = = GEOMETRY AQ 332 = THE FLASHING SWORD Nick Land: "tight conjugial junction" don't even want to imagine what this means northanger: "tight conjugial junction" astrology-speak: tight orb number-speak: axioms of hyperstition axiom? polar. TIGHT ORB = SHOGGOTH Nick Land: tight orb? northanger: conjunctions range from 8 to 10 degrees. when two planets on same degree i use juan revilla's idea of 'reincarnation'. 1 to 3 degrees = 'tight". 4 to 10 degrees = 'loose'. orb in the sense of a planet's sphere of influence, resonance, aura, light. tight (within 3°) orb (aura/influence) Sue Ward has a good paper here: http://www.horary.com/sward/sward5.html "tight orb" in this sense: {a} same fixed star, {b} both retrograde, {c} same path, {d} same prime, {e} same p-demon, etc. similar pattern range (all retrograde except PHERKAD) :: NICCOLO, ERIDA, PHERKAD & IRANI. ORB OF LIGHT = AEONIC LIGHT = PHASE-LIMIT = STRANGELY = WAHHABISTIC NICCOLO = BABYLON PHERKAD = AIWASS 1208

ERIDA = HADES IRANI = IBLIS TIGHT ORB = SHOGGOTH this tells me: the tighter the orb, the better. moon-antares is a tight-orb interpretation. beginning to realize biglist is somewhat numogrammic. if yes, then tight orb relates to zones also. OCCULTATION = SEVEN STARS = TOWER OF BABEL imho, moon-antares occultation = tightbeam datastream burst. NICCOLO {20Le29Rx} INCARNATION :: ERIDA {21Le11Rx} + PHERKAD {21Le41} + IRANI {21Le51Rx} Nick Land: "imho, moon-antares occultation = tightbeam datastream burst" - not sure what this means exactly, but it sounds like a fairly controversial conjecture northanger: totally agree since asteroid 718 is ERIDA, THE STELE = 166 = TIGHTBEAM & DATASTREAM BURST = HYPERSTITIONAL. Nick Land: Brain hurts (again) At least 'p' has skunked himself into stupefaction northanger: have a problem with a number set. is your head to achey to deal with a question? and. came across this quote from reza that i think fits somehow - with the EU vs. USA discussion (In the rear-view mirror) and my number set problem involving ABJAD numbers: Qabbala 101: Part 1 WoTerror and its crypts, vocabularies and diagrams cannot be thoroughly exhumed from (A-)Now if we miss the indubitable fusion of the techno-commercial Anglossic K-abbalah and the sorcerous-occultural ABJAD (in WoTerror). A versatile line is needed to squirm between the two fronts (already contaminated by each other) and 1209

engineer machinic indices of these two systems whose job is to undermine (but not erase) all political, moral and technical inclinations which obstruct the pestilential diversities teeming out of WoTerror. On the other hand, in WoTerror, there are certain entities and threads that should be primarily diagramed through ABJADs and their hyperstitional grids since they are firmly bound to the sorcerous-occultural fronts of WoTerror (Islamic Apocalypticism?) and linked to ‘regional / local’ traits and cartographies (it is very hard and sometimes problematic to trust in technocommercial Anglossic probe-heads when they are tracking such irreducibly foreign entities). Nick Land: OK, let's hear it ... [I can always just scream and chew the carpet] PS. Does the alignment of Asmodai with H. emerge out of the arcane depths of Biglist? northanger: "Asmodai = H" - no. happened prior. biglist just confirmed it. creating ABJAD Gates using Jacob's Wheel alphabet formula (based on Sepher Yetzirah 231 Gates). two Jacob's Wheel spirals: involutionary and evolutionary. thought ABJAD should combine invo+evo letter pairs to match numogram - thought this pretty straight forward since number line decimal reduction = 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 pattern. however, realized 484 reduces to 7 generating number pairs that do not match Pandemonium (mesh numbers?). JW formula uses 22-letters; here's the beginning series if 22 or 28 ABJAD letters used (as mentioned previously, 6 unused letters go to LURGGO): 22 x 22 = 484 letter pairs ------------------{8} {1:484}, {2:483}, {3:482}, {4:481}, {5:480}, {6:479}, {7:478}, {8:477}, {9:476} ... etc. 484 DR pairs. [1::7], [2::6], [3::5], [4::4], [5::3], [6::2], [7::1], [8::9], [9::8] ... pattern repeats 28 x 28 = 784 letter pairs ------------------{11} {1:784}, {2:783}, {3:782}, {4:781}, {5:780}, {6:779}, {7:778}, {8:777}, {9:776}, {10:775} 784 DR pairs. 1210

[1::1], [2::9], [3::8], [4::7], [5::6], [6::5], [7::4], [8::3], [9::2], [1::1] ... pattern repeats (trying to think of a 9 series. start at zero: 21 x 21 = 441 = 9. 0 - 441 {0:441}, {1:441}, {2:441} .... [0::9], [1::9], [2::8]...) correction on last line... {0:441}, {1:440}, {2:439} .... [0::9], [1::8], [2::7]...) ABJAD gates correspond to Goëtia-Angelica pairs changing every 5 degrees & may not match Pandemonium mesh number. ABJAD Gates set by calendar. p: At least 'p' has skunked himself into stupefaction --- Haahahaah, I referred to tobacco brother nick, not the wacky weed I am dumbfounded to be able to write in hyroglyphs now; it's a very pretty cryptomat http://www.virtual-egypt.com/newhtml/glyph/glyph.html Nick Land: [Twitchily picking shreds of carpet from teeth]And the question is ... ? p - guessed you were doing something useful northanger: the question: how many ABJAD letters should i use? 21 (441 ((plus 0 = 442)), 22 (484), 28 (784). 441 = 21 to the 2nd power; Sq.Rt.; Cerva AYLTh; Truth; Temurah of ADM, by Aiq Bekar AMTh; A live coal GChLTh; Day Demon of 2nd Dec. Leo LRYAR; Angel L.T.D. of Pisces RMRA 441 ACTUAL [7x63,9x49,21x21] - [21° Sagittarius] 442 = Termini Terrae APSY ARTz 442 MAAT [13x34,26x17p] - [22° Sagittarius] 484 = 22 to the 2nd power; Sq.Rt. 484 NUMEROLOGY [11x44,22x22] - [4° Aquarius] 784 = 28 to the 2nd power; Sq.Rt.; Qliphoth of Cancer ShYChRYRVN 1211

784 CELESTIAL [7x112,14x56,28x28] - [4° Sagittarius] http://essenes.net/gem4.html http://essenes.net/gem5.html p: via the hyper hitchhikin hypsy site http://gypsyjournal.com back when the angularity of the numb(err)ed days and otherwisely sized measures for time's bits and pieces hadn't racked and run up so many open sores in the word The sheer diversity of asteroids leads to chronic overload in datastreams; my advice: take a step back ; snap a moment, slice a segment, do your best with an average, look for signs if it's decently embeddable in larger broad brush frames, then let go in favor of something you may take hold of.. .. the trouble with children afflicted with a history of not having been given enough to hold on to, shift, sweat over and see cycle into the games and guises of growth from gritty to great big; compared to the abduction/abuse issues playing up in certain channels (in no small part due to the 'residential school' crimes and such, are really dwarfed by this problem; the lack of backyard grounding is a huge crime comparable to the pang of pity some people get when the see someone with a full time job in the city feels entitled to 'keep' a dog. A report made public yesterday says that big cities have become 7 times deadlier in a short while. Somebody was axed in london the other day. The art of gypsification is to do with a love for the road; the road warriors want to see an end to them. I can sympathize with either and see some common ground: Stay on the path! It's there not to lead to exploitation and disclosure of territory it 'runs' into, but to protect (1) and bless (2) it. 1 -- stops the tramplement and hard going, allows easy long distance work; wouldn't mind seeing horsepower change to human muscle power though; big bands on the run with surpluses for and 2 -- essential (trace) requirements for the neighbours. 1212

Roadbuilding is a cleverer way for sediment distribution than creating rivers if you think of us as humble descendants and servants of the water cycles on earth. I't a way for mud to delay sprawly flowy touchy feely gratification and brace, purge and steel itself and reach further; evolutionarily speaking, getting as far as this is a rare chance, .. .but what do we see? idiots who want to set their knife in more mobile lifeforms than rock!!! Know you no shame???? u see full????? northanger: 441 ACTUAL [7x63,9x49,21x21] - [21° Sagittarius] CYDONIA {21Sg17}, AMANDA {21Sg19}, LEWISCARROLL {21Sg20} 442 MAAT [13x34,26x17p] - [22° Sagittarius] http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/RasAlhague.html RAS ALHAGUE {22Sg31} 484 NUMEROLOGY [11x44,22x22] - [4° Aquarius] http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/Oculus.html OCULUS {04Aq46} 784 CELESTIAL [7x112,14x56,28x28] - [4° Sagittarius] http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/Jabbah.html JABBAH {04Sg42} what are you going on about P? piet. specifically, don't know how i'm supposed to take this: "The sheer diversity of asteroids leads to chronic overload in datastreams ... " p: time haiku nothing better to do than squeeze the obstructs what luxury 1213

harden the abstracts to carry obstructs to a suitable place to do so = roader age .. . dawning well, take arguelles et all, he starts with the noble intention of keeping it simple and (numbers) 'whole' but pretty soon the fetish (4 is to 7 as 7 to 13, etcetera) fractionates and it gets grey matter contortionizingly complicated; headaches loom. asteroid orbits, rotations etcetera simply to diverse to try specify and have hopes of time left over to actually achieve confessed aims. Attempts to determine/place/pick out the role of individual trace minerals, supposedly redundant dna run into similar problems ; I prefer to 'make do' with a simple, coarse perhaps, trial and error mixage (magic) mimic. http://essenes.net/subindexgarden.htm COOL!!!! Nick Land: northanger - can you just choose how many Abjad letters to use? sounds kind of liberal ... "what are you going on about P?" - belongs permanently on the sidebar can i step back several paces on the Bigsys and ask about the merging of square (484) and triangular (231) numbers? when the system then gets redistributed on the zodiacal circle, a geometrical circuit blows in my visual cortex ... (and then there are the stars, but they seem to work like types of circles ...) [and the q. is] does 'it' have a shape /basic procedural principle for you, or is that looking at it the wrong way? northanger: ppppp - Ne sorga, snotor guma! "can you just choose how many Abjad letters to use? sounds kind of liberal" - AFAIK, some of them may be finals like the hebrew alphabet which has 22 letters and 5 finals. any remaining ABJAD letters are assigned to LURGGO at the center of the wheel. ((operating in ABJAD fog since reza hasn't answered Qs about this)) "merging of square (484) and triangular (231) numbers?" - what makes 484 square; 231 triangular? [give me a minute on the rest] Rops was to write again with regard to this work: "Here is more or less what I wanted Satan to say to the good Anthony (...) I want to show you that you are mad Anthony, to worship your abstractions!" 1214

"when the system then gets redistributed on the zodiacal circle, a geometrical circuit blows in my visual cortex" (a) mine too, (b) a circle can contain many shapes, (c) there are a variety of patterns; biglist only covers teeny fraction. "(and then there are the stars, but they seem to work like types of circles ...)" - fixed stars as opposed to planets, asteroids, etc? each planet or asteroid has a cycle; asteroid families describe patterns in the midbelt; see lagrange points (got links to some sims, let me look them up) kozai named for astronomer - describes a type of protection mechanims http://copernico.dm.unipi.it/~milani/maratea/node5.html fixed stars do move, a little. so they "function" differently. "[and the q. is] does 'it' have a shape /basic procedural principle for you, or is that looking at it the wrong way?" - i think every astrologer has a procedural principle (?). mine: Liber AL I:3. Every man and every woman is a star. that means every decision in the system should support Liber I:3. the shape? we live in a "complex (chaotic) multiverse" - what shape is that? actually, i'm almost done with the biglist. then, i will move to jetbox one and implement a website for beloved sister. working on biglist sharpens the mind for the real work. haha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_planet http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~marcsulf/asteroid/asteroid.html hopefully, some of these links illustrate the resonating, cyclical, pattern-inducing behavior of the planets & asteroids. http://www.crystalinks.com/asteroids.html http://www.easysky.de/eng/screenshots/ess06.htm http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~s24/hilda.htm Typical Hilda asteroids are captured in the 3/2 resonance of mean motion with respect to that of Jupiter. In numerical studies on the long-period evolution of Hildatype orbits Schubart (1982, 1991) has introduced three parameters that appear to characterize an orbit during very long intervals of time, in analogy to the proper elements of orbits of non-resonant asteroids 1215

Resonance in Planetary Orbits http://astro.nmsu.edu/~nicole/teaching/ASTR505/lectures/lecture12/slide01.htm l Stability: We define stability within the solar system as a state wherein the orbits of bodies remain well separated, and the planets will remain bound to the Sun for an infinite amount of time. Chaos: Two trajectories that are arbitrarily close in phase space will diverge exponentially with time. In a chaotic system, the timescale for divergence is independent of the precise values of the initial conditions. Nick Land: northanger assuming: (1) triangles (e.g. 231 = triangle 21, qabbalistic triangle 22) derived from (nonredundant non-positional) combinatorics - (of Hebrew alphabet?) (2) squares (e.g. 484 = square 22) appropriate to Goetian Table (?? - way out of my depth, think you showed me one but it was pulsing too psychedelically to assimilate) - aren't you already quite tightly locked into 22? - remember you doing some 484/11 = 44 Pandemonium interlock - head swirling at how assimilation to 360 happens - then there're the digital reductions (how do they work?) - [systems crash] What's sis's site going to be about? (Can we head over there to contaminate it with Cthulhu prophecy and senseless gematria computations?) northanger: looking at ABJAD table, 1st and 2nd cols from left, totals are 81/2700 and 72/1800. if 484 gates used, these 6 would be assigned to LURGGO. asteroid #153 HILGA (81+72=153) and asteroid #4500 PASCAL (2700 + 1800). HILGA named for Saint Hilga-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_of_Whitby 1216

PASCAL {17Ta07} named for Blaise Pascal born 19-June (hyperstition's birthday)-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal - head swirling at how assimilation to 360 happens believe the idea is LURGGO is doing something to the circle - as i work this, should figure that out. - then there're the digital reductions (how do they work?) you mean this stuff? [1::7], [2::6], [3::5], [4::4], [5::3], [6::2], [7::1], [8::9], [9::8] after all ABJAD assignments made there should be two sets of letter pairs, 1 going forward, 1 going backward. each of these [7::1] thingys will have 4 ABJAD letters (2letter pairs) and represent a DOUBLE GATE. then, starting from 01-April-1904 cycle to present day to determine (for 03-March-2005) occultation gate. then, take biglist and for every quinary (5 degrees) add a gate to divide biglist into 12 HOUSES (each quinary has a gate ruled by so-and-so). once that is determined, other Enochian relationships (ie, Bonorum = sorta work like Venusian Time Lords) can be determined. GATE determines Chakra, Planet, Letter-Pairs that can be used to go in and out of GATES (hyperstitionally speaking of course!) -- GATES are TIME PORTALS. very complicated. but keeps my brain cells jumping. "What's sis's site going to be about? (Can we head over there to contaminate it with Cthulhu prophecy and senseless gematria computations?)" rotflmao. hey. just say the word and i'll leave ya alone. sis site is non-profit simple thing, going to use projectseven.com maxwell pack: http://www.projectseven.com/products/fastpacks/maxwell/index.htm fun thing is getting maxwell into jetbox one: http://jetbox.streamedge.com/ i'll write up the saga on my livejournal. 1217

"http://astro.nmsu.edu/~nicole ETCETERA .. .NOT FOUND" - sorry piet, grabbed that stuff from a file dated 10-Nov-2003. "wait, the Hilda resonance one is of an even wilder order to fit easily within unbudgably embedding borders." -- think i understand you. and that's why i like the 484 pattern. AFAIK, the HILGA family of asteroids have a very stable orbit, very recognizable orbit. gate gate lifetime slate, who oh who done ate the pearly gate? I get it; this is all a game of mentally limbering up for the real work and getting stuck in gate galore gauntlet gamot since i was using ABJAD & this relates to the Numogram, wanted to get feedback on direction. 484 it is (using 22 letters to generate gates, and assign remaining 6 letters to LURGGO representing "hilga" & "pascal") - remember LURGO describes a holy hexagram and the HILGA's describe a triangle and there's PASCAL's Triangle. ((lol, just figured that out - thanks! doh, it takes me awhile)) "gate galore gauntlet gamot" - fraid so. jetbox implementation is going to be a challenge. ok. nighty night piet. bye nicky. oops. LURGGO. sorry. 1218

I met a man who wasn't there: the ethics of Ashbless mark k-p (March 17, 2005) 'Templeton sits immobile in his attic room, immersed in the deceptively erratic ticking of his old nautical clock, lost in meditation upon JC Chapman's hermetic engraving. It now seems that this complex image, long accepted as a portrait of Kant, constitutes a disturbing monogram of his own chronological predicament. As if in mockery of stable framing, the picture is surrounded by strange-loop coilings of Ouraboros, the cosmic snake , who traces a figure of eight - and of moebian eternity - by endlessly swallowing itself. Suspended from its lower jaw is a cryptic device of intricately balanced circles and stars (ancient symbols of the AOE). Above the sepent's head, a facsimile of Kant is etched in profile, the face fixed in an amiable - if distant expression. What was it though, that hid behind the death-mask, where it cut-off, below and behind the jaw, false ear, and double hair-line? What was this peculiarly formless body, shadowy neck-flesh, and suggestion of a cervical fin? As he stared, and hideously remembered, Templeton felt as though he knew.' - Ccru, 'The Templeton Episode' 'After a time the boat floated through a dim gate flanked by two sarcophagi as tall as telephone poles, and the shore figures on the other side were screaming and shifting from side to side along the shore and over their frightened cries he could hear a slow metallic slithering. ‘Apep!’ the ghosts were shouting. ‘Apep!’ And then he saw a shape of blackness rising and it was the head of a serpent so vast that it dwarfed their freakish boat. Man-shaped forms dangled from its jaws, but it shook its ponderous head, sending them spinning away, and arched slowly towards the river. “The serpent Apep,” whispered Romanelli, “whose body lies in the deep realms of the keeku samu where pure darkness becomes an impenetrable solid.” ' - Tim Powers, The Anubis Gates, 452 'One is ... tempted to see in the 'time paradox' of science-fiction novels a kind of "apparition in the Real" of the elementary structure of the symbolic process, the socalled internal, internally inverted eight: a circular movement, a kind of snare where we can progress only in such a manner that we 'overtake' ourselves in the transference, to find ourselves later at a point which we have already been. The paradox consists in the fact that this superfluous detour, this supplementary snare of understanding 1219

ourselves ('voyage into the future') and then reversing the time direction ('voyage into the past') is not just a subjective illusion/ perception of an objective process taking place in so-called reality independent of these illusions. The supplementary snare is, rather, an internal condition, an internal consituent of the so-called 'objective' process itself: only through this additional detour does the past itself, the 'objective' state of things, become retroactively what it always was.' - Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology, 57 'Steampunk is a form of theodicy.' - John Clute Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates is a fabulously inventive variation on a time-travel theme. The model is not the straightforward (or rather straightforward and straightbackward) structure established in Wells' founding text of the sub-genre Time Machine. Instead, The Anubis Gates follows the formal structure of the time (travel) paradox perfected by Robert Heinlein in stories such as 'All You Zombies' and 'By his Bootstraps'. The template for this kind of paradox narrative lies on the hinterlands between SF, Fantasy and Horror where Lovecraft's The Shadow out of Time and Through the Gates of the Silver Key can be found. But if those stories show the closed loop of chronos opening out into 'the unutterable Abomenon of the Outside (Nihil Ulterius)', then Heinlein and Powers merely trace the coils of ouroboros. The Anubis Gates confirms Zizek's claim that the closed loop paradox, far from threatening the collapse of chronic temporality, is the structure of the (Symbolic, Architectonic) Order itself. In The Anubis Gates, the academic Brendan Doyle is lured into a time-travel experiment by the eccentric plutocrat Clarence Darrow. Darrow is dying, and, whilst undertaking the prodigious and apparently deranged research he has pursued in a desperate bid to prolong his life, he comes upon the story of 'Dog-Face Joe' amongst the folklore of London in the early years of the nineteenth century. By a process of diligent scholarship and daring supposition, Darrow determines that Joe was a magician capable of transferring his consciousness from body to body, but whose body-stealing had an unfortunate side-effect: almost immediately Joe enters it, the purloined body grows profuse, simian-like hair, so that its new owner is forced to discard it very soon after switching into it. For obvious reasons, Darrow wants to acquire the secret of this profane transmigration, and he seems to have the means to 1220

make contact with the body-switching magician since his research has uncovered 'gaps' in the river of time, gates through which it is possible to pass into the past. Doyle's role is to act as a kind of literary tour-guide for the ultra-wealthy time travellers Darrow has assembled, attracted by the possibility of seeing a lecture by Coleridge, and whose million dollar fee will finance the trip. Very soon after arriving in the nineteenth century, Doyle is abducted into a rhizomic underLondon that is part Oliver Twist, part Burroughs' The Western Lands. Powers' phantasmagoric London - the apocalyptic vividness of whose rendering led John Clute to the describe The Anubis Gates as 'Babylon-on-Thames punk' - is the site for a war between the forces of Egyptian polytheistic sorcery and the grey positivism of British Empire/empircism, involving romanys, ka duplicates, poets, beggars, costermongers, male impersonators.... After a while, Doyle comes, reluctantly, to accept his (literary) Fate - to be propelled, by means of SF, into the nineteenth century picaresque - and more or less gives up any hope of returning home. He resigns himself to make the best of his nineteenth century life and decides that his most realistic hope of an escape from beggary is to make contact with William Ashbless, the minor poet in whose works he has specialist knowledge. Doyle goes to the Jamaica Coffee House on the morning in which, according to Ashbless' biographer, the American poet will write his epic poem, 'The Twelve Hours of the Night'. The appointed time arrives, but there is no sign of Ashbless. While he waits, at first agitated and then deflated, Doyle idly transcribes 'The Twelve Hours of the Night' from memory. He is soon caught up in more intrigue and, for a while, forgets about Ashbless. In one of the most uncanny moments in the book, Doyle hears, or fancies he hears, someone whistling The Beatles' 'Yesterday'. It is only after he catches the refrain being whistled again a day or so later that he is able to confirm that there are indeed a group of twentieth-century temporal emigres living in 1810 London. They turn out to be Darrow's people, given the task of helping in the search for Dog Face Joe. Doyle meets with one of them, his former student, Benner, who by now is a paranoid and grizzled wreck, convinced that Darrow is out to kill him. He and Doyle agree to meet again a few days later, but when they do, Doyle finds his fomer friend's behaviour is even odder than before. Doyle discovers the reason for this too late. Benner's body has been acquired by Dog Face Joe. This becomes clear to Doyle only when he finds himself in Benner's body, after it has been discarded by Joe. 1221

Everything is now in place for the revelation that shocks Doyle but which is, by now, no surprise at all for the reader: Doyle IS Ashbless. Or rather: there is no Ashbless (except for Doyle). Doyle only begins to process the full implications of this when he contemplates the peculiar (a)temporal status of the 'Twelve Hours of the Night' manuscript. “It hadn’t […] come to too much of a surprise to him when he’d realized, after writing down the first few lines of ‘The Twelve Hours of the Night’, that while his casual scrawl had remained recognizably his own, his new left-handedness made his formal handwriting different – though by no means unfamiliar: for it was identical to William Ashbless’. And now that he’d written the poem out completely he was certain that if a photographic slide of the copy that in 1983 would reside in the British Museum, they would line up perfectly, with every comma and i-dot of his version perfectly covering those of the original manuscript. Original manuscript? He thought with a mixture of awe and unease. This stack of papers here is the original manuscript… it’s just newer now than it was when I saw it in 1976. Hah! I wouldn’t have been so impressed to see it then if I’d known I had made or would make those pen scratches. I wonder when, where and how it’ll pick up the grease marks I remember seeing on the early pages. Suddenly a thought struck him. My God, he thought, then if I stay and live out my life as Ashbless – which the universe pretty clearly means me to do – then nobody wrote Ashbless’ poems. I’ll copy out his poems from memory, having read them in the 1932 Collected Poems, and my copies will be set in type for the magazines, and they’ll use tear sheets from the magazines to create the Collected Poems! They’re a closed loop, uncreated!… I’m just the …. Messenger and caretaker.” (330-331) Like his unhappier time-displaced fellow, Jack Torrance, Doyle has always been the caretaker (and nothing but?) Fictionally speaking, the 'Twelve Hours of the Night' is another kind of duplicate, since a similarly atemporally insistent text (in this case a notebook) is at the heart of Heinlein's 'By His Bootstraps'. The concept of such a text originates, though, not in SF but in Leibniz's demented rationalism. To illustrate his claim that 'we cannot find in any of the individual things, or even in the entire collection and series of things [of the universe], a sufficient reason for why they exist', Leibniz offers the following analogy: 1222

'Let us suppose that a book on the elements of geometry has always existed, one copy made from another. It is obvious that although we can explain a present book from the previous book from which it was copied, this will never lead us to a complete explanation, no matter how many books back we go, since we can always wonder why there have always been such books, why these books were written, and why they were written the way they were. What is true of these books is also true of the world, for the state which follows is, in a sense, copied from the previous one, though in accordance with certain laws of change.' ('On the Ultimate Origination of Things') Rehearsing the logic of Aquinas' cosmological argument, Leibniz's conclusion is that there then must be 'One Being who rules the universe...[and who] fashions and creates it', a Being which 'is above the world, and, so to speak, extramundane, and therefore ... is the ultimate origin of everything.' As Russell and others have pointed out, though, this 'proof' of the existence of Jahweh is anything but: it merely sets up the bad infinity of transcendence, which is always pseudo-transcendence, since every attempt to posit 'an Ultimate Origin of Things', a meta-level above all meta-levels, the set of all sets, is destined, by its very nature, to fail. There is no better statement of this than Douglas Hofstadter's in Godel, Escher, Bach: 'Achilles: ... You mean that GOD sits up at the top of the ladder of djinns? Genie: No, no, no! There is nothing "at the top", for there is no top. That is why GOD is a recursive acronym. God is not some ultimate djinn: GOD is the tower of djinns above any given djinn. (114)' This shifts us from the transcendementia of the cosmological argument to that of the ontological argument, which, as Brian McHale argues in Postmodernist Fiction is 'grotesquely parodied' by Beckett in The Unnamable. 'God is that than which nothing greater can be thought, said Anselm. Now if that than which no greater can be thought existed only in the mind, then a greater could still be thought after all, namely a being who existed in extramental reality. Therefore, so runs the syllogism, God must exist not only mentally but also in reality. The Unnamable parodies this astonishing feat of pulling-oneself-up-by-one's-boot-straps by showing that no matter how "high" his imaginings go, no matter how many recursive authors and authors-above-authors he projects, he can never get outside of his own imaginings to the reality of his ultimate creator. There is an absolute "ontological" ceiling which retreats as he approaches it.' (13) 1223

The ontological problem in The Anubis Gates is quite different of course. The ontological scandal presented by Ashbless' collected poems is not that there is some 'ultimate creator' which cannot be reached, but very much to the contary: the ex- or rather IN-sistence of the poems establishes that they could not have a creator of any kind, only a caretaker-transcriber. And what displaces Leibniz's transcendent God is the 'miracle' - or rather the miraculation (Deleuze-Guattari) - of the appearance-insistence of the Text itself. But, we have to insist, with Lacan, that this is all God always-already was. Or to put it another way, the mono-theistic God IS the always-already. That is what Lacan establishes in his typically gnomic reading of 'Moses and Monotheism'. 'The Death of God' (in the seminar on The Ethics of Psychoanalysis) does little more (but this is vast) than slavishly draw out the implications of Freud's rigorous demonstration that the foundation of mono-theism IS the destruction of all foundations. When the beta males rise up to kill Pere Jouissance (the alpha male 'father who enjoys'), they find, to their horror, that, ar from having access to the unlimited enjoyment that they imagined was available to the patriarch, they occupy the position of the always-already mortified, the scions of guilt-plague: in other words, the role of the big Other itself. Jahweh never exists, he insists (in the troubled unconscious of his usurper-propagators). Jahweh is never present, he persists (through his absence, not only maintaining but defined by what theologians call 'epistemic distance'.) What makes all this utterly contemporary is the flattening of God into the big Other. Postmodern/ deconstructive negative theology likes to pose as a textualist-relativist deviation from a spectral Orthodoxy that is supposedly characterised by its rigidity and dogmatism. But Freud-Lacan's analysis allows us to see that, just as the homicidaloedipal apes find there is no God but the space of the absent God which they themselves occupy, so Orthodoxy only persists via its retrospeculative positing in the talmudic quibbling of those who endlessly announce their deviations from 'doxa'. To return to The Anubis Gates: so far as postmodern power goes (it's dead but it lives on - Land) there is there is no orthodoxy, there is only parodoxy. As Deleuze-Guattari and Zizek both acknowledge, Kafka is the prophet of the already-dead God and the double-binding 'control virus' (Burroughs) in which it is instantiated. Eschatology and the Last Judgement are misdirections, teleological confidence tricks concealing the 'fatal strategies' (Baudrillard) through which Control immanently operates, now. The predicament in which K, as the postmodern subject 1224

par excellence, finds himself is not that of someone awaiting judgement, but of someone enduring 'indefinite postponement'. The big Other does not exist, it insists as virtual vampiric structure whenever it lures dupes (us) into endlessly petitioning it for recognition and/or acquittal. It was in this sense that Orson Welles was perfectly right to say that K is 'guilty as hell'. Guilt is the a priori condition for those inserted into the Control machine, whose lineaments were described with terrifying precision by Burroughs, Kafka's real successor. Control precisely does not issue rigid commands, but complementary yet contradictory injunctions, themselves always provisional and 'subject to review'. The coherence of the Control hyper-entity can only ever be virtual; it doesn't pre-exist the subject of Control. Very much to the contrary, it is the very attempt to make sense of the 'obviously' incommensurate and prima facie senseless injunctions it issues that constitute what minimal coherence Control has. As Kafka's hapless peitioner discovers, the door is meant only for you. But behind the door is the metastatic God Over Djinn bad infinity of metanoiac postponement. Ceaseless seamless bad dream corridors. 'We know that Mr D never told any of his agents any more than the uh minimum consistent with the performance of their uh duties and that this Minimum Information - M.I. - was expressed in mathematical formulae. We know that Mr D lied to all his agents. I suggest that he lied to you, doctor. I suggest further that you are not the Mr D. That the Mr D does not in fact exist but is simply the hypothetical quantity at the end of an infininte series of which you and Mr Martin are the uh lower integers.' (Burroughs, 'Ancient Face Gone Out', 18) That is why the Nietzschean critique of grammatology (we'll never get rid of God until we get rid of grammar) not only fails to move beyond the dead God, it sustains that God in its undeath. Nietzsche's claim, in The Genealogy of Morals that there is no actor-subject behind actions is both too slow and too quick. Too slow, because, as we have seen, the non-existence of the mono-theistic meta-subject is the founding moment of mono-theism. Too quick, because there is, in fact, a subject, albeit one that is only ever empty, 'barred'. To demonstrate why this is so, we can return (at last!) to The Anubis Gates. What is the difference between Doyle and Ashbless? The quick answer, 'nothing' is tempting, but misleading. Or rather, 'Doyle' is that 'nothing' which is the difference from Ashbless. This 'nothing' is what Lacan means by the barred subject. Zizek quite rightly makes the connection between Lacan's famous slogan 'the letter always reaches its destination' (from Seminar XI's epochal 'The Agency of the Letter 1225

and the Unconscious', the reading of Poe's 'The Purloined Letter') and time paradox stories. As he explains, at one level, 'a letter which always arrives at its destination points at the logic of recognition/misrecognition (reconnaissance/méconnaissance) elaborated in detail by Louis Althusser and his followers (e.g. Michel Pêcheux): the logic by means of which one mis/recognizes oneself as the addressee of ideological interpellation. This illusion constitutive of the ideological order could be succinctly rendered by paraphrasing a formula of Barbara Johnson: "A letter always arrives at its destination since its destination is wherever it arrives." Its underlying mechanism was elaborated by Pêcheux apropos of jokes of the type: "Daddy was born in Manchester, Mummy in Bristol, and I in London: strange that the three of us should have met! In short, if we look at the process backwards, from its contingent result, the fact that events took precisely this turn could not but appear as uncanny, concealing some fateful meaning — as if some mysterious hand took care that the letter arrived at its destination, i.e., that my father and my mother met.' The Oedipal reference here is of course no accident (and part of the point is that the unconscious is rigorously Spinozistic in its rejection of the very category of the accidental; as Freud shows in 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' the unconscious transforms apparent contingency into metaphysical Necessity via repetition) because the Oedipus myth is itself a closed loop paradox: 'one knows in advance one's destiny, one tries to evade it, and it is by means of this very attempt that the predicted destiny realizes itself.' (Sublime Object of Ideology, 58) Thus the closed loop time paradoxes in science fiction are in a sense the 'comic' postmodern counterpoint to the closed loops of classical tragedy. What makes the Oedipus myth (post)modern from the start is the fact that, as Alenka Zupancic explains, it is a kind of initation in reverse. Oedipus does not have to struggle to overcome a Female-Thing (the Sphinx yields easily) nor to best an omnipotent Symbolic Father (his father is just a rude old man). Oedipus 'travels the path of initiation (of 'symbolization') in reverse and, in so doing, he experiences the radical contingency of the Meaning borne by the symbolic.' (Ethics of the Real, 192). In other words, instead of first of all experiencing his parents as mighty agents of the symbolic, only to become disillusioned later when he realises that they are 'just people', Oedipus first of all encounters 'mere people' then, only afterwards, realises that these quotidian nothings - these happenstance wretches - were no less than his Mother and Father. Oedipus' problem, then, is that of the always-already dead God, the father who cannot live up to his undead role as Father. 'So THAT was the the father!' 1226

Doyle's initiation is similar but subtly different. The Ashbless Enigma that he encounters first is comically deflated once he realises that - at some level - the solution is only him. 'I wouldn’t have been so impressed to see it then if I’d known I had made or would make those pen scratches.' But the deflation is immediately followed by a profound dread and awe (the poems are uncreated!) that far exceeds his original fascination with the poet. Once Doyle realises that he is destined to be Ashbless, which is to say, that he alwaysalready was Ashbless, he is posed with a dilemma: does he act in accordance with what he hypostasises as the will of the universe (it is the 'universe' that 'wants' him to live in Ashbless' shoes), or not? The problem that Doyle faces is that the determinism is much harder than a will, even a will that belongs to 'the universe'. What he literally cannot process is that everything he has done as Ashbless has already happened. The barrier that means that this cannot be faced is transcendental: subjectivity as such presupposes the illusion that things could be different. The Kantian demand that we must think of ourselves as if free turns out to be a transcendental law rather than a meta-ethical injunction. To be a subject IS to think of oneself as if free. What sustains this for Doyle is the apparently spontaneously emerging hypothesis of an 'alternative past': in order to hold open the possibility that things might go against the alreadyrecorded Ashbless biography, Doyle is forced to consider the possibility that he has somehow crossed into 'different past' to the one he has seen documented. But the full Zizekian paradox is that it is only Doyle's positing of such an 'alternative past' that ensures that he acts in accordance with what has already happened. The letter always arrives at its destination. Ashbless becomes the hero he already was, the restorer of an Order that was never threatened: the 'harlequinade of magicians and other villains ... know their place', and the 'Adamic Doyle' will have always thwarted the 'generically familiar templates whose attempts to spook England into decline and corruption and despair' (Clute). The difference between Doyle and (Oedip)us is only that Doyle is more aware of the Necessity that he is (even if such awareness is part of the very Necessity of which it seems to offer knowledge). From the point of view of Spinozism, of course, 'we' are no more 'free to avoid Necessity' than is Doyle. Sub specie aeternitatas, everything has already happened, but we, too, are unable to give up our belief in 'possible worlds', our conviction that things could have been different from what they always had to be. So it is that the ouroboros coils around us. 1227

'His destiny moves us only because it might have been ours - because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. ... While the poet, as he unravels the past, brings to light the guilt of Oedipus, he is at the same time compelling us to recognize our own inner minds...' Comments: I met a man who wasn't there: the ethics of Ashbless Reza Negarestani: Mark, just some initial sparks: the strange draco-spiralism depicted in figures 1 and 2 is not originally a manifestation of the eternal fang-tail dynamism of ouroboros as ouroboros itself originates from a far more ancient entity. Archeological investigations during the 80s confirmed that these draco-spirals (a coiling serpent, a serpent swallowing itself, etc.) initially come from an unfathomably ancient entity which later resurrected in Persian and Mesopotamian and later European Mithraism, spread in all religious threads (even threads of monotheism): Zravan Akarana whose tetra-winged body is always surrounded by coils of a serpent (ouroboros is a horizontal segment of this coil) whose function is uncreation through Aeonian chrono-abyss. Zravan Akarana (the UnTime) presents the burning line of flight (usually pictured with flaming eyes and a mouth filled with black flame) out of the time which belongs to creation and the divine (the creator and the created), in later manifestation of Zravan Akarana, the tetra-winged body disappears (as the main body of Zravan) and the coil remains, segmented to ouroboros, chrono-dimensions and modes of templexity. I will post a full articles on Solar flight, Zravan and Islamic Salat soon. Will try to scan a picture of Zravan, think it fits your post perfectly. interestingly, when Zravan flies out of time, the consequence is creation but it is not the creator (in early Avesta, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman both claim that they don't have a father although they emerge from Zravan). northanger: mark - trying to wrap this time loop around my mind. i'm moebically perplexed how to work it magically or hyperstitionally. do you start in the past, the present or the future? i may be wrong, but regardless of where you start it requires some type of recognition? from the past you recreate something from memory and recognize you're the "carrier". starting from the "future" is still kinda fuzzy. but, starting from the "present" seems to involve deciding what thing you're going to 1228

"misrecognize" and transform it by "recognition". argh. what a puzzle. another boggy area involves deciding what "fiction" to use. reza (9) - i know i know. {sing-songy} the most ancient old thingys found only in Persia & Mesopotamian. however, worthy mention: TELI appears in Sefer Yetzirah 6:1 "He set them in the Teli, the Cycle, and the Heart." Aryeh Kaplan's comments posted http://www.livejournal.com/users/northanger/5533.html here: searching "Zravan Akarana" found "Essential Origins Of Zoroastrianism" main link: http://tenets.zoroastrianism.com/ three papers by "Dr. Framroze Sorabji Chinivala, Opthalmic Sergeon, 1942, Published by the Parsi Vegetarian and Temperance Society of Bombay" - Introduction and Chapters of Essential Origins Of Zoroastrianism, Essential Origins Of Zoroastrianism, Sequel to Essentials of Zoroastrianism. from "Essential Origins Of Zoroastrianism" http://tenets.zoroastrianism.com/EssentialOriginsOfZoroastrianismFull.pdf Zarvane Akarne = Endlessness. "The number 1 denotes the ultimate goal that the Universe has to reach, i.e. to be submerged in the One without any compeer, Unfathomable, Unknowable. Zero denotes the helplessness of even Fravashi to fathom the Great One, and the sign ‘(-)’ minus denotes the One and the Only One, who is beyond the domain of Law, Whom the thought of even Yazatas can never reach. The sign plus denotes the outcome of the Universe of both the immortal and mortal types. The symbol of circumference with a centre and a radius O denotes Zarvane Akarne i.e. energies without limit possessing deified powers, called Khshathra. This Zarvane Akarne is the authoritative genius of each one of the immortal seven tenses having deified import as good as that of Yazata who are the deified 'harmony-cloak' of Ahuramazda. This Zarvane Akarne leads to desired end, all possible 'times and spaces' conceivable accruing from it in the most frugal manner, rotating and working upon the centre of Asha according to the principles Asha i.e., Order Divine with radius i.e. power uncontested. This symbol of Zarvane Akarne is taken also as the symbol of the power of the Yazata the immortal 1229

beings affiliated to Ahu who with their power of this zero like circumference of Zarvane Akarne say that they know nothing about the Great Ahu, i.e. they know zero about Him. But this zero of Zarvane Akarne instructs them that they have to go by the Divine Edict-Ahuna-Vairya-and the associated Loyalty-Fravashi-to work out the Razeng the mystery associated with number 3, i.e., to evolve the mortal Universe, take it to the extreme end of rigidity, mortality, materialism and then turn it back to immortality and the Great One after due Connotation of improvement. Thus the Yazatas, who denote the import of +plus, i.e. who are the outcome of the Great One are invested with Zarvane Akarne powers to work out the mysterious number 3, mysteries of number 3, in order to take it to the mystery of number 9." mark k-p: Reza, interesting, but the second fig is not Ouroboros but Apep, from Egyptian mythology. I've seen some pictures of Apep in which it is portrayed as a winged serpent. Is Zravan Akarana older than Apep I wonder? Reza Negarestani: Yes Mark, it’s Apep, the winged serpent which also connected to Sumerian mythologies and later ouroboros and is directly connected to Zravan. The first headless figurine of Zravan which has been discovered in south of iran belongs to approx. 9500 years ago (before Aryans settled in Iran plateau), which is older than Sumero-Babelian draco-spiralistic figures (Tiamat, Nergal, etc.) the strange thing about the archeological discoveries is that Zravan sometimes has been introduced as the primal Ahriman who is presented as three dots (cosmic unlocalizability), only in later Avesta and indic culture it is introduced as something neutral or related to Ahura i.e. a demiurge and Yazd [God] (looking at the pics I sent, you can easily realize it's not very friendly), later three dots become four dots (square and is an element in constructions associated to Yazds and later Allah i.e. Kaaba or Cube which in Sanskrit means to lay down, to stretch over a surface and is the basic architectonic form for worshiping by offering a 'place to' a deity; Kaabas were very popular in early Zoroastrianism and are somehow different from Sumero-Akkadian Ziggurats in their exclusive functions to worshiping deities) and constitute a swastika. Think your post is great for discussing Chronomancy / Time-traveling potentials of hyperstition and their connections to Mesopotamian mythoi. But this needs an effective contribution from Barker, Sarkon, Linda Trent, et al. (see the picture: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/Dots.gif) There are also a couple of ciphers (not decoded it) which are associated to Zravan: (http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/Ciphers.gif) 1230

northanger: http://www.symbols.com/ two types of draco spirals—apep (apophis) = disorder // ouroboros = order. apep (evil serpent, nachash) strives to destroy cyclic order (sun) with apophetic formulas to restrain, crush, dismember, & destroy by fire (appearing in many egyptian funerary rites). ((donald tyson's apocalytic theory re enochian angels + choronzon fits here)) word associations: apophetic - apocalyptic // apophis - aphesis. aphesis (releasing; "releasing of a debt") appears in NT & hellenistic astrology. in astrology, aphesis determines time lord governance: you must "serve" or "live out" the time period described by a time lord until a debt is paid; only intervention can cut this short. NT usage: "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission [aphesis] of sins". this appears in luke 4 after jesus tempted by satan (apep?). afterward, he returned to nazareth & read a prophecy from isaiah in the synagogue: "To preach the _acceptable year_ of the Lord". may be some similarities here: "Taghieh ‘originally’ means a strategic (dis)simulation; the belief of the concealment of the true beliefs in situations where harm or death will definitely be encountered if the true beliefs are declared." AQ = 1384 = ??? Reza Negarestani (March 20, 2005) Finally returned home and fully online. Still 6 hours to the Persian New Year but anyway, Happy Norooz to all. (Personal commentary: hate that line about awakening the good) PS. I will try to post a boring article very soon. PPS. There is a v. interesting draft post in MT control panel; Mark is that yours? If your answer is positive, I have some archeological materials and minor corrections for you. PPPS. Someone awakens Dread from its untimely slumber. Comments: AQ=1384=??? 1231

mark k-p: Yeh, was me. See below. Interested in yr corrections and archaeology stuff obv. Happy norooz to you too... northanger: reza - happy newbie you wiley dust demon. do you happen to have an AQ value of 1384 already, or are you just fishing? Reza Negarestani: Thanks very much ... no, i'm just looking for the prey. ;) northanger: argh. found a 1374 & a 1394. so i made one up! 1384 = GEM: INTELLECTUAL LOGIC (PLUTONIC LOOPING) THE NEUTRAL CENTER TICK-DISTRIBUTOR 333 = INTELLECTUAL LOGIC 333 = PLUTONIC LOOPING 333 = THE NEUTRAL CENTER 333 = TICK-DISTRIBUTOR Nick Land: Great to have you back! Norooz seems to intriguingly coincide with Lovecraft's period of annual Cthulhu agitation. Nothing on 1384 (yet), but 1390 could be very stimulating ... 1232

Machines are digging (Holey Space and H.P. Lovecraft) [updated] Reza Negarestani (March 21, 2004) Holey Space This is a new version of ‘Machines are digging’, extensively updated in the wake of Dr. Hackhammer’s ground-breaking studies on Shoggothic Materialism and biopolytics of pest. *** An interesting conversation with Craig is still moving forward and getting more exciting, more dynamic in different directions; here some preliminary and crude answers: First, the machine we are interested in is a non-mechanistic (running un-dispositif), non-utilitarian, immappable machine (machinic machine); intrinsically insurgent to any instrumentalizing process. It can be grasped through radical contagious participations between parts, and its machinery of bond-engineering or epidemic attraction (which according to DG is the ‘functioning’ itself), an attraction which never accommodates parts in matrices of correctitude (what gravity does). Craig: “Cthulhu, Minister/Priest of the Outside brings a new kind of existence to the Machine-Shoggoths. The Carven Rim and Black Pit are the Holes, tunnels of Holey space through which the Unlife may seep through. That proto-Shoggoth is Unlife itself, the seething chaotic profusions of value-stripped War that repels us with its Strangeness, and in a desperate attempt to comprehend the blackly Numinous labels it a place of Soul-Shattering Evil.” *** Holey Space or more accurately ‘( )hole Complex’ (with an ever-evaporating W) speeds and triggers the opening of the Unlife and its convoluting, holing, coring out processes – vermiculating lines or tendrils of Anonymous-until-Now (see previous posts) – that eventually transform into a violent process of ungrounding, re-inventing the Earth as an Unground or what Deleuze and Guattari slyly appropriated as “the New Earth”. The question is: The Tellurian–Omega or the Unground can still be called Earth? And then according to what chronologic current or based on what 1233

calendar, according to what becoming, it can be mapped as NEW (the new earth)? The Unground is a shadow out of time. Lovecraft has an alarming but over-neglected passage about this holey space or ( )hole complex as the zone through which the Outside gradually but persistently emerges, creeps in (or out?) from the Inside. “Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.” (H.P. Lovecraft, The Festival) From the following paragraph: "The nethermost caverns," wrote the mad Arab, "are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl." (H.P. Lovecraft, The Festival) The ( )hole Complex is actually a machine to facilitate the awakening of the Old Ones through convoluted compositions of solid and void. Paraphrasing Nick from The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism: “void excludes solid but solid includes void to architectonically survive” ... solid needs void to engineer composition; even the most despotic / survivalist solids are compositional solids, infected by the void. Through these inter-collisions of void and solid, the Old Ones – according to Lovecraft – can revive their Holocaust of Freedom, both by consuming solid and pushing compositions towards highest degrees of convolution (as a result of the ambiguity of solid and void i.e. the foggy space of hole and its surface dynamics), by engineering ‘the corpse of solidus’ as we call it – installing ungrounding machines at molecular levels that exhume (ex + humus: ground) the earth from within and without, turning it to a vermicular composition whose strata (The Economy of Solidus) are not dismantled but intricately convoluted at each level of their formation and composition; they are incapacitated from running their stratifying / grounding functions; instead they are charged to engineering the corpse of solidus, or in a Lovecraftian sense, a worm-infested body (earth) exhumed by worming processes – holing / vermiculating machines. 1234

Although void devours solid but solid feasts on void i.e. its outsider. In compositions, solid becomes hysterically gluttonous for the void. This is what intrigued the Cult of the Old Ones in their mission to perform their awakening ritual: If the Old Ones should fly through ( )hole complex or holey space, then the only strategic technique to speed their return is to mess with ( )hole complex – the zone of their emergence. A technique which also perceived by the Z. crowd as a strategy to arch-sabotage monotheism and inter-connect it to undercurrents of Tellurian Insurgency (for example petropolitical undercurrents in Islamic Apocalypticism), and actively – but without attracting too much attention – participating in the Project of TellurianOmega and its diverging lines (where the Earth reaches utter immanence with its burning core [or as Nick suggests, “the burning core of the real”] and the Sun) and the Unground. Awakening Strategies: Holey space is nothing but a composition (of solid and void) but a vermicular one, burrowed by worms or vermicular lines convoluting and coring out anything they touch. In a composition, solid narrates the anomalies generated by void or the infection of void through solid (when void comes to solid, it works as a convoluting plague, a coiling swirling epidemic rather than a nullifying process or a solid-annihilating agent); in a composition there is no pure solid but a defiled one, a diseased and deflowered solid. Once you realize that in a composition (as in ( )hole complex) solid is the possessed narrator of the void, you can see that solid works as two different entities overlapped on each other and functioning concurrently: (1) As a compositional agency whose dynamism and behavior (topological changes, surface modifications, transformations, motions, wrinkles, folds, etc.) can induce changes to the compositional side of the void through Surface Dynamics: At a compositional level, holes compile surfaces out of the hegemony of solidus. Every manifestation of ( )hole complex passes a certain type of surface dynamics (in terms of evoking periphery, itinerancy, and affect), breeding a new genre of surfaces with their exclusive itinerant lines depending on the locus of hole and the way that void interplays with solid. Holes offer new polytical activities to surfaces; the crisp boundary of surfaces is dissolved into blurred and cryptogenic boundary of hole. In the presence of hole, an asymmetric parallelism between surfaces and the crust occurs; while they remain analogous and remotely connected to their common genus but each one spawns its own different, independent operational entities and geometries; here, surfaces do not necessarily conduct and synchronize the ground’s local hegemonies through the consolidated coherence of the crust and countermine the stratification 1235

processes instead of supporting it (each surface has a command line with two heads: a trellis and a taxis, one receives the accumulation and distributes it i.e. a textum / groundwork for fixation, positioning and support and the other, for granting what has been supported a tendency according to the mutual affordance between surfaces, the eco-logical web). Inner holes and connected cavities, simultaneously, come with two types of surfaces or two active linkages with solidus, a surfaces-supporter that binds the cavity to the crust (therefore, the ( )hole complex cannot be merely reduced to a subterranean / subsoil complexity) i.e. the ‘eco-logical’ outside, and a surfacetransmitter that joins with the itinerant lines passing through hole or connected cavities, the one that binds the cavity on the inside where hole emerges out of the ambiguity of solid and void, or in a topologically oversimplified sense where the cavity is. “The surface is where most of the action is. The surface is where light is reflected or absorbed, not the interior of the substance. The surface is what touches the animal, not the interior. The surface is where chemical reaction mostly takes place. The surface is where vaporization or diffusion of substances into the medium occurs. And the surface is where vibrations of the substances are transmitted into the medium.” (J.J. Gibson, quoted in Surfaces, Avrum Stroll, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception) For example, on a mereotopological level, changes on surfaces or the solid part are directly conducted to the compositional void and cause new convolutions and alterations by means of changing the ways or mechanisms through which void is presented through solid. Less technically: if you twist, inflate or heat a tube or a holey ball (with tunnels spread through it) you can see that changes in the solid part are transmitted to the holey side of the tube or the ball, the tunnels or the holey side becomes more convoluted and intricate. These changes through the compositional void can only be perceived through the solid part – this is the compositional inevitability of ( )hole complex. (2) Solid as an entity possessed by void; the only way that solid can initialize its architectonic / compositional activities (processes for survival, development, etc.) is by letting the void in. The dynamic traits of solid can only be actuated when solid is eaten, convoluted and messed by the void. There is no other option. In the ( )hole complex, on a superficial (bound to surface dynamics) level, every activity of solid appears as a tactic to conceal the void and appropriate it, a program 1236

for inhibiting the void, accommodating the void by sucking it into the economy of surfaces (as in the case of niche90, a dwelling / accommodating system) or filling it; but on a deep compositional level (the machinery of the real), all activities of solid are moving towards engineering new voiding-functions, convolutions, vermicular spaces (henceforth, Nēmat-space) which eventually unground (but not erase) solidus. On this deep compositional level, solid conducts the convoluting functions of the solidcontaminating void, in the form of vermicular lines, “Worms” as Lovecraft suggests or worm-functions (nematical machines, the Nemat-function), itinerant lines in the form of knotted holes or the other way around (When a nemat crawls in the ( )hole complex, it metamorphoses into a different geometric structure by internally reconfiguring its modules, turning into a more versatile line through participation with the complex whose all points and recesses are interconnected without the supporting tyranny of Whole and its connect-to-economize hegemony.) In holey space, Solid actively conducts and mobilizes the worm(Nemat)-functions of the void rather than its phagic / purgative mechanisms or its desire to devour. Solid runs as the void enforcer, a pestis solidus executioner. In ( )hole complex, void is also contaminated by solid, this is why convoluting, undermining and ungrounding Nemat-functions arise in the ( )hole complex instead of merely erasing, consuming and purging mechanisms of Void. Solid performs the confusion of void through the ( )hole complex: every activity happening on the solid part increases the degree of convolution and entanglement at the holey side of the composition, fabricating the intricate meshwork of the Nemat-space which eventually engineers the corpse-of-solidus, and disables or sabotages all grounding (signification, con-solidatin, stratification, etc.) functions of solid. While vermicular complexity of the Nemat-space activates the tortuous side of the ( )hole complex, it also covers each compositional level of the complex with poroelastic traits. In fact, poroelasticity continuously uses diffusion as a means of radical deformation and alteration in the dynamism of the composition, narrating the diagrams of the fluid flow in the animorphic composition of the Nemat-space as a heterogeneous porous complex which is more than a structure with interconnected holes, it is a complex with a 90 Roman Witold Ingarden -- after separating from Husserl's phenomenology through a criticism of transcendental idealism -- in his works focused on ontology discusses that closure (or completely modulated openness) is a priority for open systems, and niches as power projection zones and inhibitors of unwanted collisions. The openness of niche protects itself from what makes it open by opening itself to what makes it closed. Only through such an openness, the existential moments can be afforded and modes of Being are able to emerge. 1237

strange rubber geometry, its porous side is actually its itinerant lines rendering synchronous possibilities of relaxation, metamorphosis, folding, spreading tortuousity, heterogeneous dynamism and compositional anomalies for the complex. The Nemat-space is basically a machine for a radical and pestilentially inventive communication and participation between fluid and solid. In the Nemat-space, the flow of the fluid and the deformation of the solid matrix are couples, heavily interconnected as foundations of a radical participation giving rise to diverging series of becomings for ‘each level of the composition’ whose wholeness has been utterly nullified. Agitated by the flow of fluids (which themselves have been anomalized in the nematical machine), elastic waves dissipate through solid matrices and radically displace the grains of the solid skeleton throughout ( )hole complex; the spasmodic deformations of the solid skeleton, consequently, changes the stress field by which the (re-)modifications and manipulations of solid are transmitted to the Nemat-space in a synergic communication, and progressively fold, twist and open the ( )hole complex, polishing its sinister facets to a greater extent. The displacement / locomotion of solid particles generally happens in cluster-like colonies near the regions where solid has reached an equilibrial stability, whereas fluid particles divergently move and disperse in a manner corresponding with the vermicular complexity of ( )hole complex. The interactions between the free movingly interstitial fluid and solid matrices on the one hand and fluid with porosity gradient of Nemat-space on the other hand result in two main mechanisms along with anomalies in the property of the fluid, the viscosity, permeability, the properties of the coupled fluid-solid complex and the bulk density of solidus (ex. tensile failure or propagation of shear fractures, etc.): (a) the increase of pore pressure induces a dilation of the ( )hole complex (including its solid matrix) and the escalation of poroelasticity (dilations of the complex customize the porosity to enhance the fluid flow.); (b) compression of the solid matrix or any attempt of solidus to keep and save its consolidated and molar state (by preventing the fluid from running or escaping from one porous network to another) causes a substantial rise of pore pressure which triggers further and radical deformation of the solid matrix, dilation and contraction of pores (compared to the plateau engineering mechanism of the libidinal vulvospasm), progressive exhumation (ungrounding) of solidus, regional pore collapse, and finally composition of new Nemat-spaces. Nemat-space is an ultimate crawling machine – essentially cryptogenic, interconnected to Anonymous-until-Now with its probes and lines of itineracy moving unpredictably according to the subsoil / superficial ungrounding machineries that weaken the solidus by perversely exploiting / manipulating it (exhuming solidus) – you never know where it exhumes surfaces 1238

and disperses its nemats – worms, countless coils of them. The intrinsic permeability is a function of the Nemat-space; the contact between solid and the fluid, itself, is also a compositional factor of the poroelastic complex: local velocity gradient in the fluid induces new convolutions, shear stresses, ruptures and deformations to solid matrix, tuning the surface dynamics to the entire machinery of the complex and the flow of the fluid (enhancing the flow and building up the flood). In Nemat-space, the diffusing pore fluid thereby smuggles its affect space through the solid matrix as well as its own particles. Once Nemat-space starts to infest, the periphery does not necessarily starts from the crust, active surfaces emerge from everywhere, from crust-surface-periphery to innermost recesses; the ( )hole complex carves ultra-active surfaces from solidus when it digs holes (once again, inner cavities at least come with two types of active surfaces), unleashes delirious itinerant lines and constructs its nematical machines, installing peripheral agitations on the surfaces it cuts from internal solid matrices. When such a peripheral upheaval (in the sense of its diversifying excitations) ‘potentially’ runs everywhere and overspread from the crust to within, the despotic necrocratic regime of from periphery to the terminus of core is introduced to infinite deferral until the rise of the ultimate Unground through the ( )hole complex where the radical Outside is reinvented from surface to the core. The grounded flux (inseparable from the architectonic and appropriating forces of pseudo-flux) is generally described as flux f = p / a (p as the imposed power on the regional surface a), but through Nemat-space, it is the coupled Trellis-Taxis mechanism of surface which fails to enforce the economy of the ground; the distribution of p according to the consolidating and self-referential wholeness of solidus is too incapacitated. What is ‘polytics’ in terms of the ( )hole complex in which the full body of ‘p / 0’ precedes all power formations and those becomings which envelope a terminus, a becoming-death as their simultaneous restraining and propelling machinery? *** On a modeling and reductive level: Pore material of volume V = Vs (the combined volume of solid and isolated pores) + Vp (interconnected pore space) Porosity gradient is then defined as the ratio of Vp / V 1239

*** The distribution of solid is obedient to the logic of solidus but this is the logic of solidus that follows the polytics of the ( )hole complex and the dynamism of its Nemat-space; every entity-event in the ( )hole complex is discontinuous according to the measures running through solid but continuous according to the Nemat-space, or in other words, the interactions of events happening under the influence of the ( )hole complex; an entity which is believed to loom from a particular location, rises from an entirely irrelevant location according to the logic of solidus. Every activity on the solid part of the ( )hole complex awakens something radically contaminated by void (a vermicular space), opened by the outside (void as the outsider for solid) from within and without. The mutual contamination of solid and void in holey space is increasingly intensifying (with no sign of stoppage) since it is the internal impetus of solid to be active, to remodify itself, to knit itself through economic networks which maintain and guarantee its survival, aiding it to be grounded. All the activities through the solid part are reinvented as convoluting lines (Nemat-functions) at deeper levels of the composition. Whenever, solid messes with void to keep itself dynamic and solidly constructive or consolidated, void becomes more contaminative, its worm-functions become more furious, excited to the point of frenzy; they begin to rise from compositional depths to engineer the vermicular space of the Old Ones; an intricate anomalous traffic zone, the ( )hole complex. This way solid levels all obstacles in its path to damnation by each activity that it undertakes. The ( )hole complex is never low on infidelity and perfidiousness, it is the source of clandestine manipulation of solidus and double treachery to both solid and void. In the past, the holey space of mines incited peasant revolutions and barbarian invasions, but now they are the oil fields which make technocapitalist terror-drones and desert-militarism of Islamic Apocalypticism cross each other, forming the coupled diffusion-escalation mechanisms while both are flushed out in the burning soup of petroleum – the double betrayal. It is not a politico-economic evolution that oil has converged upon a process of weaponization on the Islamic front of War on Terror. In Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Syria and even Arabic clusters under the Persian Gulf, the Islamic state must cross deserts to feed on oil fields, but the desert is the space of nomad-burrowers, nomad warmachines with minimum climatologic heads; this is why both the renomadization 1240

of Wahhabistic state91 through off-time sorcerous desert-militarism and semisedentarization of nomads and their metamorphosis to naphtanese (clandestine petronomads whose itinerant lines wander between oil fields instead of oases) were inevitable (see Triggers for Islamic Apocalypticism: Oil, Desert and Nomads in Saudi Arabia). Other than forging lines of slips sliding from the exclusive traits of both nomads and the State while composing a participating space between the two (as in the case of ambiguity between solid and void in the ( )hole complex which traffics and smuggles the itinerant lines of its own), oil fields draw nemat-spaces for manipulation of the State by furious desert-nomadism and reconfiguration of desertmilitarism according to the polytical trends welling up around the oil fields and rising from the synergy between the State’s uncompromising and Uttunulistic nomad’s sorcery. The problem of oil fields and the ( )hole complex they exhume is indeed far more sophisticated that the problem of mine and their ambulant dwellers, first there is no equivalent of miner for oil fields, the connection of naphtanese (former desertnomads) with oil is not an intimacy based on consumption, production or even transportation (what connected especially old miners to mines as their temporary niches); second, oil as an ubiquitous earth-crawling entity – the Tellurian Lube – spreads the warmachines and polytics of naphtanese as totally pervasive (diffusingescalating) entities. Finally, even in the absence of desert-nomadism, oil turns Time to apocalyptic blasphemies. If oil does not benefit the middle class (an economical boom initially moderating economy but consequently giving rise to economic fissions) and if it doesn’t lead to the outbreak of cannibalistic economies as in the case of Mexico, Venezuela, Sudan and in a near future Mauritania, it will surely charges clandestine-military pipelines with apocalyptic modes of divergence. In either case, it cheats the divine’s chronologic Time with the utmost irony and obscenity. Ghawar, the largest conventional oil field in the world, located in Rub al-Khalie, the land of Bedouin tribes, the most significant of which is Al-Murrah The Nemat-spaces of both mines and oil fields attract nomads and different types of martial entities, and assemble them as mercenaries, treason-armies bound to privatization of military forces which in most cases belong to mega-corporations and not the State; although these corporations are endo-symbiotic within the nucleus of the State and synchronized to its politics (also linked to techno-economic or military failing of the State or the criticality of mines or oil fields) but their functions are 91 One should not miss the fact that parallel formations of Wahhabism and the Saudi State root in desert- nomadism. 1241

external to the economy and environmental stability of the State as non-native forces. Oil fields and mines usually come together with corporations and their privatized armies, one as the owner and one as the extractor and mercenaries as outsiders which protect this temporal bond. Although these corporations and mercenaries which have already sucked into the ( )hole complex of mines or oil fields induce repressions via tactics germinating on militarized secrecy (even obscure to the boundaries of the State), they play significant roles in double-insurgencies, violent internal fissions of the State, civil war and unrest. Nemat-space is neither about undoing the Genesis Project and its survival economy nor erasing solid, it reduces the monopolistic holiness of the creation, the functionality of the ground’s economy (which also forms a taxis-trellis pincer to support the Whole) and applicability of Whole to Zero without wiping them out. This is the polytics first practiced and exquisitely elaborated by the Persian cult of Kaxuži or Kakhurid(kaxvareδa) or Kastaran-e Farre, the reducers of wholeness or the reducers of purity, who have been introduced as the devastators of the Iranians (for the Aryans were believed to represent the greatest purity and wholeness) in Zadspram. Nemat-space is infected with gate hysteria; it is always prone to auto-collapse and reemergence from somewhere else thus restlessly clicking new gates open; it gapes, yawns, bloats, coils and slathers as an endo-symbiotic parasite with a sempiternal endurance over and through the Earth, giving more passages than is needed to legions which surge and ex-hume all stratified assemblages along their paths. The heretic Zoroastrians, deavo-Yasns, Kaxuži and Yatumants or Akht-Jadu(Yatu) called this indefinable earth (even impalpable and unexplainable in terms of Tellurian-Omega) which secretly squirms from of the Outside and is fermented upon the full body of ‘P/0’, Drujaskan, technically the most messy space that awakens from and by the Earth to unground (Erathicate) its wholeness. Pests teeming forth from Drujaskan, from passages which themselves are inseparable from the writhing bodies of pestlegion. Ungrounded histories of the Earth are full of passages, vents and soft tunnels mobilized and unlocked through artificializing participation with the Earth as a compositional entity. These histories are engineered by openings and what crawl in them; every movement in these passages invigorate the fibers of Erathication. Only as a Nemat-Space, the Earth endures; an opening through its whole, a solidglitch drawing its cartographies on mal/multi-functioning surfaces of the ( )hole complex. 1242

The awakening ritual that the cult of the Old Ones practices to speed the return of the elders, is “messing with the solid part”: advanced re-modifications and operations on the solid part of holey space to strategically assist new vermicular lines or wormfunctions be composed and autonomously digging passages for the Old Ones’ Return, opening yawning pits as zones of their rebirth. Each activity ‘on the solid part’ or ‘at the side of solid’ is a sacred oblation to the Old Ones. As in the case of the Z. crowd, this strategy reaches its schizotrategic extreme; they, with a cryptic muttering, incessantly repeat: “join and participate with solid, assist its ground processes to fulfill their projects, be a devoted architect of solid,” this is the only way you can feed solid to the vermicular lines of the void, its worm-functions. *** Craig: “Even the addictive properties of the Oil engineered by the IslamoApocalypsists are made invalid – replacing the hunger for fuel with the hunger to Hunt. This Hunger is Greater than the addiction.” The important point is that this is not oil as fuel that matters (oil = fuel as you have realized is just one trigger among many others in petropolytics) but the ways that hyperstitional entities of oil fuse with western warmachines. The thirst to hunt that howls in warmachines is the simulation of the Unlife of War that comes through the capacity of warmachines to grasp something that is external to them yet giving rise to their machinery and the thirst to hunt; ironically, it is the simulation of the radical frenzy of war to hunt all warmachines. __________________________________________ The following conversation belongs to the original version: Craig: Frankly you've not left me much to comment on here Reza. I agree with most of what you've written ;) The hunger of the solid for the void seems to increase the prevalence of ()hole complexes. The servants of the complex infect the solid - which is to say the bae-line monolithic structure of government-society as a super-solid. These servants burrow within such a solid, opening up the tunnels which, as well as allowing easier flow of Unlife and-or-Oil (indeed as engineered-infectious Oil designed by the hyperstitional engineers of IA, the difference eventually becomes negligble) also allow movement /within/ the body of the solid - opening doors/ways to places that were previously 1243

unaccessible to those inhabiting the solid. The usability of these newly form transport 'subways' engenders interest in those who become aware of their existence. These interested parties then begin to either seek to control these tunnels or push for more tunnels to be made. In either case, they come into contact with the engineers of the ()hole complex and are often infected and themselves become engineers - the initiations of the machine-engineers that dig are arcane and involve significant reconstruction of the canditate's command protocols and switching on of long dormant factory settings that were disabled after the initial birth-trials of the candidate machine when it was first created. Hence, the imagery of the Old Ones is of mishappen entities which are terrible in their alien nature - in the factory the newly conscious-aware machine-person now has the alien intrusion of never-before felt, direct experience thrust into their newborn and still flexible epistemological framework, an intrusion from the Outside which then recedes after intial programming has been created. Subsequent contact with the Old Ones etc recalls the factory testing and sense of intrusions due to the fact that their Unlife is a new form of direct experience prieveously not apprehended, or at least forgotten. Gradually the infection-cult spreads and the number of tunnels increase, increasing the amount that passes through, and lowwing it passage out of the solid and into contact with other solids. Evenually the original solid becomes so riddled with ()holes that it collapses completely - the Stars become right: "That cult would never die until the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild, and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom." When does Earth become Unground? You may note the use of the term Erath in my earlier comments. Erath is Unground in its thickest, most glutinous form, the precursor to MUD and Dust. It is the Earth shot through with Oil that is so rich and dark as to have soaked the solid through and through. 1244

The tunneling disturbs the natural veins of Oil hidden within the Earth, the places it has lain hidden since its production by the hidden subterranean pressures. This mixes with the liquid forms of Outside, seeping through the Earth until it reaches saturation point - becoming almost soggy. In this soggy mess, tunnels are dug more easily, even though they may collapse without warning. Interestingly, in another comment you refer to the Smiths as the people of holey space. There is a long tradition of the Initiator teaching mankind to work with metals - and the Smith's forge would be the one place in any settlement where the fire always burned. Their skill in making and shaping is unmatched, the fire of their forge and the strength of their hammers synonymous with Making of new things. The Luciferian Gnosis of sorcery suggests that it was Tubal-Cain, descendant of Cain who was the first witch - he was a blacksmith by trade. Azazel, also known as the Peacock Angel, is said to have taught men how to work metals as one of the 300 Watchers who fell according to the book of Enoch. The Peacock angel is the deity of the Yezdis, a Kurdish religious group which has him as the Creator or demi-urge at the behest of God, suggesting another link with smithing. Further, in Norse mythology, dwarves are the premier smiths, beings who were created from the maggots burrowing through the body of the Primal Giant Ymir after his slaughter by Othin, Villi and Ve. See [http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/mhs/mhs10.htm] for some information. Tachi: "the ways that hyperstitional entities of oil fuse with western warmachines" the 'fusing' is less a fusion than a conversion between flows. Fusion implies a maintainence of the integrity of discrete entities which are bonded together, but what we are seeing are flows - oil, money, labour, ammunitions, etc - effectuated through a series of switches, to the point that what we consider as a 'war machine' has to include all these factors and not a separation of oil and western militarism. A separation of 'hyperstitional oil entities' and 'western war machines' begs the question. The question, perhaps better phrased, ought to be concern ways in which war machines can be identified at all - for the practical purpose of discerning currents and switches, as well as patterns of divergence and convergence. It might also be useful to bear in mind the 1245

multi-dimensionality (demonsionality?) of the war machine, not fogetting its relations with the strata of macro level state machinery of politics. Sorry, Reza, realised my post may not be totally relevant to the discussion on Lovecraft ... but maybe we can open up a new space to reintegrate previous posts on hyperstition, oil and war and free the way for greater deliberation and communication on this very pertinent globally relevant hotbed of issues? Reza: Many thanks Tachi ... No, I think they are very relevant to this post. Tachi: "the ways that hyperstitional entities of oil fuse with western warmachines" - the 'fusing' is less a fusion than a conversion between flows. Fusion implies a maintainence of the integrity of discrete entities which are bonded together, but what we are seeing are flows - oil, money, labour, ammunitions, etc Well, according to some terminologies, ‘fuse’ as you say IS “less a fusion than a conversion between flows.” But according to geological panoramas and linguistical aspects, ‘fuse’ simply means to melt, ‘fundere’, to pour into or melt into ... it is a favorite term of smiths (who according to Deleuze and Guattari are the People of Holey Space). Both in geology esp. Cthelllism of the Core and its fusion anomalies (highly pertinent to Geology of Morals in ATP and DG’s Geoccultism) and metallurgy, fusion engineers poly-entities and overlap them over each other; they can participate, slide and move over each other freely. The restricting integrity does not happen in this kind of fusion; on the contrary, as a result of overlapping entities (or according to DG ‘’events’; entities = events) anomalies, unnatural participations, hyperstitions, etc emerge since ‘Overlapping’ always results in acute multiplicities because it brings different entities or events to the space of ‘an-omalie’ (Greek noun), giving them the opportunity to run at one place and one time, mutually contaminating each other and freely participate; briefly, it gives rise to becomings. The traditional phenomenological account of fusion as a restricted ‘state of integration’ (unificatory unification) presupposes that events or entities can never overlap over each other in one spatio-chronologic status; if this overlapping happens they either replace each other or become ONE, the Unified or the God that is to say, a phenomenon that can be clearly mapped in space and time. However, as DG show in ATP, entities reach ‘an-omalie’ as they overlap, a collective ONE, the pestilential presentation of this multiplicative body is the Lovecraftian ‘Old Ones’. Therefore, the fusion originating from metallurgical histories does not, in fact, certify an integrity but participations 1246

among a population within the space of anomal; the space of anti-vitalist becomings one can say; these participations necessarily emphasize on something more than conversion of flows: spawning new offspring, cryptogenic entities, anomalies, and at the same time, triggering the emergence of functions and entities which ‘do not belong’ to none of the overlapped or fused entities (they creep in from the Outside of their genetic specifications). Here, what we should be careful about is: not reducing flows to fluxes, or flowing lines which are continuously appropriated by the ground and economical participation (methexis) of their contents. Fluxes are always under the constant danger of becoming pseudo-fluxes, not necessarily laminar fluxes but fluxes which can only participate with other fluxes based on their affordance. A model based on fluxes is a model that first of all raises moral blusters, conservative inspections. Tachi: But what we are seeing are flows - oil, money, labour, ammunitions, etc - effectuated through a series of switches, to the point that what we consider as a 'war machine' has to include all these factors and not a separation of oil and western militarism. A separation of 'hyperstitional oil entities' and 'western war machines' begs the question. “Even if Omega-Pest runs on hydrogen nanofusion, the concrete war-machines chopping up contemporaneity are indubitably very oily.” (Nick Land) Actually there is no such a thing as ‘The hyperstitional entities of oil at one pole and western militarism at the other pole’ (you have already grasped it well). There is no diametric separation here. However, there are differences between warmachines, they all merely share one connection, their connection to War itself. Differences between warmachines mainly but not exclusively originate from their dynamic machinery (tacticity) and the way they probe their zone(s) of tacticity (data that are processed or perceived from zones they traverse, or their vision-machine). This way, Islamic warmachines are entirely different from western techno-capitalist warmachines. Now in WoT, hyperstitional entities of oil or petropolitical undercurrents work at different levels and with different functions according to differences between warmachines. As you have read our previous posts on petropolitics, oil, first of all, is a lubricant, a radical flow, a tellurian omega-lube whose function is engineering bonds, moving forward warmachines and above all providing an intricate space for flows (money, labour, ammunitions, etc.) to collect (it is not unification or a totalization), fuse and reach the space of ‘an-omalie’ which gives rise to new warmachines, AND new hyperstitional entities of oil (including oil as a fuel, a ‘usual’ flow). To this extent, oil is not separated from western warmachines, on the contrary, it flows over, through 1247

and beneath them (as both something exterior and interior), slide them towards Islamic warmachines (since they come through oil and use oil to undertake their pipeline odyssey, oily lines of tactics) -- as it simultaneously slide Islamic warmachines toward techno-capitalist warmachines -- to enmesh the space of an-omalie which sucks warmachines to itself, breeding anomalies and new warmachines while attracting and pumping all flows (money, ammunition, etc) to these warmachines in a more radical way. As you suggested, warmachines include all these factor (or flows) but the hyperstitional Tellurian-lube (The Ancient Enemy, the blob, the head of the pack among other hyperstitional entities of oil in WoT) intensifies and brings these flows or factors to a space of anomal where they flow more smoothly (oil is lubing them), participate more unnaturally and flowing more radically -- flowing not as a flux but a flood. Besides, the lubricant oil works as a space of philia: a radical flow attracting more flows and making them to run through warmachine smoother than ever. There is no wonder that new oily hyperstitions (other hyperstitional entities of oil) emerge through this space of an-omalie which mostly belong to the Islamic front since Islamic warmachines are all moving towards divination of oil both as something that lube the path to Islamic Apocalypticism (the unlife of war) and as an entity which poison (or more precisely, ‘intoxicate’) techno-capitalist warmachines to be attracted by the Tellurian-lube, come to the space of anomal, and anomalously ‘participate’ with Islamic warmachines to reach ISLAMIC Apocalypticism (again, where the military survival of warmachines are snuffed out, the unlife of war). If you see that Islamic front treats oil as an ancient Tellurian super-weapon in WoT to attract (and not repel) techno-capitalist warmachines, it is because the hyperstitional entity of Oil-as-Lubricant is a radical flow (sliding in all directions, lubing all paths), a terminal multiplicity of lines of tactics which always re-invents its flowing dynamism and functions at the level of strategy (this is why it never stops to spawn new hyperstitions of itself) rather than tactics (which can be easily domesticated through the climatologic factors, other tactics, etc.) Western techno-capitalist warmachine which mainly run on transgressive / berserkeresque tactical lines always look ‘the strategically functioning oil’ as something both attractive and unfathomably abominable, as a disruption in their tactical programs (strategy sabotages tactics with no warning!), programs which always follow clear / traceable conclusions, mappable conflicts. Moreover, Craig has an interesting remark on the hunting-complex of western warmachines (that the only scenario they know is hunting, hunting each other) which is actually based on their vision-machines -- blinded by the fog-of-war 1248

- they never assume the possibility that their hunting-complex is a simulation of something deeper (something that Deleuze and Guattari never suspected maybe because of being exposed to western warmachine for too long): it is the frenzy of War to HUNT warmachines. However, Islamic warmachines based on their sorcerous vision-machine (more adapted i.e. blinded by the fog-of-war) insist that the War has its unlife of its own and Oil is a radical flow that is capable of collecting all flows running through warmachines and introduce them to ‘a space of an-omalie’ where flows lose their tactical (consequently prone to appropriations) dynamism and are reinvented as strategic vectors (tactical multiplicities, intricate lines of vermiculation) i.e. machines capable of triggering the emergence of hideous offspring (according to Robin), cryptogenic entities from unknown depths, and entities which cannot be labeled as warmachines anymore; now, they are particles of war. Tachi: ... not forgetting its relations with the strata of macro level state machinery of politics. In the model of war-as-machine (war has an unlife of its own which is not produced by conflicts between warmachines), these relations increasingly become more insignificant (but they never fade) since this model assumes that warmachines slide over undercurrents (ex. Petropolitical undercurrents) which introduce warmachines and their included flows to spaces of an-omalie, reinventing them as strategies through which neither the State functions merely as a (re)territorializing State nor the strata and their consequent regimes are completely loyal to the macro level state machinery of politics or grounding processes. (see the previous post on Lovecraftian name-anomalies) Tachi: Reza: "there are differences between warmachines, they all merely share one connection, their connection to War itself ... it is the frenzy of War to HUNT warmachines ... war has an unlife of its own which is not produced by conflicts between warmachines ..." Interested in these remarks, which I have patched together. Agree that concrete war machines can be distinguised. Though also concede this doesn't imply anything such as integrity. War machines overlap in their functionality, as can be seen in the WoT. What connects these specific WMs may be clandestine flows of capital, arms, oil, etc, but what exactly does distinguish them? 1249

I can't help return to this question, since not only does it affect our clarity of understanding what specific forces and flows we are witnessing in the unfolding the WoT, but it also affects the sharpening of our conceptual machinery to deal with this question in the abstract. 'The connection to war itself'? What is this? This may be one attempt in the abstract: to be hunted, as you suggested (borrowed from Craig)? But IMHO I don't think this helps sufficiently when looking at the concrete events on the surface of our planet. Sure the Islamic war machine - or machines? - are being hunted, but what other examples can we see? Interesting to see what other readers think on this. Sticking with the abstract question of what distinguishes a war machine, however, can we go so sar as to say that it depends on its relation to a hunter? Surely this also begs the question as to what is hunting? I hope we can start a discussion on the relation between war and war machines. How useful is it to grasp war as a machine? Does this mean we no longer need to conceive war machines as producing war through their engagement? Do we conceive war as something over and above (and/or under and below) concrete war machines? Does this not look like vitalism? Once again we revisit an old question, that of model and concrete reality, absract and specific. Interested in what you think are the important strands worth taking forward here, if any. Reza: Craig, Tachi, absolutely fascinating remarks and questions ... honestly, it takes me a long time to explore their recesses (esp. in the case of Tachi’s interesting questions) since I should rigorously (re)think about them from different aspects. Because of some physical / mental incidents of late my energies are rapidly consumed and wasted away even before I notice; so forgive my slowness or deferral in answering your wonderful discussions. Hope it doesn’t disappoint you from participating here. Craig, A superb schizotactical surgery. Unground: many articles on the unground both at the cold me website and cold me forum. Esp. Cata: remarks on Depth and Darkness (http://www.coldme.net/text/cata.html); also Acephalous Mouths at Channel 83: http://www.channel83.co.uk/pr_reza.php 1250

And don’t miss Hamilton Grant’s The Chemistry of Darkness (I still see many arguable passages in his article but it is v. interesting). [http://www.warwick.ac.uk/philosophy/pli_journal/pdfs/hamilton_grant_pli_9.pd f] Cain: Yes, I am familiar with metallurgic / musical sorcerous lines that come from Cain; one of my favorite parts of ATP is the part that the bond between smiths, holey space and Cain is diverged to many directions: mines, sculptures, warmachines, etc. I’ll post that passage for archiving purposes. Yezidis (the correct original spelling is Yazidian or Yazidis) ... they are not particularly Kurds, they are Fars and Turks as well. Even Fars lineage of Yazidism is older than the Kurdish one. I have born in Fars. In the past, I regularly visited them, they were exceptionally inspiring for me. See The AOE and the Brotherhood of Nine [http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003844.html]; a couple of comments exchanged between me and Robin about Yazidians (the article also contains a few pieces of information) Tachi, Just a few rushed answers to yours first questions ... more later ... this is just the first round: Tachi: "Though also concede this doesn't imply anything such as integrity." Connection does not necessarily emphasize or depict integrity. However, I can’t clearly realize what do you mean by integrity: integrity as a process maintaining a whole, integrity as a totalizing process, integrity as some kind of consistency or ...? Therefore, it is difficult for me to discuss this problem until I know what kind of integrity is at issue here. Tachi: "What connects these specific WMs may be clandestine flows of capital, arms, oil, etc, but what exactly does distinguish them?" Think I hinted at the answer already: the most reductionist answer is that the differences are usually based on: [1] their lines of tacticity and their exclusive dynamism, and spaces which are enmeshed by these dynamic lines. Each type of tacticity enmesh a different affect space and engineers a dynamism of its own which can cut other dynamisms and lines of tactics, attract them, convolute within them or even replace them; thus it attributes certain traits to each warmachine based on zone(s) the warmachine traverses, the 1251

affect space it engineers and the other lines it crosses or communicate with. We should always remember, ‘Warmachines are among the most ‘slippery’ entities’; not only they have propulsive traits produced and triggered by flows flowing through them but also they are also dynamized through the affect space that other warmachines enmesh. But this is not the whole problem yet: warmachines are involuntarily sliding on undercurrents (certain flows which introduce warmachines and flows flowing through them to the space of anomal); each warmachine based on its affect space and dynamism (tacticity) and the zone it traverses (which can be included as the affect space) slide or move differently on these undercurrents. [2] The way(s) they process data (signal, signs, codes, ...) they obtain from their environment and through their affect space; what they process actually is transformed data based on their affordance or economical openness (towards what is exterior to them) that guarantee their military survival. As a result, what they process or see is based on both their Outside and the way that the affordance renders, appropriates and transforms this Outside. However, as DG show, it is an intrinsic feature of warmachines that they restlessly criss-cross each other, cut their lines, block themselves, participate, replace or overlap. This pandemonium also renders a more common space which warmachines cannot evade, this space is a factor that influence their vision-machine. [3] Each warmachine has its own numerical elements which do not diagram quantity but the composition of a warmachine. Honestly, I think DG are utterly brilliant when they try to open this problem, so ATP is a key here. (see ATP, p. 387) For now, I can think of these differences (by which you can distinguish them) but I know there are more ... needs re-thinking and exploration. Tachi: "The connection to war itself'? What is this? This may be one attempt in the abstract: to be hunted, as you suggested (borrowed from Craig)?" Well, detecting the hunting-complex of warmachines (which is simulation of the radical hunt engineered by war) hyperstitionally belongs to Col. West (Nick-me-CraigIbn Maymun-Thistle-Others). The connection: War (the Unlife of War) eats and consumes all types of military survivalism, it knows nothing of tactical lines of Liveing ... To consume military survival (which is also germinated on the unlife of war as an appropriating / grounding line of tactic), war must strip warmachines from all they 1252

have, positively disintegrating them to particles, lines of numerization, sorcerous particles, GAS or DUST (two hyperstitional entities much discussed over cold me website and here, on the H. blog). To get the picture more clearly, you can compare it with the discussion I summarized for Robin (the difference between life/(un)Life/survival/live-ing) [http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004303.html]. Also for exploring more technical aspects, see Cold Me website (articles like A Good Meal and Pestis Solidus: http://www.cold-me.net). I’ll talk about this very crucial and important problem later. Also check Thistle’s link (WARNING: the article begins with some usual, not very intriguing ramblings but it suddenly twists): http://www.thislife.org/pages/trax/text/sandlin2.html Tachi: "Sure the Islamic war machine - or machines? - are being hunted" Well, I can’t understand your comment so it is difficult for me to track and answer your next question: Do you mean Islamic warmachines are hunted by western warmachines more in the context of victimization or they are simply destroyed by their adversaries, or they are hunted by WAR itself? 1253

Comments: Machine are Digging Nick Land: There's so much compacted here ... pre-emptive apologies for semirandom responses. 'One' (( )ne?) knot of consistency re-tying some of these threads is the D&Gon; discussion of the warmachine Reza refers to, with the immanent problematic of the WM conceived as 'holding open a ( )hole' through continuous vortical behaviour (in the way cyclones perpetuate themselves along with a evacuated inner 'eye') as a singularizing non-unity coinciding with their potential to refuse the model of the State. Thus, despite their (compositional) numerical distinctiveness, they converge upon an indexical zero functioning as the practical principle of interlock and cosmic delocalization. Reza's last query above also crucial - the way warmachines hunt is entirely different to the way war hunts warmachines. The D&G; insistence that warmachines do not have war as an object is interestingly ambivalent here. If their argument is that the warmachine 'aims' at (the perpetuation of) nomos, the ( )hole, is this not in fact the war ('transcendentally' apprehended)? If 'Western warmachines' hunted their opponents to annihilation, would they not disassemble their own path to autonomization by re-filling the 'inner' ( )hole which liberates them, replacing it with an arrogant and determined peace (New World Order)? PS. Reza, could you say something 'definitional' about affordance? Reza Negarestani: All the comments posted above by Tachi and Craig belong to the original version (I had to repost them ... so the dates are fake). However, I emailed Tachi to join the discussion. Will get back to you on affordance and vortical machinery of Warmachines. Some very pathetic definitions (a fully elaborated and more technical discussion on affordance will be posted later -- the updated version of A Good Meal): Affordance is an economical network (in the sense of its connectivity and reciprocality) by which openness can be exploited as a groundwork for survival, accommodation, dwelling and the coupled taxis-trellis mechanisms. The term affordance used here has some inconsistencies to the original term coined by James Jerome Gibson (based on the works of Ingarden, Brentano, et al.) and his 1254

eco-cognitive studies. The regulations by which any entity can maintain its dynamic position (according to its mereologic address and its internal mechanisms) and survive in its environing horizon originate from a deeply meshed economic-based network of interactions, connections and methexis, all knitted on mutual affordability. Whole can only survive when entities can afford each other, every type of openness on mereologic levels is demarcated by mutual affordability ‘between’ entities. Affordance does not exclusively belong to only one pole of the economical communication but is distributed between at least two mereologic entities. ‘I am open to you as long as I can afford you’ otherwise ... (a) you must be repulsed (b) attracted by being appropriated (c) partly filtered (d) I should appropriate myself to ‘accommodate’ you. Therefore, the plane of ‘being open to’ is intrinsically constructed on affordance (however it can be strategically sabotaged as discussed in ‘A Good Meal’). Through affordance openness cannot go further (an itinerant line to the Outside); it mainly works as the dynamic capacitator of Whole. Possibly the most elucidating (yet simplified) ‘model’ of affordance is Aristotle’s Tetrasomia. The rotational movement between elements sustains a refining dynamism for the whole. Each phase of rotation is based on dynamic metrons and affordance (here, economical openness) between elements. Elements are open to each other whether diametrically or diagonally but they can never entirely overlap or radically communicate with each other; they need a mid-state (neo-Deleuzian appropriations take them as in-betweens) to form rotational nexuses. These mid-states are merely valid in a particular location of the whole rotational panorama; although they provide the system with a propulsive polemikos or a spiraling dynamism but they functional locally (as a result of affordability of elements to each other and at the same time, the whole system of Tetrasomia), for example Earth and Water need Menstruum to communicate. The living mud is a communicational entity but also a dynamic boundary which transforms / appropriates the earth and water before opening them to each other, it can only work locally between earth and water and not at any other location. Whole uses these economical communications to consolidate itself and accommodate the Outside instead of communicating with it; the mechanism at work in Tetrasomia is stabilization by means of regional destabilization or ‘deathware’ (utilized anti-despotism) -- dynamic but economical openness between elements manifesting in the mid-states -- which not only gain temporary (rotational) survival for the ever-refreshing set of elements but the spiraling process of Whole. Nick Land: Thanks Reza 1255

"The living mud" getting oozily Tiamaterialist ... PS. There's a definite 'W' topic latent in post above too - only Neoroman letter with a name, and name itself nomolexic / ambivalent W = (AQ) 32 or 2^5, binary redoubling and decimally implicated P-32 = 131, with manifold WoT/apocalyptic associations Reza Negarestani: "The living mud" getting oozily Tiamaterialist It actually is, see Craig's comment above (soggy Earth). What I forgot to mention but is somehow noticeable in the text is that Nemat-space is closer (in terms of its functionality and the traffic-space it provides) to radical weaponization of flows (clandestine WMs, Anonymous-until-Now entities, smugglers, ungrounding diffusion-escalation synergies, living ( )holes and inexhaustible becomings emerging from p/0) and War-as-a-Machine than DeleuzeGuattarian rhizome. 1256

Goodbye USA Nick Land (March 30, 2005) In 2007 apparently: “Koran scholar: US will cease to exist in 2007”92 by Khaled Abu Toameh Comments: Goodbye USA Tachi: "How did he reach that number? Silwadi said that by combing a number of suras hinting at US sins he reached the numbers 1776 (the year the US achieved independence) and 231. He added the two numbers and the result was 2007, the year when the US is expected to disappear." That seems like a reliable method. Seriously though, think this brings us to an important issue - is prophesizing hyperstitional? Guess that would depend on whether prophesizing can bring about the reality of what is prophesized. Yet how would this possibly occur? Through stimulating belief in masses? Whether this is the correct formulation of "fictions that become real" - ie. reality emerging through generation of *belief* - there would seem to be a limit to the extent to which belief can affect the advent of natural phenomena, such as tidal waves. So to tease out, firstly how is prophecy related to hyperstition? A theory of hyperstition must account for belief. Secondly, where are the outer limits of hyperstition - is it possible to have a hyperstitional earthquake? pithyfullpaaiety: This topic is so Arguelles on the one hand and so not on the other since he wouldn't try to ridicule the Koran like zionist jpost does but just to get even I would suggest a look at the lots wilder correlation calc the zionist Ivry Dov shakes out of his sleeves collar and pantlegs (he'll probably call it inspired arbitration seeing he judges his impact to be on a par with that of Madonna), hell maybe he has stuff up 92 https://web.archive.org/web/20050418232040/http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=J Post/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1111980180248 1257

his fly too though I don't recall him mentioning having any children though. http://www.root-1.co.il I'll go see if I still got the Arg. on Quran stuff someplace quick. by the way I am sick of natural truth being abused and kidnapped to serve 'relistatostutional' purposes: "In his lengthy study, which is being circulated in many Muslim countries, Silwadi noted that the US has often been compared to a tree that grows very quickly and bears fruit, but has no roots." Semitic success applied in concentrated fashion, to north africa has left nary a root in place; the HEbrow kind is the more diffuse creepily slow acting one but still crap in permacultural terms .. . .. is permaculture hyperstitional? It must be cause folks like Arguelles idealize it and proclaim it their aim and reward yet get hung up in calculations and proselytization efforts of the most trivial kind. Damn those recovering artists. Nick Land: Tachi - great questions, definitely worth sustained attention. My latest on this (should be implexed into a carrier of course): The crux of hyperstitional consistency, when reached, will address ('resolve'?) the basic problem of the philosophy of mathematics -- why do mathematical patterns prove so applicable to empirical reality? (OK, sure I've phrased that totally craply, but carry on ...) Hyperstition thus achieved would forestall the continuous relapse into atavistic Platonism that typically bedevils the issue (without obviously subsiding into some kind of Humean fuzz on the other side). That's to say, hyperstition postulates an asyet uncondensed materialist response to the intrinsic 'realism' of numbers without sacrificing either mathematical exactitude (/infinitude) or the resilient non-ideality (empiricity) of nature. It is from this 'crux' (= time disturbance) that your question about self-fulfilling prophecy and its limits could be adequately addressed, since these q.s concern the efficient interlinkage of mathematical intelligence (or at least pop-nomic culture) and natural causality - hence their proximity to (and the necessity of an adamant refusal of) speculative religious ideas. The D&Gon; War Machine is one postulated interchange mechanism situated in this hyperstitional space, for instance, converting its numbering pragmatics into vortical 1258

'physics'. On my extremely tenuous understanding of Laruelle, his 'science' (= 'man') satisfies the same function. Can Numbers (not 'quantities') cause an earthquake? Hoping the H. jury still out on this ... PS. As Northanger's work has reminded us, 231 is a qabbalistic reference to the Hebrew alphabet - kind of weird in a Quranic analysis, or not? Reza Negarestani: IMHO, this is a poorly written article and smells of pan-Arabism, these kinds of articles don’t have any hyperstitional value here and people simply ignore them (if not repulsed by the conventional and repetitive apocalyptic contents), the Iranians and Lebanese are far more professional in writing similar articles without falling into old-fashioned mixture of the Quran + Politics + Propaganda. Right now, the most favorite format for mass-inspiration of terrorists, intellectuals and even people is using numbers and extensive geopolitical information stripped of the conventional Quranic Apocalypticism that is well-known in the West. Recently I read an Arabic article complaining that Iranian journalists are spreading politico-economic viruses by publishing articles about the next terrorists’ possible targets in Middle East, most of these articles are published in Arabic countries or in English language in Arabic journal to have a wider range of influence. Saudi government has officially complained about the outbreak of these essays which mostly discuss about Saudi’s oil fields as next targets and are beginning to ruin the opportunities of new investments from foreign countries. Interestingly, one of these articles was about a possible terrorist attack on Ghawar field, similar to John Robb’s short article ‘Target: Ghawar’ (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/05/journal_oil_con.htm l) but more elaborated and polytically stimulating (not to mention the future economic damages they potentiate). Nick Land: OK Reza, but what about 231? At least this guy has contracted some qabbalistic virus ... (and it's spread too, even if only by way of the evil Zionist-neocon current(-1776?)) PS. 1776 = 2 x 888 (pushing the envelope ;)) Reza Negarestani: OK Reza, but what about 231? Yes, i admit it's virulent but these days everyone with an ABJAD CD of the Quran (which contains all similar information) is potentially dangerous. 1259

Fictions and Number: Social and Material Hyperstition Tachi (March 30, 2005) In Nick's post "Goodbye USA" Nick and I touched upon some issues relating to different but important aspects of the Hyperstitional program: prophecy, belief, and number. Below are the two entries from that post and what follows are some preliminary thoughts and questions designed to provoke some discussion on these key issues and thus the Hyperstitional program. ________________________________________________________________ Is prophesizing hyperstitional? Guess that would depend on whether prophesizing can bring about the reality of what is prophesized. Yet how would this possibly occur? Through stimulating belief in masses? Whether this is the correct formulation of "fictions that become real" - ie. reality emerging through generation of *belief* - there would seem to be a limit to the extent to which belief can affect the advent of natural phenomena, such as tidal waves. So to tease out, firstly how is prophecy related to hyperstition? A theory of hyperstition must account for belief. Secondly, where are the outer limits of hyperstition - is it possible to have a hyperstitional earthquake? Nick Land: My latest on this (should be implexed into a carrier of course): The crux of hyperstitional consistency, when reached, will address ('resolve'?) the basic problem of the philosophy of mathematics -- why do mathematical patterns prove so applicable to empirical reality? (OK, sure I've phrased that totally craply, but carry on ...) Hyperstition thus achieved would forestall the continuous relapse into atavistic Platonism that typically bedevils the issue (without obviously subsiding into some kind of Humean fuzz on the other side). That's to say, hyperstition postulates an asyet uncondensed materialist response to the intrinsic 'realism' of numbers without sacrificing either mathematical exactitude (/infinitude) or the resilient non-ideality (empiricity) of nature. It is from this 'crux' (= time disturbance) that your question about self-fulfilling prophecy and its limits could be adequately addressed, since these q.s concern the efficient interlinkage of mathematical intelligence (or at least pop-nomic culture) and 1260

natural causality - hence their proximity to (and the necessity of an adamant refusal of) speculative religious ideas. The D&Gon; War Machine is one postulated interchange mechanism situated in this hyperstitional space, for instance, converting its numbering pragmatics into vortical 'physics'. On my extremely tenuous understanding of Laruelle, his 'science' (= 'man') satisfies the same function. Can Numbers (not 'quantities') cause an earthquake? Hoping the H. jury still out on this ... Tachi: 1. If the value of Hyperstition is in its (as-yet unreached) resolution of the question why "mathematical patterns prove so applicable to empirical reality" then interesting things follow. I accept that such a resolution of the philosophical issue of number would need to maintain mathematical exactitude and empiricity. 2. But how is this related to the 'propagation of fictions that become real' - indeed, how is this necessarily related to the program of H-propagation? It doesn't seem clear how H-propagation, as an activity, has to follow from a rigorous theory of number. H-propagation is a chosen micropolitical program based on motivations quite independent from a philosophical understanding of number, is it not? 3. This may be the connecting point I am missing: what is "this 'crux' (=time disturbance)"? 4. I am interested in dilineating the effective space within which Hyperstition can operate - can Hyperstition cause a natural disaster? - but think the primary issue needs to be to clarify a concept of Hyperstition in relation to conscious / unconscious activity, and belief / unbelief. This clarification rests upon a deeper clarification of Hyperstition in relation to social / natural systems. This, I anticipate Nick saying, in turn boils down to number. 5. Let's come back to this. But first let's return to what I considered Hyperstition's starting point: Hyperstition as the phenomena of "fictions that make themselves real". I guess this is pretty misleading. This formulation tempts one to reduce Hyperstition to the level of human agency, in that fictions are products of human beings that later in time become actualised. It seems to automatically limit the notion of hyperstition within the human / social sphere of activity, which is why we are tempted to ask questions relating to the importance of belief and consciousness. But I guess this is all very diversionary from the real core of Hyperstition, which is number. 1261

6. Hyperstition might in one sense be considered very human, social and based upon the collectivity of individual's beliefs. But if hyperstition is to appreciate a philosophy of number, then questions of belief, consciousness etc miss the point, or at least some of the point. In all natural (or 'material') systems, including geological, biological, social systems, debates about the empirical mode of self-reinforcing reality production (help for better phraseology please) have to deal with questions deeper than those relating to belief and consciousness. 7. Hyperstition as the process of 'fictions becoming real' is thus limited to the human level of reality, when this itself requires greater explanation at a base material level, so its misleading to talk of 'fictions' at all. What we are looking for, whilst fumbling for a rigorous and exact theory of number, is a non-anthropomorphic concept of speculation or anticipation, in which the expectations of artificial agencies may play a role in causing the effects anticipated. 8. This is more about grasping a concept of systemic self-reinforcement than playing around with fictions. Creating 'carriers' to propagate fictions and hoping they become real seems pretty naive in the context of the far more ambitious program of grasping the numeric quality of reality production and the non-anthropomorphic characterization of expectation and therefore artificial agency. 9. Should Hyperstition not start from number and micropolitical programs proceed from there? Is it not too early to say what the best micropolitical path would be without first resolving the question why "mathematical patterns prove so applicable to empirical reality"? Comments: Fictions and Numbers undercurrent: since this intersects neatly with my current labours...afraid this isn't going to help at all, more an terroristic set of demands really :) 1. (Leaving aside intriguing identification of Laruelle's "man" with NWM) can we put together a basic account of how NWM convert[s] its numbering pragmatics into vortical 'physics'. ? ie how does numbering number operate concretely in examples of NWM (necessity to get beyond vague D/G mumblings about 'occupying smooth space' and demonstrate in what way these operations exceed state-mathematisation) 1262

2.is there any more that can be said on the as-yet uncondensed materialist response to the intrinsic 'realism' of numbers without sacrificing either mathematical exactitude (/infinitude) or the resilient non-ideality (empiricity) of nature. beyond a tantalising mention of its latent possibility? What is the 'realism' of numbers – the fact that they can't be escaped as abstract-real entities, or their 'applicability' to 'things'? And how does 'empiricity' consist beyond all possible numerical analysis (if not a generic phenomenological 'experience-ness')? Nick Land: Tachi - what you raise here intersects massively with certain issues brought up by a Ccru-UK agent visiting Shanghai. Does hyperstition have an intrinsic numerical orientation? There's room for stimulating controversy on this, but I'm assuming my biases don't need elucidating. The Ccru perspective on hyperstition obviously skewed by its own microhistorical situation, but within that field the importance of the Numogram (and attendant numerical commitments) was marked out by the fact that 'fictional' embedding functioned to propagage the Numogram without compromising it. In other words, the abstraction of number (uniquely?) survives the blizzard of unbelief unleashed by complete subsidence of any empirical 'reality principle' (replaced by merely tactical considerations (resonant with 'taqqiya')). More on your specific points ASAP. undercurrent - provisional responses to your points: #1. Much to delve into here, but very crudely seems that the compositional numeracy of the NWM is taken by the D&Gon; to be both logistically and strategically efficient (consequential) - to such a degree that it even compels State warmachines to undergo a degree of compensatory (or re-animated) numerization in response. The 'numbering' of the numbering number is a type of behaviour (not an ideal organization) indistinguishable from the conflictual performance of the NWM, the essential features of which (in the D&Gon; analysis) seem to divide into two broad categories: 1) Deterriorialization, by radical decoding of tribal/territorial markers and thus operationalizing a power of free deployment / distribution / assimilation. 2) Cryptographic, by ciphering culture, dismantling significations and diffusing the convergence of authority. 1263

Agree all of this is highly (frustratingly?) abstract, and in the key D&Gon; texts extraordinarily cryptic. IMHO it will keep coming up, so needs a focused assault at some point. #2. This is totally promissory, of course (either just annoying or, arguably, perfect carrier territory). 'Realism' of number is intrinsic, essential or autonomous exactitude (refusal of every attempt at derivation from approximate magnitudes, while emphasizing precise arithmetical / compositional / number theoretic relations). Same issue approachable through topic of infinity (since exactitude is an infinite property). Factorization rather than vague divisibility. Empiricity IMHO nothing at all to do with phenomenology, but rather associated with contingency, vagueness, measurement, chaos, indeterminacy and everything that makes Platonic/Pythagorean reductions of nature to number violently inappropriate. Finally for now - thoroughgoing dissociation of number from measurement key to D&Gon; approach and absolutely crucial to theis topic. This dissociation reciprocally liberates rigorous compositional numeracy and indeterminable intensive magnitudes - an unzipping of geometrized space (perhaps?) indistinguishable from the practical impact of the NWM. Reza Negarestani: Tachi some disagreements about your insistence on “fictions as products of human agencies”; I assume what you define as production here is mapped through ‘abutment’ modes of connection through which fiction can be produced and ‘discerned’ from human agencies but fictions are anomalies i.e. they come out of participation in which we have a series of overlapping modes of connection (bordering overlapping, tangential overlapping, etc.), as soon as a part of X overlaps Y you can’t easily put them into such a categorization with crisp boundaries. This is why delineating human being or human agencies cannot be genetically detached from fictions, any definitional extraction is problematically overlapped by fictions, partly, tangentially or completely. (we have seen complete overlapping in The Thing-Polytics, an islamist under Taghieh or Taqyiah where event-as-entity itself becomes POLYTICS) I have a lot of technical discussions on these modes of connections between abutment (which I assume the production you discuss mereologically come from) -- by which Y can be discriminate from X as a production [1] -- and overlapping (whether 1264

incomplete overlapping or radical overlapping which both belong to participations and result in unlocalizability and synergism). [1] Here Y is either an advent-event (nothing of Y has been available prior or synchronous to X), or Y as an extensio-event (Y is purely located in space that X gives to it, or in other words, Y is purely genetical extension of X in space). Fictions are not dissociated from anthropian agencies, nor they are their productions (in the way that criticized); they constitute two fields of the same ( )hole complex, with underlying and interconnective meshworks of clandestine and mutual manipulations, crisscrossing itinerant lines, unlocalizability and synergism of Nematspace. More about these issues in a piece I’m writing about Carpenter’s The Thing. undercurrent: yes, empiricity needs somehow to be decisively decoupled from 'lived experience' (except insofar as one attributes 'lived experience' to every piece of the mechanosphere: deleuze does so but in current conditions to repeat this imho a mistake inviting badiousian and other – wholly inappropriate – accusations of 'vitalism', etc. Bettter to find other terms.) Certainly related to locality/globality distribution, virtual/actual, and pure sequencing/calendrical numericity vs measurement/quantitative, ordinal/cardinal. The question of how to demonstrate the non-trivial nature of a reduction of nomad to state number is the same as demonstrating the unconditional persistence of the real. Unfortunately, if some cartesian headcase affects to need that demonstrating to them, you've got a tough task ahead (maybe a heavy iron bar would do the job ;) Can only agree on frustrating abstractness of Dogon NWM Reza Negarestani: Tachi: “Is prophesizing hyperstitional? Guess that would depend on whether prophesizing can bring about the reality of what is prophesized.” On the contrary, IMHO, if prophecy ever punctuates the reality of its prophesized objective, it can hardly be regarded as a hyperstitional machinery. The hyperstitional vector of prophecies is not supposed to feed ‘what is anticipated’ but disseminate marginal events, autonomous events which diverge from the target; otherwise, Prophecy is mainly the instrument of Belief and its monopoly. Hyperstitional vectors of each prophecy either potentiate the emergence of events whose connections to the objective of prophecy do not follow the logic of the prophetic hegemony, or open a chaos space of events which (unexpectedly) have not been predicted or anticipated 1265

by the prophecy, or more accurately, they have not been captured ‘yet’ by the authoritative head of the prophetic crystallization process (which impregnates the event with the reality that it designates through foreordination, chronologic monopoly, or the inviolable dictation of the divine). Monotheistic threads take such fulfilled prophecies as legitimating tools of their Belief. The Quranic literature is full of such Belief-validating prognostications (perhaps the apex of monotheism in this regard). And this is exactly for the same reason that Islam is the most exceptionally proper field for heresy-engineering in connection to veridical prophecies that it uses to legitimate itself: replacing or altering (with stress on its illegitimacy and disobedience: the word Tahrif that is used in islamic literature) the fulfilling prophecies with divergent and insurgent prophecies which betray their utilized and authoritarian objective in the first step, and diverting themselves from Belief-consolidating / authorizing chronology of Prophecy to the chronopolytics of event. Prophecy as hyperstitional vector makes events ‘Polytical’93 rather than working on the paths leading to its destination. PS. see my reply to Nick (under ‘Goodbye USA’) which is somehow relevant to hyperstitional vectors of prophecy. undercurrent: reza ever punctuates the reality punctuates, LOL! [private joke..] Reza Negarestani: LOL ... obv. was intentional, even was going to mention the source but it spoiled our private joke. ;) Nick Land: Reza - highly sympathetic to your approach here, but agree with Tachi about the centrality of the question. Hope we get opportunities to detail the discrepancy between H. and prophecy (also other kinds of 'forecasting') in a more extended way. 93 In connection to ‘Polytics’ we have delineated on the H.blog. 1266

Also, not only discrepancy, but also parasitic modes of exploitation and no doubt other exotic relations. Tachi: Reza – grateful for your replies and thanks for urging a conceptual shift relating to the concept of fiction. This does move the ground somewhat significantly, since I was under the impression that Hyperstition is the process or operation of “fictions making themselves real”, which, when added to the notion of creating carriers, does make one think of fiction as a ‘non-truth’. I think some clarity is sought, then, between fiction, anticipation, speculation and latency – all seem to have a relation to hyperstitional processes and procedures. One problem, however, is that ‘fiction-as-anomaly’ is a concept based on (since it is a result of critically denying) the notion of unattainable hermetic unity and transcendental reality. Sure, we can consider entities "fictional" if they are not whole, not delineated, or not delineable (though these themselves all very different criticisms). But the human body is not a true hermetic unit, for example, human identity can never be consummated, and, in fact, any kind of unitary identity is fraught with the same problem: so is everything fictional by virtue of not being truly hermetic, unified, or "real"? I see how hybrid entities attract the term ‘fictional’ – not merely since they are a product of human imagination but because they do not conform to models of purity, unity and identity. But by positioning fiction as an anomaly, we would implicitly be buying into a binary notion of delineable identity or truth (‘normal’), and nondelineable bodies / fuzzy truth (‘anomalies’). Surely we want to get away from this axis, since we are concerned with transversals, becomings, transgressions, communication, process, dynamics etc – all which are not explained with a reactionary (anti-, un-, contra-) approach which ‘anomaly’ suggests. Coming back the premise that Hyperstition is the term for “fictions that makes themselves real”, if we were to accept fiction-as-anomaly then it would seem to follow that Hyperstition is “anomalies that makes themselves real.” Does this mean nondelineable entities that make themselves delineable? This is surely self-organization or stratification. And what would Hyperstition add that D&G; haven’t already elucidated in this area? 1267

Or does it mean fuzzy truths that makes themselves distinct? This might apply to the ‘hype’ of hyperstition, but is so broad it is probably rooted in number, which seems to be the crux of hyperstition. In a nutshell, I am not saying that fictions are just products of human agency and that Hypersition is following the wrong path if it solely concerns itself with generating fictions and fuzzy facts which obtain a reality of their own. I am trying to grasp how this is embedded in something more fundmental. The problem IMHO shifts from a simple phase change (from one latent state to another manifest state - e.g. fictional and real) to the thorough qualification of ‘fictions’, the kind of ‘realities’ which they traverse upon becoming ‘real’, and what ‘real’ ultimately implies. Maybe these terms ‘fictional’ and ‘real’ are pretty redundant since they carry so much baggage, particularly in connection with the human imagination – and thus with a notion of agency that the whole program attempts to avoid. Reza Negarestani: will try to extract our prophecy-oriented discussion and post them separately (even might hint at what we discussed a while ago in the chat about a possible attack on iran) Tachi, does make one think of fiction as a ‘non-truth’. I didn’t suggest that fictions are truth so ‘fiction not as a non-truth’ is still not relevant to what I said. In truth we are not engaged with communication but with ‘an authoritarian consolidation of communications’ (solidus-in-circulation). What is at stake here is real as process-communication-multiplicity. Think truth has nothing to do with hyperstition unless it is sabotaged or exploited by hyperstitional vectors. Coming back the premise that Hyperstition is the term for “fictions that makes themselves real”, if we were to accept fiction-as-anomaly then it would seem to follow that Hyperstition is “anomalies that makes themselves real.” Does this mean non-delineable entities that make themselves delineable? This is surely self-organization or stratification. In this regard, I cast my vote with D&G; that ‘real’ (as a process) comes from the polytics of an-omalie. An-omalie doesn’t mean ‘non-delineable’ as DG suggest, it is about the zone that a participative entity-as-event traverses (by which it retain a differentiating rate of speed) and the connections it makes i.e. a set of positions to a multiplicity. Self-organization belongs to affordance-based participation (methexis) 1268

directly functioning as a more flexible apparatus for maintaining the survival economy of the liveware; anomal is germinated where affordance (so the capacity) is transgressed. I think there is a misunderstanding here in the term anomal. Anomal in a DGon sense doesn’t mean fuzzy or non-delineable or atypical and is not developed on reactionary processes (which all belong to the realm of characteristics and generic or specifications) (see ATP pp. 243-48 for more elaborations on An-omalie) northanger: Is prophesizing hyperstitional? of course it is. least i think so. thought of jonah when i first read your question. god asked jonah to go to nineveh & inform them of his great displeasure. they had 40 days to get their act together or it was fire & brimstone. jonah's response was interesting: he immediately ran away. after one sea voyage, a violent storm, being thrown overboard & eaten by a fish—jonah finally agreed to go to nineveh & give them their 40 day notice. upon receiving the message, the ninevites replaced diamonds & pearls with sackcloth & ashes. they believed the message from jonah was from god. the city of nineveh was spared. in anger jonah lashed out at god. he was mighty pissed off that god showed compassion to this once evil city. god told jonah to get a grip. Guess that would depend on whether prophesizing can bring about the reality of what is prophesized. AFAIK, it's always what jonah says & does that everyone seems to focus on— however, was the king being prophetic? because {a} the king patterns the behavior everyone needs to follow, and {b} says what actually becomes "reality". i'd say the king holds the hyperstitional key. maybe jonah indicates when/where hyperstition needs to occur? http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=jonah%2014&version;=31 http://www.crystalinks.com/nineveh.html btw, SACKCLOTH = HODOLOGY = SORCERER = YULETIDE = BOLESKINE = BULLSEYE how does a smaller, ill-equipped, disadvantaged & unempowered group defeat a superior force? if i were the superior force i'd want focus always on my game: every strategy & tactic devised has an immediate parallel with my s&t.; isn't that the art of magic? slight of hand, distraction, knowing how the human mind works. 1269

however smaller forces defeat larger forces only, imho, when they focus on their game. guerrilla warefare is asymmetrical and does not parallel the opponent—actually, you don't want your opponent to tightly parallel you either. another question: does everyone play the same hyperstitional game? my guess is no. oops: warefare is warfare. Tachi: Much to respond to here. For now, interested in prophecy-as-hyperstitional issue, and your remarks Reza that it is not, since - as far as I understand you - prophecy is teleological whereas hyperstition is not. This to me is only if we look from the POV of those prophecizing. Shouldn't we looking from a more abstract POV? Reza Negarestani: Tachi, Perhaps a misunderstanding, prophecy IS hyperstitional (esp. from the angle of polytical events, artificial futures and A-Now) but if it affirms the objective anticipation of its own, it has ‘already’ been captured by authorization agencies but even then it can be exploited by clandestine hyperstition vectors [Z.crowd has shown the teleological is even more suitable for Tahrif, hyperstitional exploitation and polytical strategies]. I guess I should unfold my PoV in this regard soon. But guess Nick followed what I meant. northanger: can hyperstition prove or identify (believe someone asked this ages ago) any "fiction" now viewed as "true" by the masses? kinda tricky ain't it? undercurrent: I return to a point I made ages ago when last we had this 'what is hyperstition' discussion (the castaneda post): I think we need to distinguish: (a) "By saying that things will happen, you can make those very things happen" : utterances which somehow make the states of affairs they refer to happen (strong hypothesis, or prophecy in the traditional sense) (b) "By saying that things will happen, you make things happen" : utterances which make _something_ happen (weak hypothesis, or the general materiality of utterances) If hyperstition can be usefully defined, it will be neither of these. The manufacture of desire by capitalism is the best example : the relation between an ad that says 'everyone wants an x, they're really desirable', and the fact that within a month, everyone _does_ 1270

want an x, is obviously not of the 'prophetic' type ((a) above) because of the effective (cybernetic rather than referential) link between ad and consumer trend. However it's stronger than (b) because there isn't just an arbitrary relation between the advertising utterance and the events that follow it (in that case, the advertising would be said to have failed). Also lovecraft : where 'descriptions' of cosmic fear are also effective motors of cosmic fear in the reader. Reza Negarestani: U/C, A few shots in the dark: (b) "By saying that things will happen, you make things happen" : utterances which make _something_ happen (weak hypothesis, or the general materiality of utterances) [1] I think this axiom has the presumption that this ‘something’ is although not the very objective of the prophecy but still within the border of prophecy; otherwise, how can you ever know (or how do you know) that ‘this something’ has anything to do with the prophecy at all? Therefore, IMHO, this axiom can’t be suggested for a prophecy and posed as an alternative or the second axion unless you consider prophecy as an event-mining machine working through chronopolytics of events not a chronologic network ‘by which you can locate the occurrence of the event, either associated or dissociated from the prophecy.’ I think what is more important about prophecy is not ‘fulfillment’ or the happening but the artificial anticipation it engineers and works as a time-traveling machine on chronopolitical lines of emergence rather than linear domination of chronologic events. (this needs elaboration). The artificial anticipation is a vector or a probe-head for potential events which have already been repressed by chronologic regime and everything connected to it. [...]things will happen[...] [2] Why always WILL? There is a general belief (which can even work as a restrictive function upon the machinery of prophecy) that prophecy targets the future. But a major part of prophecies (the old and new Testaments, Zoroastrian books, etc.) are ‘Vaticinium ex Eventu’ which aims at both Now and the Past, for either consuming the past (functionally distorting it: Tahrif) or politically multiplying it, thus giving rise to an artificial Now as well. (here, parallel functions of prophecy to Anonymous-until1271

Now). The 911-Thing is partly exhumed from such prophecies. [again needs discussion] [3] What is traded at prophecy and multiplied is Event(s) not an object that can be easily directed, exchanged or economized. Once prophecy probes an event, the event becomes ‘polytical’. PS. Promise to post something focused on Prophecy v. soon. PPS. Could you elaborate your ‘Lovecraft remark’ a bit (needless to say, hungry for this one)? Tachi: (REZA) Tachi: “Is prophesizing hyperstitional? Guess that would depend on whether prophesizing can bring about the reality of what is prophesized.” On the contrary, IMHO, if prophecy ever punctuates the reality of its prophesized objective, it can hardly be regarded as a hyperstitional machinery. The hyperstitional vector of prophecies is not supposed to feed ‘what is anticipated’ but disseminate marginal events, autonomous events which diverge from the target; otherwise, Prophecy is mainly the instrument of Belief and its monopoly. (TACHI) Ok, so hyperstition isn’t simply the process of fulfilling predetermined ends. But insofar as prophecy involves the anticipation of something, and in that this anticipation can bring about what is anticipated, then surely prophecy can be considered as hyperstitional. For it doesn’t have to be a simple linear step from prophecy to prophecy-fulfillment – what is anticipated can change as the effects of anticipation feed back into the machinery of anticipation. ... (REZA) Tachi, Perhaps a misunderstanding, prophecy IS hyperstitional (TACHI) Ok, I know you are preparing a post for us, so will anticipate this to shape up our discussion and shed a little more light. ... (UNDERCURRENT) I think we need to distinguish: (a) "By saying that things will happen, you can make those very things happen" : utterances which somehow make the states of affairs they refer to happen (strong hypothesis, or prophecy in the traditional sense) (b) "By saying that things will happen, you make things happen" : utterances which make _something_ happen (weak hypothesis, or the general materiality of utterances). If hyperstition can be usefully defined, it will be neither of these. 1272

(TACHI) Valuable distinction U/C. This is an interesting POV on the possibility of hyperstition-as-prophecy (as opposed to prophecy-as-hyperstition). And I agree that it cannot be either if we want to define hyperstition usefully. What I think we need is an account of hyperstition beyond utterance, or less focused at the level of questions of belief, and more in tune with non-anthropomorphic processes. I am trying to work towards “a non-anthropomorphic concept of speculation or anticipation, in which the expectations of artificial agencies may play a role in causing the effects anticipated.” And is not number the non-anthropomorphism we are looking for? But then this brings us back to the questions raised earlier in the thread: (UNDERCURRENT) how does numbering number operate concretely in examples of NWM (necessity to get beyond vague D/G mumblings about 'occupying smooth space' and demonstrate in what way these operations exceed state-mathematisation)? (TACHI) but is hyperstition simply the same as numbering number? Does it proceed “by ciphering culture, dismantling significations and diffusing the convergence of authority” (NICK, ref to NWM numbering number) If so, what is the added value of the concept of hyperstition to numbering number? How essential is the production of anticipated reality to the concept of hyperstition –is this its distinguishing feature? If so, then we are looking an interesting notion of causality: how can number create through anticipation and speculation? Nick Land: Lots of great stuff here (isn't discipline fun?) IMHO, as far as 'analytical hyperstition' is concerned (differentiated from methodical or 'synthetic' h.), there are two megasystems of special prominence (both touched on by various comments here). 1) Apocalyptic Monotheism and attendant prophetic traditions, constructions of history, retro-consolidation of faith and snow-balling material efficacy (as historical forces). 2) Technocapitalism with its hypersensitization of the planet to speculative investments, its excitational hype-guided cyclicity and its anticipated potentials (Cyberpace, nanotechnology ...) fusing science-fiction with feed-forward historicization. Q.s: - Are there any other broad hyperstitional domains of comparable pertinence? 1273

- Do these megasystems have distinguishable abstract dynamics? - How are they interrelated? - How does hyperstitional analysis modulate critique? Tachi: Good questions Nick. Its a shame to let this drop since depsite the silence on this today, it is totally key IMHO. I would say it’s pretty difficult to identify additional domains since planetary technocapitalism, as far as I understand this term, incorporates all human social, political and economic activity. Since it is not an ideological choice of a politically-driven system, but rather a planetary singularity, an irreversible historical trend, apocalyptic monotheism needs to be conceived within this context. Would you agree that it is precisely within the ambit of techno-capital – or bio-capital as some prefer – that monotheism is revealed as an archaism, an internal resistance mechanism within the overall system? It’s not like techno-capitalism arose as a contingent and alien threat to prevailing religion – a human choice - since all makes sense within the singular trajectory. Nothing is external, or transcendent. I would situate apocalyptic monotheism as a sub-system within an overall systemic drive – as a subsystem which IMHO is in the process of being rendered obsolete but is resisting vigorously through viral adaptation and intensification. So, my answer would be that we either we should look more closely at threads, currents, within the overall flow that is techno-capitalism – and treat apocalyptic monotheism as one of these system incompatibilities. Or we consider something more base / inhuman than techno-capitalism and look more abstractly – i.e. non-anthropomorphically. I think it’s a question of nested systems, and I am particularly interested in how number connects to this. I still ask whether hyperstition can be couched in non-anthropomorphic terms, and whether hype, speculation, etc are actually only relevant concepts in human matters or if there are base-material (numeric? digital?) equivalents to 'fictions making themselves real.' Reza: Are there any other broad hyperstitional domains of comparable pertinence? Nick, 1274

Both techno-capitalism and uncompromising monotheistic apocalypticism (my stress is on xerodromic militarization of Islam which is constructing a synergetic bond with techno-capitalism through WoT) have latent repressing functions (tactical setbacks) which may turn the entire panorama of ‘the flight to the outside’ to some kind of ‘irrevocable reterritorialization process’ which can be defined as accommodation or even colonization of the outside (and preserving macropolitical entities in an affordable / economizable micro state of volatility [volatilis : grounded flight] without a radical change in micro-interactions or feeding multiplicative molecularity). Do you think the third hyperstition pathway (cosmodromic capitalism, or the cosmodrome?) should be a path to obliterate ‘all activities towards the accommodation of the Outside’ on both fronts (techno-capitalism and Monotheistic apocalypticism)? If it should be so, then the third pathway should be external to the planetary functionspace, but how is it possible to engage with such a pathway diagrammed through radical outsideness? Think the only polytics of engagement at this point should be conveyed not through the programmable openness (‘being open to’ by which Techno-capitalism must configure its itinerant heads before it reaches full autonomy), this polytical engagement should focus on composing strategies to draw the cuttingfunction of openness from the Outside (planetary agencies are not carriers or tactical lines of this openness but the attractors of its cutting, decoding functions) and explore the non-anthropomorphic but participative [1] space of ‘being opened’. [1] Although anthropomorphic agencies attract this openness but they cease to afford and consequently dwell and accommodate when it reaches them. Cracked by this outsiding openness, the capacity required for utilizing the outside is nullified; any instance of ‘power’ projected on an entity with a decoded(cracked) and nullified capacity retains an unbound potential to diffuse and unfold (p/0), to communicate and perpetuate itself epidemically. Tachi: Reza, interesting very abstract perspective but appreciate a bit of clarification (until 'Hyperstition for Dummies' comes out): - What is "the entire panorama of ‘the flight to the outside’" and can you give an example? - What are "‘all activities towards the accommodation of the Outside’" and what would their obliteration look like in reality? Reza Negarestani: Tachi this needs a full elaboration (fortunately written already): 1275

“Sorcerers and Necromancers: anabatic lines (part V)” (but you should read from the first chapter (scroll down to see the links; this however requires ATP as the major reference.) (a). just a few hints: composite processes of lines of flight in DGon sorcery and Bataille's solar economy (Nick obv. has a lot of great stuff on this). (b). there is a difference between communication (communicating with the outside) and affordance and its politico-economical machineries (accomodating, dwelling, niche-engineering, all primarily supporting existence and survival economy not polytics). Also check the first couple of comments in the '( )holey space' thread to see a digestible definition of affordance as the coupled trellis-taxis machinery (or ground) of all instances of 'being open to' by which planetary agencies (take warmachines for instance) are supported and fueled but also forced to take certain lines of dynamism which are prone to reterritorialization, capture, affordance-based communications, grounding processes and fertilization of highly advanced organizations in unconventional ways (being turned into masters of Pseudo-flux). Some ‘oversimplifications’ necessary to move forward: You see, techno-capitalism needs a political/economic platform as a groundwork before it turns into a total Shoggotic insurgency (as Nick put it; or an autonomous flight whose operation is total ungrounding of the Earth and its agencies), it needs fresh air, resources, fuels and a furious propulsive body which are only accessible through ‘openness’ but at the same time, this openness should be intrinsically appropriated as ‘being open to’ developed on ‘affordance’ otherwise it can be easily arrested by other planetary agencies, etc. This openness which guarantees its dynamic survival however is the ultimate obstacle before its full autonomy or Omega-insurgency. The question: how is it possible to crack this politico-economic openness? - Via a third hyperstition pathway which perceives (and merely runs through) the other side of openness (being opened) – external to affordance. Tachi, was reading your previous discussions: all which are not explained with a reactionary (anti-, un-, contra-) approach which ‘anomaly’ suggests. 1276

this is mainly the 'philosophic' invention of deconstructionists and their associated ilks. Anti- and un- should not be reduced to reactionary processes or mapped on the logic of negativity. (Nick is v. helpful to exlain this). Nick Land: Tachi, Reza - think the articulations you both suggest (viz Tech-cap / Apocalypticism) extremely productive - expecting there to be a variety of modes of cross-coupling with different consequences and implications. Cosmodromic / Xenodromic Capitalism deserving of thorough thrash-through at some point (soon?) - with relation to WWIV possibly quite intricate and multifaceted (which is not to rule out a predominating trend). Technocapitalism = K+ artificialization (with potential to connect to / retrogenerate from an absolute outside) Apocalyptic Monotheism - could use some additional suggestions about Xenodromic potential (currently running West-style through Renomu provocation, so Jay angle especially (+ urgently) welcome). Finding this discussion crucial and overdue - we should try to (productively) slow and prolong it. [Technohell here gumming up my response rate, apologies for that] Reza Negarestani: UPDATED: The question: how is it possible to crack this politico-economic openness? (should the process of opening / cracking be synchronous to the propelling body of techno-capital?) - Via a third hyperstition pathway which perceives (and merely runs through) the other side of openness (being opened) – external to affordance. Think this is also very pertinent to the bonds between warmachines and War-as-aMachine, with warmachines take tactical openness (being open to) to synthesize their coupled diffusion-escalation In short, what does guarantee that the driving force of techno-capitalism (both emerged from synergetic participations with its adversaries and internal functionalities: poly-tics, flat numerization, etc.) will never be utilized or accommodate the outside (constructing its own overlord utopia)? There should be a cosmodromic / xenodromic machine to reduce the risk of any serious setback or domestication to zero without annihilating the techno-capitalist planetary processes: a contemporaneous affirmation or guarantee from the outside. 1277

Nick, IMHO, the West-Jay connection must be fully opened through the ( )hole complex of diffusion-escalation (the coupled process you mentioned a while ago); we have already traced a few threads in this respect (Taqyiah-commandos, (Re)nomadization of the US army in connection with petropolitics and desert-militarism, and the technical side of the ( )hole complex as the most prominent space for passing the chain communications between diffusion (Jihadism mostly pursues and practices it via Endo-militarization of Peace, petropoltical nexuses and heresy-engineering of its own burning body) and escalation, and finally the way they push all planetary agencies towards tellurian-omega whose body is composed by xerodromic capitalism coming from outside and all types of insurgencies through the planetary body.) Let’s continue the diffusion-escalation thread (with full elaboration) before scrambling it in the abysmally possessed minds of Jay and West (but this doesn’t mean we should avoid the fun of playing with their puppets, exhuming their tapes, notes and whatever.) what do you think? Nick Land: Reza - this thread doing just great, I was just prodding (both of us) to escalate the Blob saga elsewhere On 'requirement' for a cosmodromic machine - absolute agreement (after all, it's the ultimate polytical principle) - but how this is assembled, dissimulated, deposited / fabricated, remains intensely cryptic and cuts across every other line of investigation "constructing its own overlord utopia" - yes, precisely the Metatronic agenda in other words (AOE guide to history) ... having said that, prodding myself right now is pretty much like playing with a mouldering corpse ... northanger: you can't be a mouldering corpse in here. that's off topic! (why are you mouldering anyway?) Reza Negarestani: Nick, AOE guide to history Seems the AOE guide to history rises from the attribution of power to planetary inevitability (death-principle?) in a way that time is programmed to architectonically distribute events on concentric spheres (concentric spheres is the architectural 1278

geometry of the AOE’s chronologic, while pyramid is the order of its activities and influencing governance); only on ‘diametric’ and ‘concentric’ connections (as a result, on a line which presupposes the occlusion of the other spheres) one can reach the next sphere in an initiation from periphery to the core, with enveloped and tractable spaces between spheres or annuli, playing the role of initiatory-pylons to the next order. The outside is always accommodated by another order; movements continuously enmesh dwelling / accommodating spaces to integrate Being with the architectonic order (Bauen, Wohen, libban). Every event on this chronologic order is occluded to other events based on its radius from the core; movements become discontinuous (while holding a predefined constancy towards center) through switching orientations of the coexistent concaveconvex regime (in the order of concentric spheres). The chronologic space of AOE should ultimately provide the Order with a point where the core, inevitability, death and the Tetragrammaton coincide efficiently, designating time and every event it passes. (see http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hollow/earth1.jpg and http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hollow/daynite.jpg) Both techno-capitalism and monotheistic apocalypticism are mobilized and at the same time confined by the necrocratic inevitability of death which canalizes all machinic activities even prior to their initialization (in planetary becoming death comes first then it is enveloped within the becoming, waiting to unfold). The cosmodromic machine should be a much broader hyperstition pathway to unground the planetary inevitability either by overlapping the cosmic inevitability (whose function is ‘outsiding’ not accommodating the outside which is the politicoeconomical approach of planetary inevitability to the Outside) on the planetary inevitablism to neutralize its guiding system and predefined fields of dynamism (every becoming envelopes a becoming-death), or breaking it into diverging particles. [will return to this later] For those unfamiliar with AOE: AOE (from CCRU glossary: http://www.ccru.net/id(entity)/glossary.htm): The Architectonic Order of the Eschaton, an ultra-hermetic metamasonic whitebrotherhood at war with lemurian influences. The AOE progresses by way of chronic internal schism, each resulting in an ever more interiorized inner society. Its traditions are therefore refracted through various - apparently conflicting - front organizations (which include the Heliopolitan Hierophancy, Roman Catholic Church, Knights Templar, Illuminati, Trilateral Commission, and Axsys programme). 1279

undercurrent: Roman Catholic Church btw, why no hyperstition obituary!? Nick Land: On Technocapitalism / Apocalyptic Monotheism cross-couplings (in no particular order, and including topics touched on elsewhere on this blog): 1) Monotheistic usurpation of Western Capitalism. (Why is there no market-based political platform (of consequence), but instead (in the most extreme cases (US 'conservatism' and affiliates)) a religious platform?) 2) Marxian critique of capital as a secularized Judaeo-Christian eschatology (and in China today the substitute for explicit religion viz #1 above). Multiply modulated, e.g. as D&Gon; schizopolitics (explicitly described as 'eschatology'). 3) Prohibition of usury (riba) as anticapitalist law intrinsic to the Abrahamic tradition (virile monotheism as inhibitor of K+ financial machinery). 4) Transhumanist / extropian antireligion promoted by technocapitalist dynamics and ensuing abominations 'against nature', 'Karl Darwin' (as he's known in Texas) etc. (basically Nietzschean scenario?) 5) WWIV conjunction (militant antiglobalization become Jihad, with ensuing perverse (cosmodromically excitational?) dynamics). Obviously we're all over this one already, and will continue to be ... 6) Cyberspace theology, Teilhard de Chardin etc ... #s 3 + 4 above most germane to Tachi's comments above, #5 closest to Reza's here #1 really bugs me, and seems highly relevant to this discussion - is the formation and perpetuation of planetary technocapitalism essentially parasitic upon the monotheistic construction of (apocalyptic) history? and its enemies likewise (#2 + 5)? sure makes the whole trajectory seem a little sulphurous ... 1280

April 2005 Competitive Advantage Nick Land (April 12 2005) This certainly widens the horizons of economic history ...: “Free trade may have finished off Neanderthals” by Celeste Biever94 Comments: Competitive Advantage Tachi: This was also featured in the current edition of the Economist. One significant implication is that capitalism is shown to be much more than an ideology - a choice of 'systems' - rather a mode of operation continuous with biological evolution. This news is therefore something that hyperstitionists should welcome. Nick Land: Tachi - Possibly, but an alternative angle might be to question the identification of capitalism with commerce - after all, it seems unlikely Cro-Magnons were 'accumulating' in an industrial sense (converting commercial surplus into productive investment) - but maybe i'm being too quick on this? Certainly, the unsustainablity of the (Braudel-style) 'pro-market anticapitalist' line is highly intriguing, with all the former partisans of this diagonal I'm aware of now neatly divided into allies of (rabidly antimarket) soc.i.alistic French intellectuals on the one hand and ("screw the critique of capital") pro-US supply-siders on the other ... Globalization topic partly key to this, since (it seems) you can't oppose it without adopting an antimarket position, or support it without adopting a pro-capital one ... Tachi: OK Nick, agree perhaps wrong to identify capitalism with commerce, per se, but I do see this as a trajectory with several significant breaks: clearly there is a break from primates not enaged in commerce to those enaged in commerce, and separately a break from commerce into Capitalism. When I used the word 'capitalism' previously I was perhaps referring to the whole trajectory; I am amazed at the extent to which Capitalism, as distinguished from mere trading, has its its roots in pre-history and in 94 https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7221-free-trade-may-have-finished-off-neanderthals/ 1281

a time when political organization was probably not distinguished from ecomomic organization as it has become. As for the globalization debate, I don't see why someone can't be for globalization in principle but have misgivings about the way business is run and the way governments politicize globalizing trade. What makes you think that people must be either pro- or anti-globalization? And isn't it one thing to be pro- or anti-capital and pro- or antimarket? Nick Land: Tachi - agree with your points in last para - but question remains, why is this (entirely plausible) virtual position not occupied? IMHO answer based on the 'Age of Khattak' - 'either for us or for our enemies' is the order of the Aeon ... John Carpenter's The Thing: White War and Hypercamouflage Reza Negarestani (April 17, 2005) Hypercamouflage traps possibilities for fighting and surviving along the enemy, a total withdrawal from friend’s sensors and dissolution into the enemy: the rebirth of a new foe. If militarization is not a war-time process, even peace as the blank space of unfriction between warmachines can be militarized; not taking advantages of peace as an exploitable suspension in time and a depository for militarization processes in wartime but the endo-militarization of peace itself, as if peace can be directly used as a weapon. John Carpenter’s The Thing illustrates a new mode of warfare whose tactical lines are not aligned with (configured by) the plane of conflict, that is to say, they are not arranged to cut, block or replace each other based on their tendencies / transorientations and their collective but different alignments (all essentially dimensional), necessitating a dynamic incompatibility as the main support and matrix of the conflictual engagement. The Thing’s favored warfare is to program a new array of tactical lines which totally blend with the enemy’s lines in certain configuration that they introduce radical instability and eventually violent fissions: 1282

Every warmachine or tactical line occupies a niche (whether in wartime or peace), a space only through which it can move, feed and function; it is not only defined by distinctive properties of a tactical line or warmachine but also by its enemies, the incompatible dynamism of other lines of tactics, types of predators, the exposure to factors of environment, its threshold for receiving data from environment, the types of data it receives and its propinquity to what it pursues or probes (there is a common misunderstanding that attributes solid or crisp boundaries to niches but niches are assembled wherever an entity economizes a portion of its environment and survives / functions in that economized space95). At a given time, the entity x occupies a unique96 address (or a set of addresses) as r(x). This address is encoded and set apart by the niche the warmachine or a tactical line occupies. The functions of a niche are not merely disjunctive and exclusive (for example, directing competitions i.e. selective movements which result in exclusion of other portions of the environment or lines of movement) but also connective; in fact niches mobilize their occupant entities with dynamism, associating them with other niches based on affordance necessary for moving along a tendency or a plane as well as sharing it with other niches and their inhabitants. To engineer or recompose an entity, the programming of its niche is the first basic operation; therefore the significance of investigating niches or niche types (rather than token niches or occupants) progressively increases with the development and emergence of new dynamic lines, traffic spaces and planes of communicative conjunctions. The State and its dominion grid identify movements (whether quantitative – metron-based – or qualitative) by the series of addresses they authenticate, register or pass on as they travel: 𝑟(𝑥1 , 𝑥2 , 𝑥3 , … 𝑥𝑛) For the State, the dynamism geared by warmachines or the way that each warmachine perpetuates its itinerant line can only be traced and numerically tagged through the 95 In fact, some monitoring systems basically concentrate on niches with fiat and vague boundaries to screen and guide their occupants (tenants). Air traffic control systems constantly analyze the volume of protected or restricted airspace -- defining a circumspace or the volume enclosing a flying object -- for collision avoidance, alert systems and translocations of aircrafts. The volume of protected airspace is a modified term for niche in traffic management, a simulation of the niche that exists in flying or migrating birds. 96 This uniqueness is characterized by the definitive properties / qualities that the address attributes to an entity in space-time but to have an address does not mean to be the exclusive owner of it. 1283

logic of boundaries, the programming of dwelling / accommodating systems and (dis)locations that the State is able to monitor. By means of overwatching boundaries through which entities pass, investigating the temporal effects on (or alteration of) the forces of territoriality that moving entities leave, their types of localization, and their behaviors towards mereologic economy, the State can fabricate a cogito to not only realize but also classify the movement of entities and the dynamism of warmachines in particular which cannot be directly apprehended or sensed in their immoderate itineracy by the State; this is the cogito required for appropriation of warmachines under the State’s military protocols and forms. Bound to (semi-)rigid segmentarity, force dynamic boundaries, affordance-based connections and static or dynamic localizations (or more accurately, in-place and out-place localizations), the State examines the conductive space of each entity or its dynamism – corresponding to its functional, territorial and mereologic regions – not only to read the characteristics of an entity but also to locate it on (or according to the proximity of the entity to) its dominion grid. The State and all configurations of Survival Economy track entities through the niche(s) (esp. by reading the type of the niche) that the entity inhabits and populates through it. For the State’s military Overwatch, investigating and tracing the niche is the primary and central task; the itinerant line of an entity or a warmachine, its communications and functional traits are all deciphered by scanning the niche and its type. The advanced reading-machines of the State are even capable of extracting the quiddity of a warmachine or an entity by analyzing the specifications of the niche which is intrinsically bound to affordance, dynamic forces of boundaries, and ecological principles. However, as niches are connective entities-as-events; they do not exclusively belong to one entity or one tenant. Multiple entities can share one niche and niches can form nested niches (territoriality forces diminish – but never disappear – in grouping bonds) linking to each other, being connected in various modes. Modes of connection between niches mainly divide to two asymmetrical correlations: a. Abutment (A) b. Overlap (O) (a) Abutment is an external connection, with minimum trade between niches or entities (the least contagious connection as the result of its tendency towards dissociation); it is demarcated by its immediate connection before overlapping and after disjunction, its tangential contact and boundary overlap. Once the frontier of the State’s defense and the edge continuously eroded by the reckless tidal or updrift movements (omni-directionally contrasting with the predominant movement of the State’s pseudo-flux transportations and regional displacements) of nomadic 1284

warmachines but now with the emergence of symbiotic and manipulative warmachines and covert militarization processes on the one hand and advanced affordance-based economies towards accommodation of the Outside on the other hand (rooted in both introducing territorial climatologic factors to the dynamism of nomad-packs and developing new modes of survival), the operational significance of this mode of connection (Abutment) has been significantly decreased. Now, the state knows well how to save its foundations even by assembling regions susceptible to the erosion of nomadic warmachines. In a typified connection T002.gif it can be mapped on the Euclidean plane Eplane.gifas 𝐴𝑥 (𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑑𝑓 𝐶𝑡 (𝑥, 𝑦) ∧ ¬𝑂𝑡 (𝑥, 𝑦) (x abuts y) Since this mode of connection links entities on a tangential plane (confinium), the state can effectively resist any arriving onrush of nomadic warmachines on this mode of connection with minimum attrition damage on its critical interiors (plane of logistics and lines of command), the State seeks to channel all the cumulative damage induced by nomadic warmachines (as the obtrusive postulate of danger) on this connection to deflect any fundamentally contagious threat to distributive (and recoverable) eroding processes which can even be programmed to transport the State out of its rigid segmentarity and prolonging it in a fluxional mode in a manner of an abrasive machine of the fluvius that erodes solid to transport it by the dynamic conservative vector fields of sedimentary processes – capturing fecundity in detrition. With warmachines tirelessly gnawing at the State’s textum, incising and liquidating its crisp boundaries, the State begins to leak out, but that does not only express the collapse of the State but also the exposure of nomadic warmachine to the underlying grid on which the State is assembled and holds its interwoven space, a network of grounding processes which even nomads use to orchestrate their itinerant bodies to climatologic variables and constants. Installing the operational edge of nomadic warmachines on the State in the absence of ungrounding machineries (incapacitating the dominant economy of the grund) is similar to the case of a premature line of deterritorialization97 which facilitates the unconventional establishment of new immunologically enhanced States. Persian history over a long period of time (from 97 See “Sorcerers and Necromancers: sorcery and the line of escape part II” 1285

the Achaemenians to the Qajar dynasty (1779-1925), more than two thousand years) narrates such a continuous conversion of nomadic forces to the State forces and then again being replaced by another nomadic population; such premature nomadic detritions of the State have progressively given rise to more powerful (in terms of gravity and immunity) yet more unstable States which inflict politico-economic poverty, inclination towards being colonized by other States, lack of autonomous nervous system and polarization of different populations without the chance of being positively diversified. (b) Overlap: If P stands for parthood and O for overlap: 𝑂(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑑𝑓 ∃𝑥((𝑃(𝑧, 𝑥) ∧ 𝑃(𝑧, 𝑦)) then following axioms: AP1: P(x, y) ↔ ∀x(O(z, x) → O(z, y)) AP2: ∃𝑥(𝜙(𝑥)) → ∃𝑥∀𝑦(𝑂(𝑥, 𝑦) ↔ ∃𝑧(𝜙(𝑧) ∧ 𝑂(𝑧, 𝑦))) Any participation (methexis or base-participation) happens through overlapping connections. Therefore, the majority of combined connections (Tangential, Parthood, Interior, etc.) are effectuated by different possibilities which overlap educes between entities. Overlap draws lines of coincidence between two events or entities by sharing an address that two entities partly or completely take in a spatio-temporal or a functional region. Both the State’s appropriations and counter-state insurgencies happen through this mode of connection; while exploitable by the State and affordance, it does not mean that ‘overlap’ cannot be the main source of insurgencies since it is the connection-domain through which warmachines leave their bordereroding externality and directly arrive at the State’s grid either to be specialized by the State apparatus or reinvented as contagious, endo-symbiotic and parasitic entities coinciding with the State and its machineries and consequently harvesting wide array of clandestine and manipulative functions. On a more technical plane, all camouflage exploitations are essentially consistent because they all involve the use of ‘overlap’ and turning it from a mode of connection to a polytically operational positioning that violates both the symmetry of a niche with the address it writes (programs) for an entity and the divisors which separate and discriminate the addresses or niches of two entities in space-time coordinates. 1286

However, this violation (that necessities the activation of camouflage) cannot remain durable and unchanged, because predatory / military camouflages always employ partial overlap, with a part constantly accessible ‘as not camouflaged’ (either belonging to the camouflaged entity x or the entity on which it should be overlapped y [3]) which does not only make tracing and propelling (tactical handling) of the camouflaged entity possible but also provides the camouflaged entity with an escape-route or a space for instant evacuation and withdrawal from the camouflaged position. This ‘not camouflaged’ or ‘not overlapped’ part inhibits the camouflage from being durable or constantly undetected. All types of camouflage draw a disruptive function from the overlapped part (which mainly occurs on a fragmental level) by conducting the address or niche of another entity to the camouflaged entity and consequently disrupting the mereologic correlations at work in connection to what should be camouflaged; such disruptions (which generally targets a reference-point or a reference-link) can produce cognitive-glitches as well as subversion of some specific environing bonds that pass through both the camouflaged entity and its object or its prey. Motion camouflage uses a particular type of tactical dynamism (in the cases that the prey is also in motion, the movement of the shadower or the camouflaged predator happens on a path of a chaotic pursuit; the movement can be modeled by projecting its pursuit curves onto the Rössler attractor) or dynamic overlap to disrupt its distance and displacements from the prey (the shadowee) by moving on a path that connects it to a fixed point (used by the shadowee as a reference-point – a constant unit vector) while the motion by the target is met by the motion from the aggressor. In motion camouflage, the shadower remains stationary for the target. In the most common military camouflage that is disguise by covering objects (soldiers, vehicles, artilleries, launch pads, etc.) with Disruptive Pattern Materials, disruption happens through surface modifications on which visual sensory organs focus as reference-links between different types of surface patterns in their surrounding space. Invisibility (as a retreat from visual sensors), too, applies and modifies partial overlap as an occlusion by obscuring surfaces, interiorizing, positioning the camouflaged (clocked) entity where boundaries intersect (obscuring boundaries), etc. The primary drawback of invisible warmachine is being traced by semiotic regimes of the State which are more obsessed with what is missed (or traces with missing coordinates) than what exists. As the result of partial overlap, all disruptions and subversions of mereologic bonds are subjected to eventual disclosure; and each time a camouflage is spotted, it progressively loses its potential; any entity using such a camouflage will be more prone to detection and forestalling counter-measures than it usually is; this is a symptom of connections between partial overlap and ‘localization’ which has not functionally 1287

incapacitated and spatially effaced yet. This is why camouflage is hardly implemented as a primary action or an offensive tactic but mostly as a logistic process or a misordering transitional space between different lines of tactic and operations. Transient characteristics and stringent operational restrictions (functionally active in particular locations) obstruct radical weaponization of camouflage. The Thing in John Carpenter’s movie presents a new entity-as-event type of camouflage inherently striking any community by reversing the very process that it uses to assemble itself through nested intercommunication of ‘niches’ and the entities they accommodate or pass. If camouflage is configured by programming partial overlap and fragmental disruption of mereologic reciprocations of environment with a niche, then what happens if an entity or a niche entirely overlaps another one with no part of itself or the target uncovered, or in other words, every condition, region or function of X corresponds to exactly the same condition, region or function of Y (and vice versa) through reflexive and symmetric bonds? The Thing does not occupy a niche through which an entity dwells; it pushes the connection to a complete overlap with unbroken fields of connection and correspondence. For the Thing, occupation is neither a military goal nor a tactic; since occupation is exclusive localization tethered to the mappings of co-localization, the occupier is vulnerable to environmental forces; it can be easily distinguished, located, isolated and finally terminated i.e. being undone at the minimum attrition cost of its environment. By taking complete overlap, the Thing unleashes a polytical (prepared to engineer tactical multiplicities) panorama reminiscent of a Jihadi under Taghieh (taqiyya): Disruptive Survival. In complete overlap, every region, function or part of the Thing (X) can correspond with its identical region, function or part of the prey (Y). Therefore if every x homologizes its corresponding y or more precisely, if every x corresponds with its y on all levels then every function of X (which is the tactical movement of the Thing) can be transferred to Y. The ultimate criminal dimensions of this panorama unfold when this process is reversed; if every x fulfills its corresponding y, then by way of the connecting-corresponding space that complete overlap provides, taking every y (every function or positioning of Y that mostly focuses on survival) can be transferred to its corresponding x and eventually fulfills it. By seizing any y, a corresponding x is triggered and covertly unleashed and since it is the complete overlap, the survival and communications of Y deploy, activate and fulfill the polytical body of X, the Thing. Now that the survival of the prey thoroughly 1288

meets the sinister enthusiasm of the Thing, and peace is generally conceived as the state of collective survival, then the survival of both the Thing and the prey is nothing but the endo-militarization of peace, recycling the survival-complex of peace as a grade-A hypercamouflaged weapon. (Far from being a mere camouflage to be unwrapped as one removes its mask, unveils and returns to its original state, the space of complete overlap has a perverse irrecoverable side effect; since overlapping is complete, there is no extensional space (neither from X nor from Y) to the environing outside. Once the process of overlapping is complete, the mereologic escape-route or the dimension of recovery is closed over itself. Any attempt to leave is carried through a chain of hypercamouflages (inconsistent to mereologic topographies of exit and arrival) with other entities without separating from Y. In John Carpenter’s movie, the withdrawal of the Thing is a series of becomings across all the niches it has already come across, continuous re-compositions of the entities it has touched, in a way that nothing is left behind; scrambling all traces of occurrence and cessation.) Now that the survival, communications, and modes of connections of Y through and with its environment are the very polytical tactics of the Thing (the mere existence of the prey is all weaponized), it is not the niche of the entity Y that is sabotaged but the type of the niche that Y resides in. Once the type of niche is contaminated and recomposed by the polytical body of the Thing, every entity living through that type of niche (henceforth detected as an invalid configuration to its surrounding) is the potential epidemic vector of the Thing. In fact, it is ‘living’ associated with (and made possible by) that type of niche which is plotted as a polytical event emerging (and operating) out of the tactical multiplicity of the Thing. Any political program adhering to these contaminated niche types will find itself in trouble, already smoldering in White War creeping out of suppressive quietude of peace and precarious reality of its niches. Locked into the Thing’s hypercamouflage, living as the consequence of the mutual affordance and now as a multi-functional weapon aims at both the living entity and its environment, undermining all mereologic interactions by which the entity is mobilized within a collective and the community or the State assemble themselves, evolving from economical participations (oscillating between attraction and repulsion) between entities. White War (the hypercamouflaged, endo-militarized peace) blurs within the State, not running at its boundaries. White War is internal to the State; it is necessitated by what offers the State the opportunity to exist. The warmachines of White War unlike nomadic warmachines rise from the State and spill to the outside, sharing more commonalities with the State’s foundations than its own 1289

machineries to affirm the complete overlap and ensure the emergence and outbreak of the Polytical Event (the Thing, polytical survival, ...). Paranoia and fear are the epiphenomena of the Thing’s operation not its weapons, the Thing’s primary process is to undermine all mereologic levels of communication (incapacitating the Whole) and turning all political or economic spaces that the State uses to survival inside out, attacking what is basically exposed and skipping what is supposedly critical. The command line is where the fog-of-war is reduced to its minimum, the Thing channels the fog to the space that command lines occupy. In the wake of the Thing’s polytical body and diminishing border criticality, the most feared tactic of the Thing or a Takfiri under Taghieh is necessarily detached from the conventional ‘hit and run’ guerilla tactics or swarming horde-movement of nomadic warmachines, it is derived from the diffusive space of White War: according to both the State’s military divisions and nomadic warmachines it is not tagged as a tactic, since it is actually a neutral and impotent function of Y (the prey) corresponding with a polytical divergence of the Thing (X). Operationalized from the seemingly blunt edge of White War, this tactic is simply to wait (with no other goal than possibility-engineering) and survive. As previously elaborated, it programs a community, the State or an entire civilization to regard the survival of its entities as the polytical operation of the Thing and consequently, commencing to mass-eradicate its entities by disassembling the type of niche that gives certain entities the possibility to survival and connect with each other. Once the radical danger of the Thing (i.e. its polytical survival) is uncovered, the community undergoes a process of militarization to search and destroy the type of niches through which that polytical survival (which is established as the survival of the entity Y) can be maintained; this simultaneously introduces the community to auto-collapse and brings a heavy amount of collateral damage for communities allied with the community sucked into White War. Unlike camouflage, every time that the Thing (the abysmal correspondence between X and Y) is disclosed, the hypercamouflage ramifies in more corruptive directions for it demonstrates that every type of niche is vulnerable and lurks as a space breeding warmachines of White War. The increase in epidemic divergence of the Thing (i.e. its diffusion) escalates the States' militarization processes in White War. Diffusion feeds escalation feeds diffusion feeds escalation, ad infinitum. What is the most expedient path to the unlife of war? – A draco-spiral. 1290

The State protects itself by sacrificing its assembling niches and entities; the sacrifice is executed by negation, exclusion and marginalization, discarding the danger as a localizable loner, or an isolated oedipal individual (appropriated as a target, ready to be terminated with the least amount of collateral damage); however, in the Thing’s White War this sacrifice is a perverse self-abjection towards ultimate liquidation of the State. The polytics of White War is carried and deployed by outcasts, loners and all other expendable entities now reassembling as terrordrones exposing the vulnerability of the niche type they occupy. The polytics of White War does not come in a pack but mobilized by one Dog, traveling alone to be strategically dismissed and exposed. [1] In fact, some monitoring systems basically concentrate on niches with fiat and vague boundaries to screen and guide their occupants (tenants). Air traffic control systems constantly analyze the volume of protected or restricted airspace -- defining a circumspace or the volume enclosing a flying object -- for collision avoidance, alert systems and translocations of aircrafts. The volume of protected airspace is a modified term for niche in traffic management, a simulation of the niche that exists in flying or migrating birds. [2] This uniqueness is characterized by the definitive properties / qualities that the address attributes to an entity in space-time but to have an address does not mean to be the exclusive owner of it. [3] An example when the ‘not camouflaged’ or ‘not overlapped’ part belongs to x: (In a typified connection) 𝑶, 𝑷𝑶, 𝑰𝑶 𝑃𝑂𝑡(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑑𝑓𝑂𝑡(𝑥, 𝑦) ∧ ¬𝑃𝑡(𝑥, 𝑦) ∧ ¬𝑃𝑡(𝑦, 𝑥) x properly overlaps y Or when it belongs to y: 𝑶, 𝑰𝑶, 𝑷, 𝑷𝑷, 𝑰𝑷 𝐼𝑂𝑡(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑑𝑓∃𝑧(𝐼𝑃𝑡(𝑧, 𝑥) ∧ 𝐼𝑃𝑡(𝑧, 𝑦)) x internally overlaps y 1291

Pest-legion: the counterattack undercurrent (April 18, 2005) The time of ultimate infernomatic polemos is upon us. (source: UK newspapers, 16/05/05) For a reminder of what is at stake see “PEST (part I): From Parasite Eve to the Old Ones” Comments: Pest-Legion 1292

gwendolyn: reza - what is a international tender notice? are there any political / social ramifications to this? ASSC tender notice online here: www.assc.ir/tender1.htm Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) www.panna.org Thanks to the chemical industry, most if not all of us carry a toxic cocktail of pesticides and other chemicals in our bodies! See our new report: Chemical Trespass: Pesticides in Our Bodies and Corporate Accountability. Chemical Trespass www.panna.org/campaigns/docsTrespass/chemicalTrespass2004.dv.html Many of the pesticides found in the test subjects have been linked to serious shortand long-term health effects including infertility, birth defects and childhood and adult cancers.Chemical Trespass finds that children, women and Mexican Americans shoulder the heaviest “pesticide body burden.” For example, children—the population most vulnerable to pesticides—are exposed to the highest levels of nervedamaging organophosphorous (OP) pesticides. checked some of these chemicals & discovered "bad actors" ------TRICYCLAZOLE - www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35823 FLUDIOXONIL - www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35910 ATRAZINE - www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35042 PAN Bad Actors are chemicals that are one or more of the following: highly acutely toxic, cholinesterase inhibitor, known/probable carcinogen, known groundwater pollutant or known reproductive or developmental toxicant. The acute toxicity reported on this page is of the pure chemical ingredient only and may not reflect the acute toxicity of individual pesticide products. + Atrazine is a Triazine compound. Acute systemic toxicity is unlikely unless large amounts have been ingested - Irritation of eyes, skin and respiratory tract. 1293

Reza Negarestani: lol ... head to Iran and you will notice what's going on beneath this global pest alert! Nick Land: "96 items" is almost unbelievable (of course, PEST = 96 (how did the gematria monkey miss that one?)) gwendolyn: reza. I think you're fishing for Koi again. Did find this interesting (copied from a variety of studies and papers): Pesticide poisoning, self-harm & suicide rate. Three million cases worldwide 200,000 deaths. Pesticide poisoning third most common cause of poisoning and the principal cause of poisoning-related mortality in Iran. self-poisoning by pesticides in the age range of 20-30 years old is most common (frequency of woman higher). Epidemiology of suicide: one of the ten leading causes of death in the world; third leading cause of death in youth (behind unintentional injury and homicide). Selfimmolation, drug overdose, and poisoning were the three most common methods of suicide. Substances most commonly used for self-poisoning are agricultural pesticides in developing nations. Pesticide poisoning from occupational, accidental and intentional exposure is a major developing world public health problem. Causing immense strain on hospital services, particularly in Asia. Several studies indicate pesticides to be the most important poisons used for self-harm world-wide, with high incidence and fatality rate. Agrochemical pesticides are a major public health problem throughout the developing world. Many subsistence farming households have stocks of pesticides readily available for impulsive acts. nick. Think the monkey decided to start its own blog and become a capitalist. The monkey's got a publisher and it says its numbers ain't free no more. Reza Negarestani: gwendolyn, This long list reminds me of 'Unit 731', if you know what it was. had a brutal documentary movie on germ-pest experimentations by Unit 731 during WWII whose key scientists / documents were transferred to the US later; of course, pest warfare is not what it used to be (now, it's more sophisticated in every aspect). Gwendolyn: Oh my god. "Live vivisections were performed on prisoners infected with various diseases where scientists would remove organs to study the effects of the disease on the human body. Prisoners were amputated limb by limb to study blood loss. Arms were cut off and reattached to opposite sides. Stomachs were surgically removed and the esophagus was reattached to the intestines." 1294

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 Unit 731 was a secret military medical unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that researched biological warfare and other topics through human experimentation during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II era. The unit was disguised as a water purification unit. Another historical example of the tensely current situation between China and Japan: "It is estimated that over 3,000 Chinese and Korean civilians and as well as Allied POWs were killed in the Unit 731 facilities." Reza Negarestani: Interestingly, that documentary has been produced in Japan and both interviewers and interviewees are Japanese (even scientists or soldiers worked in Unit 731); there were so much protest in Japan after an exhibition revealing the documents to Japanese university students (guess two years ago). There are a couple of cult classic movies based on the subject too (men behind the sun or something like that). Gwendolyn: ah. 1987 movie by Taiwanese filmmaker TF Mous. Interesting, it's not a documentary, but Mous wanted to make it a documentary. Most of the evidence was destroyed. Mous (great) interview: www.horschamp.qc.ca/9901/offscreen_columns/ManBehind1.html www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/22/1082530287330.html?oneclick=true en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Behind_The_Sun But Reza. Tie all this up a little to avoid complete divergence. (Returning to the word impacted snowy monstrosity below). undercurrent: "96 items" is almost unbelievable nick, if you read carefully you'll see that it's not "96 items" but *the* 96 items – like *the* four horsemen, *the* seven seals, etc. Mesopotamian Mithraism I: ‫( صلو‬Salu) 1295

Reza Negarestani (April 22, 2005) Plazzo-Colonna, Rome This is an introduction, an entry point for the forthcoming episodic articles on Mesopotamian Mithraism which is called the mother of all religions from Asia to Africa and Europe. Salat: Prayer and one of the five pillars of Islam. From the verbal infinitive, Saad (ABJAD value = ‫ = ﺺ‬90), Laam (‫ = ﻞ‬30), Waav (‫ = ﻮ‬6): Salu (‫ = صلﻮ‬126). Different names or verbs with different meanings can be derived from Salu. Salat originally means ‘to crave for’, ‘to communicate’ and also ‘Between, at the middle of everything but mostly used for the body and the day i.e. 12:00 PM’. Before Islam, desert nomads of Arabia were sorcerous worshipers of Alah along idols which were kept in Mecca, Ka’aba containing 360 idols led by Hubal, other famous idols were Laat, Uzza and Manaat (Mana); however, Ka’aba actually belonged to an unknown deity named Alah / Elah for whom there was no idol or as some Arabic archeologists suggest the idols were the names of Alah / Elah (uncertainty about the accepted belief that Alah or Elah is a name). 1296

Salat was a rite of communication with Alah / Elah, taking place at the middle of the day or according to pre-Islamic Arabs the time when the Sun is positioned right above the head, in a uniform direction to the body (there is no evidence which meaning came first ‘at the middle’ or ‘to communicate’), giving Man a burning perpendicular orientation to the leveled surface, to the horizontality of the desert (deserts of Arabia, esp. Nafud and Rub al-Khalie are almost flat with minimum sand dunes) or as it has been suggested “like a spear piercing the desert”. At that time, Salat was performed in standing position, with face kept horizontally so the eyes gazing at a far distance (neither above nor below) and it could last for minutes. The ritual could be fatal; the desert Sun could burn tissues rapidly, inducing acute physiologic malfunctions such as nausea, headache, nosebleed, blindness, delirium or abrupt seizures; for catatonics it could be lethal. This type of ritual suggests Alah / Elah as a Mesopotamian-Persian Sun God which cannot be separated from desert and human at the middle, incinerating both simultaneously while forging a line out of human destined to be immolated as it communicates the desert to the Sun. Unlike Indo-European rituals for communication with the Sun which take ascension towards the Sun as a pivotal role, Sun gods in the Middle Eastern cultures never promise such an ascension as in the case of Baal and Moloch (Molekh: see Five Billion Years of Hell-engineering); the communication is impossible for the Sun rises as a tide for extinction before the ascension completed, before human rises towards the Sun. The communication with the Outside is only made possibly by mass-combustion, permanent visual impairment, and death not by a cleansing fire (the later cathartic flame) but by manifestations of Telluro-conspiracy towards the Sun. Zurvan, Moloch, Nergal and Baal burn the offerings before accepting them, their language is either the epic of ash or the poetry of vapor. The ritual of Salat derives from older Zurvanite rituals. Zurvan Akarana, the Infinite Time, the Consuming Aeon, or as in older times called deus-Airmanius (GodAhriman) is the most influential deity in the Middle East, dating back to 7000BC and possibly the source of the majority of polytheistic gods as well as monotheistic Gods. It has been usually depicted as a four-winged lion-headed human-like creature with furious eyes and a mouth ready to tear (the remaining of red paint on its teeth from the statues of Zurvan discovered in Antioch). Its body has been encircled by a coiling serpent (usually seven coils corresponding with seven zodiacal signs) with the head of the serpent on the Zurvan’s head and pointing to nowhere. Sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine, hermaphrodite and sometimes with no sign of gender at all, 1297

Zurvan like Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman) creates via parthenogenesis but as in early texts it gives birth by levat (buggery) with itself which as stated in some texts lasted for 1000 years. This is another significant indication pushing archeologists (Hübner, Legge, Duchesne-Guillemin, Zeahner, et al) to this strong theory that Zurvan is in fact the primordial Ahriman. In Early Avesta when Ahura-Mazda and Angra-Mainyu are born through the body of Zurvan, they claim that they have no father since Zurvan cannot be a demiurge, in its all-consuming Aeon nothing is created. For such a radical Outsideness survival is impossible; Zurvan’s Outsideness can neither possess nor be possessed. Only in Pahlavi texts and late Zoroastrianism, Zurvan is appropriated with patriarchic characteristics and introduced as the primal paternity to legitimate AhuraMazda and his Brethren of the Light. 1298

fig. 1 The tablets and carvings found in Ostia and York-Eburacum (discovered with a headless body of Zurvan in 1875) present Zurvan as Ahriman: Volucius Irenaeus Airmanio votum solvit (The picture of the headless monument and its inscription first published by Hübner in jahrbücher des vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande – continued as Bonner Jahrbücher – 58, 1875, p. 147) 1299

fig. 2 The first Zurvanite rituals were exceptionally similar to Salat ritual, the discovered statue of Zurvan in Sidon remarkably illustrates the same position of a salatpractitioner, with a hollow chamber in the head for keeping a fire blazing from the open mouth and the eyes of Zurvan (see fig. 2). Later investigations on other Mesopotamian deities especially the Babylonian Nergal (and its influential cult – Kuthah – inspiring later solar cults in the Middle East) who appears to be the same lion-headed demon encircled by a coiling serpent and is a Zurvanite god reveal that Zurvan is connected with Salat, ‘at the middle’ and the noontime communications since the worshiping of Nergal, the god of war, pestilence and immolating tides of the Sun was a noontime ritual and mostly performed in summer. More pertinent than the above affinity, is the connection of Zurvan itself with noontime rituals: in early 1300

Avestan texts, Zurvan (the Aeonian Time or Zamaan) is usually accompanied by the words Rapithwina (Zohr or noon or twelve o’clock in the day), Dargha (Long, Late) and drâja-dareqa (with no begging and end). Occasionally the word Zurvan as Zaman points to a definite time which seems infinite: the noon (zohr). Not only emphasizing on the solar aspects (noontime) of Salat but also their consuming and incinerating immensity, Zurvan originally is derived from an ambiguous etymological germ-cell: (a). Zar: the elder, unfathomably old which knows nothing of the beginning and the end. Also blazing and conflagration. (b). Zar: torturing, devouring (in modern Farsi by taking the prefix ‘A’ and turning to Azar, it means ‘torment, hurting and Woe’). One should not forget that Zurvan and Az are continuously associated with each other (a role that later Ahriman plays by giving birth to Az or Jahi [Jay, Jahika, Djahi, Jeh]). Az the first and the ultimate vampire is the arch-demoness of Thirst and Hunger, made out of the self-sacrificial creation of Ahriman and the blood flowing from its wounds and transforming into feminine menstruation described as an adjective for the fluid infinity of Az. As the one that cannot be satisfied and the unfulfillment of all tendencies, Az promises Ahriman: “All that exists will be devoured even your own creation.” (a promise which finally awakes Ahriman from its depressed slumber) This self-consuming commitment reminds the same endless process of devouring that Zurvan uses to (un)create what it creates by exactly taking the creation and exposing it to the vampiristic abyss of Untime. It cannot be denied that Salat is a ritual seeded in Zurvanite practices which integrate four elements as their foundations: noontime, Disruption in Time (the encounter with Aeon-Zurvan), immolation by the Sun, becoming a part of what is communicated by being exposed to what incinerates and not being the one who affirms / affords the communication as a communicator. On this thread, one consequently reaches an indisputable affinity between Elah worshipped by Arabian nomads and Zurvan Akarana. For communicating with the other deities, there was the safe House of Ka’aba – as the most significant building in Arabia – constructed as a Cube, the most secure and anthropomorphically hospitable architectonic / accommodating form whose element is Square or four dots (Swastika) – representing order, pro-creationist directions and 1301

oikonomia – as contrasted to three dots of cosmic unlocalizability of both Zurvan and Druj (the Mother of Abominations) [1]. After conquering Mecca, Mohammad destroyed the idols (declaring that Ka’aba is not a safe place for idols any longer, it is only in the possession of Allah which resides outside of Ka’aba) Salat was transformed into Namaz (the word salat is still used for prayer, namaz), the fatal standing position divided to four distinct positions to harmonize the durability of communication with the survival of human being: [1] standing position [2] Roku’e: standing while bowing the upper body [3] Sojdeh: sitting while bowing the upper body [4] sitting on feet On the name Alah / Elah as used by pre-islamic Arabs: it originally comes from the proto-Semitic Elah which is later transformed to the Aramaic word Eloha or Oloha, a word later used as a synonymous for the Tetragrammaton, YHWH (as Eloh / aloh) but the origin of this name returns to a time prior to the emergence of the name Yahweh. In modern Farsi and Arabic, Ilah or Elah is still used. However, in the Quran, this name (Elah / Alal: note that it contains a single ‘L’ or Laam) undergoes a structural metamorphosis which is highly innovative yet very odd, from Alah or Elah (fig. 3) to Allah (fig. 4). In Arabic and Farsi, the letter Ha (‫ )ﻩ‬cannot be attached to Laam+Alif (‫ )ﻻ‬when it comes at the end of a word as in the case of Ala-h or Ela-h (fig. 3); therefore, it cannot be pronounced as Allah (with a double-stress on the letter Laam ‫ ﻝ‬which is called Tashdid fig. 5); Allah is an exception, the letter Ha is attached to Aleph (= ‫)ﻪ‬, and Laam should be pronounced with a double-stress [Allah], the name looks like a runic glyph or a cipher not an Arabic word (fig. 4). The strange curved form of the word Allah has solely inspired the art of Islamic calligraphy (see fig. 7). 1302

fig. 7 However, the English spelling of Allah is entirely wrong since ‘a’ should be pronounced with a continuous sound (as the result of the small dagger alif above Tashdid [fig. 6] which in Arabic orthography gives a continuous aa sound to the word). The accurate spelling of Allah in English is Allaah Alah / Elah (ABJAD = 37) Allah (ABJAD = 67) Allaah (ABJAD = 68) *** Aftermath: AQ = 89 = Allaah = Druj A quote from an anonymous Wahabbi Meccanomist98: “If Allah resides outside any house even his own abode, then the Ka’aba itself is a terrible idolatrous redundancy.” (Special thanks to Kh from the University of Cairo) NOTE: 98 “Mecca-nomics” 1303

[1]: Comments: Mesopotamian Mithraism I Reza Negarestani: a link added: "the fatal standing position divided to four distinct positions to harmonize" gwendolyn: Volucius Irenaeus Airmanio votum solvit. translation? (btw, Irenaeus : root is "peace"; airmanio : Aºra Mainiiu; votum : vow, pledge, religious undertaking/promise; prayer, wish; votive offering; solvit : (solvo, solvere, solvi, solutus) loosen, release, unbind, untie, free; open; set sail; scatter; pay off/back) Reza Negarestani: Something like this: May the great Ahriman fulfill the pledge. Airmanio: archeologists are not sure whether this is a proper name for the GodAhriman (the primordial Ahriman) or Angra-Mainyu-Pouro (the Mahrko-Deava: the Arch-Deava). gwendolyn: reza. you're very creative. reza. ah. Zurvan's vow: whoever was born first, Ohrmazd (good) or Ahriman (evil), would be made king. (story of esau & jacob). Ahriman is born first & Zurvan grants 1304

him the kingdom for nine thousand years; then Ohrmazd would reign. Zurvan gives Ahriman the Az (Weapon of Concupiscence): if he failed to keep his pledge the Az would devour everything of his & she herself would die of starvation. There are at least six different mythoi about this (this comes from late Avestan and Pahlavanic texts). I’ll discuss all of them in future pieces. Shari'a? –You already have it. Hyperstition (April 24, 2005) Another Shabnameh (samizdat) found in Mahabad, Kurdistan (April 10, 2005) by our contacts in the region, signed as The Codex of Yatu and originally written in Farsi: Shari'a? –You already have it. By declaring that Islam is the conclusion of monotheism, the most refined of all religions, one does not tread in the path of ingenuity forever. Such a dictum indeed brings a gruesome end for all monotheistic religions drifting from the past as well as looming out of the future, abasing all other monotheistic contenders by turning the very prophetic promises that they make to look consistent and their utter dedication to their saviors and their eventual fulfillment in the future against themselves: “I AM WHAT YOU PROMISED”. Before the body of Sharia, no religion can be delivered to the masses unless by submission to Islam; even if a religious rival rises again (take Christianity for instance), Islam deliberately suppresses itself in the name of the ultimate victim, calling for a global beseeching99 on the behalf of the oppressed. The repercussion of this call for liberation is facing Sharia from the other side of obligation, that is to say, not through a religious union by turning to Islam but through the basic principals of the humanitarian duty; this is the fate of emancipators, the saviors of the oppressed Islam who are absorbed by Sharia. The number of growing Muslims does not count anymore but the populations, policies and civilizations bewitched by the innocence of the victim and immersed into Sharia through ethical foundations of emancipation, 99 Baseej in the text which is frequently used in Modern Farsi. 1305

not by declaring Shahada. This is what we exalt as the Islamic subterfuge postulated by the Islam’s claim of being the last and the most perfect religion; there is more creativity and craftiness into this claim than anyone can imagine but the path of strategy100 is such a slippery way. Once Islam concludes the whole conundrum of monotheism, it also seals an irreversible conversion of itself to the ovum of apostasies and a heretical holocaust. Prevailing over all other religions, annulling them and being the culmination of monotheism, Islam solitarily becomes the host of all religions that it stops from the future; all ‘Beliefs’ that could be religions by themselves but in the presence of Islam as the ultimate religion, they have to submit to the path of Sharia and continue their existence as minor beliefs, schisms, religious sub-orders and heresies; all populating, breeding, breathing within Islam. Their breath animate the hulê101 of Islam, and each breath of Islam spread their infection. Hatching the egg was not easy but finally we have it: the radical Islam cannot be separated from apostasy; heresies cannot be extracted from the foundation of Islam. If you want to have your own religion, Islam is the best place to start. The Codex of Yatu (Kalaam-e Yatu) Amordad 1383 *** Hyperstition’s note on the original Farsi text found in Mahabad, Iran (April 10, 2005):: The linguistic structure of the text is highly inconsistent. As if one assumes that this text has been written by more than one writer. (1) This text has not been written by a Kurdish writer, that is to say, it is not a local shabnameh (samizdat). Iranian Kurdish guerillas and local shabnamehs vehemently 100 the original word in the text is Makr, an Arabic word meaning subterfuge and trick but the prominent Quranic reference to this word stresses on strategy rather than a ploy for fulfilling one’s goal. 101 The original word in the text is Hayula, meaning Monster in modern Farsi but in Islamic philosophy (al-Farabi’s discussion on ‘Ajsam-e Hayulani’ for example) as in Greek cosmogony, it delineates the primal matter-corpus (essentially synthetic by cool elements Water and Earth) prior to animation of itself; it is the formless matter or the feminine mud. Since in the text it has come with ‘animation’ translator has decided to use the word hulê to keep the original ambiguity intact. 1306

despise using Arabic words. The historical culture of Iran’s Kurdistan and the Kurds is deeply connected to Aryanism and Kurdish nationalism which are entirely in contrast to Iraqi Kurds. One should not miss the fact that Hezb-e Democrat-e Kurdistan and Etehadieh Mihani in Iraq strongly aided Iran’s government and army to suppress the insurgencies in Iran’s Kurdistan (mainly leaded by Ghasemloo and in alliance with the Mujahidins) during the Kurdistan’s crisis (1360-63). There are more than 14 words in this text which are originally Arabic (while they have their synonyms in Farsi). The text is not similar to any conventional shabnameh or manifesto ever published in Kurdistan for political parties. It lacks the element of typical Kurdish shabnamehs: the resistance towards center or joining a political party. (2) The syntactic structures are highly complicated; they are not Farsi at all. The punctuation and syntax confirm that this text is itself a translation from another language but all the Farsi and Arabic words have been placed very carefully in the text so the rhythmic flow of the text has no pause or break (the problem one encounters in translated texts) in the Farsi version of the text despite the complex, non-Farsi Syntax structures. One theory is that this text has been intentionally written in Farsi, translated to another language and then retranslated to Farsi. (3) Despite the reckless usage of Arabic words, the date mentioned at the end of the text is very unusual. Amordad instead of Mordad. Both words are Farsi, but Amordad is a word only used by Parsi writers or in other words those writers who try to purge all Arabic words from Farsi language and reviving the Parsi language directly connected to the late Pahlavanic language (note P does not exist in Arabic alphabet). How to Dismantle the US Hegemony Hyperstition (April 26, 2005) The only way that the western man can grasp the immensity of Sahara is by choking on napht (oil), but it takes time for pipelines to pump it all the way through the continents. Now, can we solely rely on the promise of our naphtanese religion? Some of us are in rush and speed is holy. The US warmachine must be enticed to aim at Iran. In terms of military power, there are two types of super powers, one which directly engages itself and the other which makes a whole continent enter in a war 1307

with the enemy. One comes with its affluent economy and weapons, the other leaves its economy, flushing it out, wasting it recklessly to assemble a super-weapon in progress. Iran fits the second category. Feeding Europe and Asia with not only relatively free oil and gas but also with one of the richest clusters of minerals in the world over a long period of time, Iran has colonized the economy of certain Asian and European countries by consuming itself to the last drop of its petroleum and the last bit of its rich soil, by making itself one of the most notorious colonies of the entire developed world. This will be the war of wars, as soon as the US strikes, the teeming parasites will resist the US not their wretched host; even if the conflict destroys the host, the gluttonous parasites will migrate to the new host which has superseded the old one. Another doctrine of Jihad is that when clash is impossible or is subjected to premature failure, the Islamic country should become a volunteer host for parasites, shifting the doctrine of Jihad to doctrines of submission to parasites and underground colonization, policies for open and boundless exploitations of itself by others; when the time comes parasites defend their host as their existence is bound to the survival of the host. However, we are cynical enough to not trust in the interval between the attack and a proper countermove by the exploiters. Iran’s military projects should be devised along stratagems to impair the world economy, distracting the military integrity of the world and digging a pit into which the world’s military and economic potentials melt and waste away. There is nothing more pointless than entering a war with Israel whose collateral damages merely spread on recoverable psychological and political fronts. Without prior warning, the strike must be directed to key Islamic countries which keep Iran in a highly secured balanced position to the Indian subcontinent, and the Far and Near Eastern countries, that is to say, the entire globe. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia each with central roles in the region should be chosen in this war. With a successful attack on Saudi’s oil fields, the global economy comes to its knees; and with modified missiles targeting Canadian-supplied nuclear power reactor and M-11 missile storage facility in Pakistan together with other centers alleged for their secret nuclear activities, the dynamic balance between India and Pakistan will be severely disturbed. India seizes an opportunity to launch a campaign against Pakistan and solve its problem once and for all, a desired role which has postponed for a long time. This military burning pit stops Time for Iran’s next movements and 1308

put the rest of the world in a fast-forward motion towards No Man’s Land102. But is this 'merely' the end of the US hegemony? We hope not. The Codex of Yatu Hyperstition’s note: Far more straightforward and plain than other discovered pieces in Kurdistan, but indisputably scrawled on a polytical line touched by profound sickness. (Thanks to FM for supplying Hyperstition with this Shabnameh) [Editor’s Note: Comments for this post could not be recovered.] 102 Na Koja Abad in the original text, meaning a place built at the middle of nowhere, not inhabited and immappable. 1309

Mesomath Reza Negarestani (April 28, 2005) Forgive me if you have already checked this and I am the last visitor as always, but this is very informative (the ‘special topics’ section in particular): Mesopotamian Mathematics103 Comments: Mesomath gwendolyn: reciprocal shares the same root with propinquity, afford, priest & first. you mention propinquity in "John Carpenter's The Thing: White War and Hypercamouflage" & recently referred to "God's fifth eye" which is a "night letter"— a shabnameh. since mesomath refers to West & Jay (and may reveal an epiphany), what interests you about the "special topics" specifically? Reza Negarestani: Think you should wait and see how the napht-nexus unfolds. however, apart from West-Jay connection, the algorithmic nature of Mesopotamian mathematics is a key in understanding the formation of the State’s trading systems (mostly developed by Mesopotamian civilizations), calendaric explorations of time, etc. I have written a part of a long piece on money but couldn’t proceed; now some of these topics gave me many lines to follow (I don’t promise that it will be ready in the next 2-3 months because first of all, it is very long and second it is a bit technical and need careful approaching). Be patient ;) gwendolyn: i shall evoke Numko then, who rewards infinite patience in the face of unfinished todo lists. :) Reza Negarestani: aha. 103 it.stlawu.edu/~dmelvill/mesomath/ 1310

gwendolyn: www.ccru.net/digithype/pandemonium.htm "The Adept Orders of Decadence trace their system back to the period immediately following the submergence of Atlantis, which they date to 10 000 BC. It is linked to the origin of Sumero-Babylonian geometry, from which we derive the division of the circle into 360 (= 36 x 10) degrees. In the ancient egyptian mysteries it was attributed to the god of catastrophe and drowning - Osiris - who was later symbolized by The Hanged Man of the Tarot (taken by decadologists as an image of the Atlantean Cross)." reza. would mesh and netspan patterns be on topic here? The Guerilla-State and Ethnonationalism (A Note on Nomadism in Iran) Reza Negarestani (April 30, 2005) “Persian history over a long period of time (from the Achaemenians to the Qajar dynasty [1779-1925], more than two thousand years) narrates such a continuous conversion of nomadic forces to the State forces and then again being replaced by another nomadic population; such premature nomadic detritions of the State have progressively given rise to more powerful (in terms of gravity and immunity) yet more unstable States which inflict politico-economic poverty, inclination towards being colonized by other States, lack of autonomous nervous system and polarization of different populations without the chance of being positively diversified.” (John Carpenter’s The Thing: White War and Hypercamouflage) *** One of the processes involved the emergence of concrete nomadism in Iran and their ambivalent interactions with the State which make the Deleuze-Guattarian approach to nomadism if not problematic but not entirely applicable in investigating the contacts between nomads and the State: On a concrete level, the formation of nomadic tribes / pax in Iran is based on fictional-artificial kinship: in the presence of an acentric State whose integrity of its 1311

crisp boundaries is not firm enough, different nomadic populations are capable of retaining a dynamic concentration, that is to say, collectively moving through common migration and climate gradients, and consequently forming nomadic densities. These nomadic densities made by con-gregated activities of different nomadic populations not only position different nomadic packs in the vicinity of each other but also draw lines of trade, participation, competition and cooperation between them which in the absence of the State’s centric authority and in the presence of common nomad-gradients turn into alliances, either through dissolution or mutual agreement. Since such alliances are germinated over specific and common nomadgradients and territories within the boundaries of a weak state, they will eventually trigger a union but not multiplicative processes; a union still constituted of nomadic collectivities whose tendencies have converged upon the tendencies of the most influential nomad-population i.e. their nomadic nationality. Richard Tapper in The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan discusses that the emergence of current nomad populations in Iran is not based on common blood kinship or a common ancestor but political and cultural dependencies and bonds developed as the consequence of common nomad-gradients over a shared territory. For example Khamseh nomad in south of Iran is constituted by Fars (the Basseris), Arab, and Turkish nomad-tribes (the Inanloos, Nafars and Baharloos) who have not even a common language. These political alliances are so powerful based on which fictional kinships or ideologies of a common ethnonationality are constructed. Although the formation of Iranian nomads is not through kinship, but geopolitical and cultural bonds have fabricated such strong ideologies about having one blood or tribal origin among different nomads of Iran. These fictional kinships have basically carried the interests of elite people in a nomadic populations i.e. leaders or Khans104 who have continuously tried to counterfeit Family-Trees and documents to legitimate the kinship of other neighboring nomadic populations to themselves. (Ann Lambton, Landlord and Peasants in Persia) 104 Another difference or perhaps incompatibility of Iranian nomads with other Asiatic nomads is their pseudo-centric or even centric density and their completely hierarchical structures which correspond to the State’s military formation (the role of Iranian nomads in tax collecting and supporting State’s military forces as omni-present logistic lines) to such an extent that Iranian governments which have been mostly nomadic confederacies (less than binding and consolidating structures of federations) usually motivated or fully supported (instead of sedentarizing them) minor nomadic tribes to assemble as major nomad populations (the Kurd tribes in Khorasan, Shahsavan in Aerbaijan and Khamseh in south of Iran) in order to effectively withstand other nomadic threats. 1312