Jul 10, 2022·edited Jul 10, 2022Liked by John Carter
As usual, there is much to agree and contend with here, John. But first, this:
"...people who had no truck with such conspiracy theories and superstitions, who would have laughed them away mere years or even months before, but now speak openly of the divine and the Satanic."
Guilty as charged. Though I suspect much of this had to do with being raised by multiple generations of atheistic men and trad-Cath women, the arc of both my personal and professional life has led me to that same raging confluence, where I find I must unearth an older language to properly express what I am seeing.
A younger version of me, learning programmatic languages on the fly, would see that as a failure of imagination, if not ethics or sanity. But I have seen those dark, deep woods, having wandered through them myself. To name a thing properly is an act of deliberative respect. One does not, for instance name Cerberus "Rover". Likewise the demons that continually express themselves in human mind and flesh should be properly named and catalogued. The taxonomy should be neither too elaborate or too prosaic. I'm not claiming the Hellenists and/or Semites got it exactly right, but they hit much closer to the mark than any of our postmodern wordsmiths did (or do).
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, as the saying goes. Awareness of the existence of the subtle realm is the first step to protecting oneself against the threats that lurk in those dark forests of the soul.
Jul 10, 2022·edited Jul 10, 2022Liked by John Carter
To lean into the Great New World of Weird, I'll add this theory of mine.
I was chatting with a great friend and former colleague of mine about the next evolutionary phase of technology, and the discussion (as more and more discussions do these days, in certain corners of tech) began to bend towards epistemology, then metaphysics then, at last, the concept of the Devil.
What we discovered along the way was similar to the concept of the intentionality of life, where something "immaterial" (according to our reductive toolset) pursues material forms. In the case of the Devil, I proffered this: the Devil is a kind of parasitc entity which ever seeks the perfect physical form, but lacks the native ability (Logos? Divine Grace?) to unilaterally manifest that form. To achieve the result he desires, he needs hands and tools, merchants and artisans, programmers and engineers.
In other words, the Beast will one day have a spectacularly powerful body, with an adoring cult already primed to worship it. And we are the ones who will build it for him. Indeed, much progress has already been made in this project.
That isn't science fiction. I strongly suspect that's exactly what's happening.
But if a fallen angel can come to inhabit a body of silicon and fibre optics, cannot an archangel do the same?
It could be that the native ability of the logos to manifest one's form is precisely to be found in the development of the capabilities of life. Humanity in this case are the hands of the gods, tasked with building them. Their existence at times end is the teleological attractor that draws reality towards it.
For clarity: by "physical form" I don't mean something like a bio-engineered virus, or a panoply of ICBMs, or any of the warfighting tools we build. As far as I'm concerned, the Devil seeks to be embodied as we are. He lis a resentful entity that lusts after the fruits of an embodied life, while despising all of life's frailties and ephemeral qualities. The "ultimate vampire" might be a way to describe such a creature, though "ultimate psychopath" would also fit the bill.
You're certainly onto something. It may not be a matter of despising the frailties, however - it might be entirely practical. Could a human form be sufficiently robust to house a fallen angel? Or, for that matter, an angel that isn't fallen?
Then again, if there's anything to the Christ mythology, or the demigod myths that preceded it, a human form is capable of housing the soul of the Son of God.
I agree that I am anthropomorphizing the inhuman, to a degree. "Despising" probably isn't the right word. As you say, I think it's a blander, more practical form of aversion/ dismissal based on an inner blindness. Something similar to the way a Soviet apparatchik might casually dismiss a concrete obstacle to a projected outcome, because he knows of no dialectic that described it.
I suspect it's in this way that angels (fallen or otherwise) differ from humans. Much the same as fictional archetypes differ from actual organisms, living within the actionable opportunities imposed by spacetime. Meanwhile, a potentiality of being without access to material or exposure to risk isn't much different than the "brain-in-a-box" promulgated by many of the dimmer lights in gAI theory. To say those people are in the grip of demons is the linguistic leap I am on the verge of taking.
Whether it's demonic or angelic can perhaps only be known from the real-world effects of the influence - ironic perhaps for immaterial beings (although ... is the world really material at all?) The tree is known by its fruits.
From what I can see, looking around at the influence of tech, it's a decidedly mixed bag. So my guess is its both. On the one hand, some are attempting to summon demons through the black mirror. Or use the wires to widen the influence of the demons possessing them. But, the same opportunities are open to angels and gods.
(chuckling fondly) I have a pretty damned good vocabulary but today's piece required looking up the meaning of at least 3 words: thaumaturges; istophobia; sanpaku. I like new words. I also find this convergence of which you speak delightfully imaginative in the best possible way. The words demon and demonic seem to be popping up quite regularly in my communications and thoughts, especially during the past 2 plus years.
Ha ha - yes, but if so you may have coined a derivation of Istophobe: From the Urban Dictionary: A person who attempts to squelch freedom of speech, and silence, shame, and demonize anybody who disagrees with them on any subject by calling that person names that end in -ist or -ophobe, i.e. sexist, feminist, racist, ageist, socialist, fascist, intellectual elitist, atheist, xenophobe, homophobe, heterophobe, Islamophobe, Christianophobe, etc.
So...if one were acting out of istophobia, would that mean someone who hates an istophobe?
Ha! A good neologism is so hard to find these days. To be honest I was just being clever, and didn't think of assigning the meaning UD did. Which, now that I know about it, is cleverer than my idle use of the term!
It will be a challenging but beautiful process. I've experienced a similar "crisis of faith" in the conventional understanding of human history these past few years. After seeing how the regime spins such obviously false accounts of the present moment, despite the readily available counter-evidence that they try in vain to censor, it makes me really wonder: why wouldn't they do the same thing with the past? As a witty meme involving the late, great Norm MacDonald put it, "According to this history book, every single war has been won by the good guys!"
Do you have any recommendations for history books that are more trustworthy -- or that at least ask interesting questions about the historical narrative?
So far, all I've got in the way of a historical book that I believe I can trust to "tell it like it is" is Montaigne's essays, specifically "The Apology for Raymond Sebond." That and maybe Emmanuel Goldstein's book within a book in 1984. (Only half kidding about those.)
I've found Laura Knight-Jadczyck's works to be very interesting. It's deep woo, but she brings a scholarly rigor to her explorations, and she ties a remarkable number of threads together.
"Watch for the right-wing Nietzschean bodybuilders pairing off with energy-healing yoga bunnies, consecrating their union to Gaia and Dyeus Pater; for electro-Amish communes protecting their tilapia pond-fed food forests behind thickets of homemade 3D-printed ghost rifles, raising strong half-feral children on the principles of the Trivium and the Athenian gymnasium, teaching them drone engineering, Zen meditation, Mixed Martial Arts, sociobioecology, ballroom dancing, and marksmanship; for neo-Scythian aero-bikers providing armed security for packed debutante balls where the scions of nouveau-riche backyard orbital launch magnates pair off with the daughters of Internet sages whose scholarship is founded on Antarctic excavations of Atlantean pyramid cities...."
I would like to say thank your this post, a friend shared with me this article and read it no questions ask. Very insightful and understanding, very wholesome, the way is presented shows how the locality is the last place that will be affected by the non locality and is time for people to change modes, yes is it very difficult and some people have responsibilities and thus are not flexible, some people just hold a piece of the puzzle and their own wisdom and they mix into something totally different and the way we view order is something that will in high regards take a crash course to chaos.
Thriving in chaos has always been in theme that was prevailed in some of my life experiences and has at the end showed me the path towards balance and myself, this is something I have come to realize after having experience alternative states of consciousness without drugs(I have never smoked or done substances that alternative consciousness when you can do it yourself without them) drugs, at my 32 years of life, at this point I been studying by myself and by my own motivation and desire to seek understanding and truth.
I now am studying alternative medicine here in Guatemala and also reading up books that I have bought from amazon to build a new understanding on how the body works, based upon my understanding and Mr Tennant Voltage is healing series and Sevan boomar metaphysics understanding and many other great people that would be a lot to mention on this post.
I want to end this with thank you, this is a wonderful piece of written letters that sing praise to chaos, just like Shiva god of destruction and creation, chaos must ensue and bring upon the destruction for there to life to be born, those that cannot hear the all ever present flow of the universe and follow it, let them sink and die and become an example for others to learn and not follow their example, mother nature is a mother and a father is amphomorphic by nature, so is the sun and moon they are dynamos in nature because without both poles they could not create a perpetual motion such is the way of life. I hope this simple comment gives both wisdom and truth to the uninitiated and gives succor to those in need for this has help me reach a higher understanding of myself and the universe as such, I sing praise of life and hold no other then myself as a god for the gods the external gods, hold us to their whims only by going inside can we find hope and abolish the chains that have been placed upon us.
The playground in which "right-wing Nietzschean body builders pairing off with energy healing yoga bunnies," raise their offspring sounds like paradise to me.
I admire and respect the way you call us to task with such beautiful prose, "each of us, to one degree or another, remains beholden to the webwork of lies from which our culture is woven."
I only have the guts to comment after a whiskey or two. I drink mine straight :)
As you already know the first two parts have been linked previously. You say this is the Hydra's final form in your title, but I would like to think that it's ever revolving and there will be more on the Great Convergence to come!!!!
"NEVER!!!!" In the indomitable spirit of John Adams.... here are a few songs for you. Because this post sort of brings this pioneering, joyful spirit forward. (I've been waiting for something a bit less dark from you... I knew I wouldn't need to wait forever.)
I need to consciously remind myself to not be so grim all the time. Some were born on the 4th of July; I was born with a melancholic disposition. It's a constant struggle 😅
As I've aged and grown emotionally and done a lot of grieving, I find it's normal, even healthy, to swing from one to the other as the occasion requires.
Most of the Hydra you describe is bullshit tho. This series of posts is very entertaining, but more about Aesthetics and Narrative than Truth. Being contrarian about everything is stupid.
> even though you would in theory expect the Correct Contrarian Cluster to be a small fringe of the expansion of knowledge, of concern only to the leading scientists in the field, the actual fact of the matter is that the world is *#$%ing nuts and so there's really important stuff in the Correct Contrarian Cluster. Dietary scientists ignoring their own experimental evidence have killed millions and condemned hundreds of millions more to obesity with high-fructose corn syrup. Not to mention that most people still believe in God. People are crazy, the world is mad. So, yes, if you don't want to bloat up like a balloon and die, distinguishing the Correct Contrarian Cluster is important.
Also, I think this severely overestimates how controllable the world is. Through as an autist, I might be semi-blind to any existing conspiracies (reduced chance of perceiving agency; kinda opposite from schizophrenia).
My schtick for the past n years, not realizing I was at the edge of the hydra the whole time, was "moral truth exists but it is computationally intractable; at best we can approximate it, and contributing to the diversity of these approximations with our own unique, strongly held values is what makes the world come more alive."
As usual, there is much to agree and contend with here, John. But first, this:
"...people who had no truck with such conspiracy theories and superstitions, who would have laughed them away mere years or even months before, but now speak openly of the divine and the Satanic."
Guilty as charged. Though I suspect much of this had to do with being raised by multiple generations of atheistic men and trad-Cath women, the arc of both my personal and professional life has led me to that same raging confluence, where I find I must unearth an older language to properly express what I am seeing.
A younger version of me, learning programmatic languages on the fly, would see that as a failure of imagination, if not ethics or sanity. But I have seen those dark, deep woods, having wandered through them myself. To name a thing properly is an act of deliberative respect. One does not, for instance name Cerberus "Rover". Likewise the demons that continually express themselves in human mind and flesh should be properly named and catalogued. The taxonomy should be neither too elaborate or too prosaic. I'm not claiming the Hellenists and/or Semites got it exactly right, but they hit much closer to the mark than any of our postmodern wordsmiths did (or do).
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, as the saying goes. Awareness of the existence of the subtle realm is the first step to protecting oneself against the threats that lurk in those dark forests of the soul.
To lean into the Great New World of Weird, I'll add this theory of mine.
I was chatting with a great friend and former colleague of mine about the next evolutionary phase of technology, and the discussion (as more and more discussions do these days, in certain corners of tech) began to bend towards epistemology, then metaphysics then, at last, the concept of the Devil.
What we discovered along the way was similar to the concept of the intentionality of life, where something "immaterial" (according to our reductive toolset) pursues material forms. In the case of the Devil, I proffered this: the Devil is a kind of parasitc entity which ever seeks the perfect physical form, but lacks the native ability (Logos? Divine Grace?) to unilaterally manifest that form. To achieve the result he desires, he needs hands and tools, merchants and artisans, programmers and engineers.
In other words, the Beast will one day have a spectacularly powerful body, with an adoring cult already primed to worship it. And we are the ones who will build it for him. Indeed, much progress has already been made in this project.
That isn't science fiction. I strongly suspect that's exactly what's happening.
But if a fallen angel can come to inhabit a body of silicon and fibre optics, cannot an archangel do the same?
It could be that the native ability of the logos to manifest one's form is precisely to be found in the development of the capabilities of life. Humanity in this case are the hands of the gods, tasked with building them. Their existence at times end is the teleological attractor that draws reality towards it.
Would an archangel want to? And would he still be an archangel if he did?
For clarity: by "physical form" I don't mean something like a bio-engineered virus, or a panoply of ICBMs, or any of the warfighting tools we build. As far as I'm concerned, the Devil seeks to be embodied as we are. He lis a resentful entity that lusts after the fruits of an embodied life, while despising all of life's frailties and ephemeral qualities. The "ultimate vampire" might be a way to describe such a creature, though "ultimate psychopath" would also fit the bill.
You're certainly onto something. It may not be a matter of despising the frailties, however - it might be entirely practical. Could a human form be sufficiently robust to house a fallen angel? Or, for that matter, an angel that isn't fallen?
Then again, if there's anything to the Christ mythology, or the demigod myths that preceded it, a human form is capable of housing the soul of the Son of God.
I agree that I am anthropomorphizing the inhuman, to a degree. "Despising" probably isn't the right word. As you say, I think it's a blander, more practical form of aversion/ dismissal based on an inner blindness. Something similar to the way a Soviet apparatchik might casually dismiss a concrete obstacle to a projected outcome, because he knows of no dialectic that described it.
I suspect it's in this way that angels (fallen or otherwise) differ from humans. Much the same as fictional archetypes differ from actual organisms, living within the actionable opportunities imposed by spacetime. Meanwhile, a potentiality of being without access to material or exposure to risk isn't much different than the "brain-in-a-box" promulgated by many of the dimmer lights in gAI theory. To say those people are in the grip of demons is the linguistic leap I am on the verge of taking.
Whether it's demonic or angelic can perhaps only be known from the real-world effects of the influence - ironic perhaps for immaterial beings (although ... is the world really material at all?) The tree is known by its fruits.
From what I can see, looking around at the influence of tech, it's a decidedly mixed bag. So my guess is its both. On the one hand, some are attempting to summon demons through the black mirror. Or use the wires to widen the influence of the demons possessing them. But, the same opportunities are open to angels and gods.
(chuckling fondly) I have a pretty damned good vocabulary but today's piece required looking up the meaning of at least 3 words: thaumaturges; istophobia; sanpaku. I like new words. I also find this convergence of which you speak delightfully imaginative in the best possible way. The words demon and demonic seem to be popping up quite regularly in my communications and thoughts, especially during the past 2 plus years.
I'm pretty sure I made up istophobia ;)
Ha ha - yes, but if so you may have coined a derivation of Istophobe: From the Urban Dictionary: A person who attempts to squelch freedom of speech, and silence, shame, and demonize anybody who disagrees with them on any subject by calling that person names that end in -ist or -ophobe, i.e. sexist, feminist, racist, ageist, socialist, fascist, intellectual elitist, atheist, xenophobe, homophobe, heterophobe, Islamophobe, Christianophobe, etc.
So...if one were acting out of istophobia, would that mean someone who hates an istophobe?
Ha! A good neologism is so hard to find these days. To be honest I was just being clever, and didn't think of assigning the meaning UD did. Which, now that I know about it, is cleverer than my idle use of the term!
Your optimistic map is so important that I created a new article celebrating it:
https://heroesvsvillains.substack.com/p/they-awakened-their-nemesis
and will see if the video additions increases the reach.
Thanks man!
You are welcome, man! You did the primary work. I can contribute a bit of secondary work, and hope to inspire others to do what they can...
It will be a challenging but beautiful process. I've experienced a similar "crisis of faith" in the conventional understanding of human history these past few years. After seeing how the regime spins such obviously false accounts of the present moment, despite the readily available counter-evidence that they try in vain to censor, it makes me really wonder: why wouldn't they do the same thing with the past? As a witty meme involving the late, great Norm MacDonald put it, "According to this history book, every single war has been won by the good guys!"
Do you have any recommendations for history books that are more trustworthy -- or that at least ask interesting questions about the historical narrative?
So far, all I've got in the way of a historical book that I believe I can trust to "tell it like it is" is Montaigne's essays, specifically "The Apology for Raymond Sebond." That and maybe Emmanuel Goldstein's book within a book in 1984. (Only half kidding about those.)
I've found Laura Knight-Jadczyck's works to be very interesting. It's deep woo, but she brings a scholarly rigor to her explorations, and she ties a remarkable number of threads together.
Thanks! Will check her out.
The revenge of the YogaCrats??? We will be watching for these survivalists of the collapse.
https://youtu.be/bch1_Ep5M1s
Takeaway quote:
"Watch for the right-wing Nietzschean bodybuilders pairing off with energy-healing yoga bunnies, consecrating their union to Gaia and Dyeus Pater; for electro-Amish communes protecting their tilapia pond-fed food forests behind thickets of homemade 3D-printed ghost rifles, raising strong half-feral children on the principles of the Trivium and the Athenian gymnasium, teaching them drone engineering, Zen meditation, Mixed Martial Arts, sociobioecology, ballroom dancing, and marksmanship; for neo-Scythian aero-bikers providing armed security for packed debutante balls where the scions of nouveau-riche backyard orbital launch magnates pair off with the daughters of Internet sages whose scholarship is founded on Antarctic excavations of Atlantean pyramid cities...."
I would like to say thank your this post, a friend shared with me this article and read it no questions ask. Very insightful and understanding, very wholesome, the way is presented shows how the locality is the last place that will be affected by the non locality and is time for people to change modes, yes is it very difficult and some people have responsibilities and thus are not flexible, some people just hold a piece of the puzzle and their own wisdom and they mix into something totally different and the way we view order is something that will in high regards take a crash course to chaos.
Thriving in chaos has always been in theme that was prevailed in some of my life experiences and has at the end showed me the path towards balance and myself, this is something I have come to realize after having experience alternative states of consciousness without drugs(I have never smoked or done substances that alternative consciousness when you can do it yourself without them) drugs, at my 32 years of life, at this point I been studying by myself and by my own motivation and desire to seek understanding and truth.
I now am studying alternative medicine here in Guatemala and also reading up books that I have bought from amazon to build a new understanding on how the body works, based upon my understanding and Mr Tennant Voltage is healing series and Sevan boomar metaphysics understanding and many other great people that would be a lot to mention on this post.
I want to end this with thank you, this is a wonderful piece of written letters that sing praise to chaos, just like Shiva god of destruction and creation, chaos must ensue and bring upon the destruction for there to life to be born, those that cannot hear the all ever present flow of the universe and follow it, let them sink and die and become an example for others to learn and not follow their example, mother nature is a mother and a father is amphomorphic by nature, so is the sun and moon they are dynamos in nature because without both poles they could not create a perpetual motion such is the way of life. I hope this simple comment gives both wisdom and truth to the uninitiated and gives succor to those in need for this has help me reach a higher understanding of myself and the universe as such, I sing praise of life and hold no other then myself as a god for the gods the external gods, hold us to their whims only by going inside can we find hope and abolish the chains that have been placed upon us.
This is my favorite of all the maps I've yet found on Substack.
Such explanatory power, so entertainingly presented!
Shared with my part of the Hydra via https://heroesvsvillains.substack.com/p/struck-gold
minor typo in the brilliant summary of part 1:
increasingly hellish conditions created by their control to lead to the germination
('control to lead to' > 'control lead to')
Dramatic events should be presented dramatically.
Thanks for the link!
Also, subbed.
The playground in which "right-wing Nietzschean body builders pairing off with energy healing yoga bunnies," raise their offspring sounds like paradise to me.
I admire and respect the way you call us to task with such beautiful prose, "each of us, to one degree or another, remains beholden to the webwork of lies from which our culture is woven."
I only have the guts to comment after a whiskey or two. I drink mine straight :)
John will be linking tomorrow @ https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
As you already know the first two parts have been linked previously. You say this is the Hydra's final form in your title, but I would like to think that it's ever revolving and there will be more on the Great Convergence to come!!!!
Magnificent.
Stahp you're making me blush.
🥰
Are you telling me to sit down?
"NEVER!!!!" In the indomitable spirit of John Adams.... here are a few songs for you. Because this post sort of brings this pioneering, joyful spirit forward. (I've been waiting for something a bit less dark from you... I knew I wouldn't need to wait forever.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKEE0ol9tpo&list=PL9D969624A3F5E84C&index=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQbYgLae1u0&list=PL9D969624A3F5E84C&index=6
I need to consciously remind myself to not be so grim all the time. Some were born on the 4th of July; I was born with a melancholic disposition. It's a constant struggle 😅
As I've aged and grown emotionally and done a lot of grieving, I find it's normal, even healthy, to swing from one to the other as the occasion requires.
P.S. This movie is made for you, I think. See it if you haven't.
I haven't (and I will).
This is why I love anime. It's an emotional ying-yang: tragedy hidden in comedy, comedy nestled in tragedy.
Well, finally someone talking some sense about the future.
I am most definitely one head on that hydra...
https://williamhunterduncan.substack.com/p/on-magic
Sublime vision! May it be so!
To add to your list of works, suggest I the keystone work of JP Farrell, The Cosmic War, modern physics and ancient texts.
https://www.ebay.com/p/60209569
Most of the Hydra you describe is bullshit tho. This series of posts is very entertaining, but more about Aesthetics and Narrative than Truth. Being contrarian about everything is stupid.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9KvefburLia7ptEE3/the-correct-contrarian-cluster
> even though you would in theory expect the Correct Contrarian Cluster to be a small fringe of the expansion of knowledge, of concern only to the leading scientists in the field, the actual fact of the matter is that the world is *#$%ing nuts and so there's really important stuff in the Correct Contrarian Cluster. Dietary scientists ignoring their own experimental evidence have killed millions and condemned hundreds of millions more to obesity with high-fructose corn syrup. Not to mention that most people still believe in God. People are crazy, the world is mad. So, yes, if you don't want to bloat up like a balloon and die, distinguishing the Correct Contrarian Cluster is important.
Also, I think this severely overestimates how controllable the world is. Through as an autist, I might be semi-blind to any existing conspiracies (reduced chance of perceiving agency; kinda opposite from schizophrenia).
This might interest you: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/wkske3/should_we_stick_to_the_devil_we_know/
And links from this: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/wjjetj/why_not_slow_ai_progress/ijnwqig/?context=3
This is beautiful.
My schtick for the past n years, not realizing I was at the edge of the hydra the whole time, was "moral truth exists but it is computationally intractable; at best we can approximate it, and contributing to the diversity of these approximations with our own unique, strongly held values is what makes the world come more alive."
Really glad you enjoyed this!