RADIATION

One of the most pernicious features of contemporary ideology is a widespread and instinctive distaste for people and projects that are both intelligent and kind at the same time. It is acceptable to be intelligent and cold, and it is acceptable to be kind and dumb, or at least anti-intellectual - but cross the signals in the wrong way and people will hate you.

Why, exactly? Because of THE ARMISTICE OF VARIZEN, the techno-cultural atmosphere that we breathe. It’s imbued with something like a low-level ideological radiation designed (although it has no designer) to inhibit people from really being free, really thinking for themselves, really being autonomous and having true compassion. Its role is to make people more vulnerable to the power of suggestion, less able to step back and take a good look at the totality of their lives and human history, more likely to be fixated on beliefs (especially political beliefs) that they don’t really understand and can’t really defend, unaware that they’re rehearsing a script that keeps them safe in whatever particular herd has raised them.

Where is the radiation coming from? The same hegemonic power structure that foregrounds identity politics while sweeping the issue of class under the rug, associates ‘freedom’ with dissolution, self-righteousness and the refusal to take responsibility (when in fact freedom is the opposite, the ability to take responsibilty even for what you have done unconsciously, or even for what has been done to you, and to affirm it). I don’t particularly think that the responsible party is a cabal of illuminati who are feeding disinformation into the system. It’s more acephalic than that - there’s no central planning responsible for it, and it isn’t a set of clear ‘ideas’, it’s more like a blind spot or a pressure point: like a sign that only the unconscious can read, that says “stop here, think no further”, triggering a conscious reaction of anger, rage, blame, scorn, ridicule.

Though in there somewhere is also the inertia of certain ideas that in a different form and a different time were genuinely emancipatory - in the context of casting off the shackles of pre-modern religious consciousness, or the conformism of pre-summer-of-love mass culture - but which currently only serve to sustain a world order that the true life-blood of humanity has already outgrown. This life-blood belongs to a body that does not exist yet - the awakened Albion, Adam Kadmon, the resurrected Jesus, the Shekinah. We would be able to channel it, create a path of circulation for it, and gain true nourishment, if only we were able to wake up from the dream of contemporary culture and politics.

Waking up involves, among many things, being able to contemplate and savor the antinomies - the conceptual or ideological contradictions - that suture the horizon of of acceptable discourse in the present. A major example of this is the antinomy between religious ascesis, and in particular channeling the love of Jesus Christ, on the one hand, and a radically emancipatory attitude towards social politics, in particular affirming the dignity and rights of non-conformism regarding gender. sex and family. Another general antinomy is that between aesthetic traditionalism - the appreciation of great works of art in the Canon - and transgressive cultural excess involving volume, noise, desecration, low-attention span, abjection and so on. I know very few people who identify with one of the poles (of either of these antinomies) who are able to conceptually or libidinally grasp that the opposite pole isn’t evil. But the world-spirit knows that the dynamic resonance between the two poles is what will generate its new body.

The famous and ever-present controversy around what I do and say - which has dissipated somewhat in recent times, but is still very much there - stems from the fact that I always seek to occupy this place, which is basically a culturally illegal zone. It makes people nauseous, enraged, it sickens them only because it is the antidote to a poison that nearly everyone with a TV or internet access has been drinking since the 80s. The feminization and queering of metal, the clash between the musical aesthetics and ethics of German Romanticism and underground DIY or the American music industry (the distinction between these latter two effectively disappeared 20 years ago). These things cannot be appreciated in the plural, at least not at the present time. A scene can never form around it, it is always and only directed towards the individual, it is a one-on-one conversation between the object within the subject (that which I channel without really understanding or knowing why) and the subject within the object (the inner potential awakened within someone to whom the project means something, guiding them towards their own individuation - which means ultimately, hopefully, away from being a Liturgy fan).

MODES OF PRODUCTION

Here’s a basic idea from materialist history: cultural forms exist to facilitate and expand economic production. There have been several cultural forms in the past, and there could be a new one in the future; each corresponds to a specific mode of production, and each has a floor and a ceiling, so to speak: as soon as the cultural form is no longer useful, it is destroyed.

Now, it seems that humans or groups of humans have the power to produce cultural forms that exist in a kind of purgatory. Their aesthetic worth can be judged independently of their use to the economy, but they have no chance of becoming widespread unless ultimately they are in fact useful.

Humans also have the power to critique prevailing belief systems. Now, in some sense, any new cultural form or aesthetic gesture constitutes a critique of the prevailing belief system, because an original work inherently calls the existing canon into question. But this should be strictly distinguished from an explicit critique, which must elaborate the nature of ideology, its interplay with economics, and so on.

In my view - and in a way this is a commonplace, yet at the same time it is not really widely understood or discussed - the vast majority of what passes for emancipatory politics in the present age is in fact ideology. In other words, even though it appears to challenge the current order, what it really does is sustain it. This is the basic feature of the Armistice of Varizen: a culture of pseudo-resistance that fractures the potential political subject, making its participants more vulnerable to exploitation, satisfying their will-to-autonomy in various forums for empty gesturing, thus nipping it in the bud.

The basic thesis of Perichoresis is that there must be an avenue for genuinely emancipatory culture that would foster a new mode of production, and that the only type of work that could possibly exploit this avenue would have to combine thoroughly elaborated and explicit conceptual critique with genuinely ground-breaking non-conceptual, non-discursive originality, among other things. The latter gains traction on its own, due to its sheer aesthetic value, drawing attention to the former, freeing critique from the ghetto of academia or the theory scene. As basic and obvious as this point may be, there is hardly any culture in any domain that I’m aware of that actually fulfills these conditions.

ADVERTISING

The Armistice of Varizen is characterized by the hijacking of the entire cultural, phenomenological and even habitual field by the advertising industry, which uses mass manipulation techniques implemented via social media (today the true scope of ‘advertising’ is much wider than that of the era when the term only referred to corporations attracting consumers to products.  Today literally every online communication, every effort to appear clever to one’s friends, or whatever, is an ad). It’s a double-edged sword, though; the mental health effects are obviously devastating, but there is also an individuating aspects which I believe is worth preserving. On the one hand consumers are genuinely enslaved by, genuinely addicted to, a process that creates value by encouraging the beings producing it and consuming it to be more and more vulgar, impulsive and afraid (and hopeless, and confused, and more inclined to vilify and seek revenge). On the other hand, these beings are massively more sophisticated, aware of a much wider field of possibility, and often, I’d argue, more in touch with their unique gifts. Through the somewhat distorted sense of vulgar egoism, present day consumers, at least of a certain socio-economic status (and the bar is fairly low) are more inclined to value their own rights to unique expression.   We must remember that the cultivation of individual talent is an absolute requirement for anyone to be admitted to the future mode of production beyond Varizen; only free human beings will be capable of sustaining it. The Armistice of Ololon will preserve the refinement of narcissism enacted by Varizen but will treat it as an end in itself and buttress it with reason and compassion. 

FIELDS AND ARMISTICES

The Four Fields employ the Four Cardinals as their respective logics, while their respective objects of study (I just realized) are the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh Armistices.   In other words, Axiology studies the constraints and possibilities of the human condition insofar as they are determined by the social bond, which is the Uraelic Armistice; Metaphysics studies the constraints and possibilities of reason, as exemplified by the Enlightenment and the coordination of instrumental knowledge with justice that posits a truth beyond the social, which is the Urizenic Armistice; Cosmogony presents a materialist critique of capitalism considered as a nonrational libidinal force unleashed by Urizen as an unintended consequence - the Varizenic Armistice; and Eschatology studies the kingdom of heaven, Haelegen, which can only be articulately conceived as a result of these first three. 

NECESSITY AND DESIRE

An armistice is a belief that something must be the way that it seems.  The belief is sustained by a hidden, disavowed desire, which is itself paradoxically sustained by a hidden fear of attaining what is desired. 

BLAKE

We should remember that Ololon is the estranged daughter of John Milton.  In YLYLCYN the seventh armistice began when Milton returned to earth to reconcile with his 'feminine emanation'.   Blake thought that this reconciliation would quickly lead to the eschaton and the reconciliation of Albion and Jerusalem.  He could not see - it took Nietzsche, who was more willing to accept the cruelty of truth, to see - that this was only the beginning of a new, final armistice - the Vorizenic Armistice:  one which even as it freed human desire from the bondage of the law submitted it to servitude in the name of its own dissolution.  

It could not be seen that the liberation of desire (the union of Milton with his daughter) would intensify the bondage of life even further even as it broke the chains of those moralities which disguise power. 

Ololon was caught in the talons of a great eagle named Hael - an insane, desperate beast hellbent on terrozing the son whom, delusionally, she seeks to protect.  Just as Kel Valhaal loses his guiding helmet, Hael and Ololon are joined together to form the entity HAELEGEN.  They flail in the sky, traumatized and confused.  

ARMISTICE AND PERICHORESIS

The Vorizenic armistice manifests as the world qua apparently natural.  This (false) image is sustained and protected by violence and speed in much of the world, but in the wealthiest areas it is sutained mainly by shame (this is why the fourth alimony is named "SHEYMN")

Music, thought and drama pierce through the walls of the armistice so as to make contact with the Transcendental regions - OIOION, ANANON and YLYLYCYN.   Music does this by producing pure, supra-representational intensity (HAQQ/OIOION).  Thought does this by means of mathematics and the concept (ANANON) and drama by the enigmatic use of language and image (YLYLCYN)

Divided, these three only feed the Vorizenic armistice, intensifying the dissolution of human culture.  The final task of Ark Work is to somehow coordinate them as a Perichoresis so as to suspend the death drive, alter fate and unbind freedom.

THE SEVEN ARMISTICES

There are seven armistices.  The first armistice was created during the Origin of the Alimonies.  The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh armistices are called Ural, Urizenic, Vorizenic and Ololonic.  

THREE [FIVE] MEANINGS

I think of the notion of Armistice in a number of different ways that are partly complementary and partly disjunctive.   

One way to define Armstice is as, simply put, the inability to see God's blinding light, so that this light is instead refracted and reflected through creations that seem to be the source of the light, although in reality these creations are mere reflections.   Essentially, it is false consciousness.

This picture is itself subdivided into two different kinds of phenomenon - one that is intrinsically 'bad', and one that is more value neutral.  The former involves adaptive, self-defeating patterns of information processing.  In human terms, these would be the neuroses and psychoses: these are stable patterns of delusion and self-inflicted violence that prohibit growth even as they protect the human in question from levels of stimulation that he or she is not able to bear (or from repetition of a trauma that was flooding).  Lets call this a properly Hyperborean Armistice. 

But there is another way of failing to see God that is value neutral - less of a crisis:  this version characterizes any system that is circulating around a single attractor and/or operating at a low level of intensity.   Here, there is no true self-deception, there are no self-inflicted wounds, it is simply that the veil of Maya is totally veiling the absolute.   The product is simply totally covering over the process that made it - but things are running smoothly.  In human terms this version may well be a well-adjusted state of health.  But - this is well-adjustment is adjustment to an ideological apparatus.   Its exemplar could be the smiling conservative Christian in the mid west, creating joy everywhere she goes, faithfully living out her faith - but perhaps insulated from the true absolute (in part by beliefs that are bigoted etc.).  What could this form of armistice be called?  I am tempted to call it Transcendental, but the way I use the term generally is too different from what I'm trying to express (even though it does have some resonances - the person I'm describing here is able to learn and grow).  For now I'll refer to it as the Efraynic Armistice, using my term for the ascetic dimension of transcendence (another way to approach things could be to refer to it as the Ascetic Armistice, and then split the Hyperborean Armistice into two other aspects of Renihilation - the Cathartic Armistice of the obsessional and the Fervent armistice of the hysteric.  And then, why not, the Majestic Armistice of the psychotic). 

Actually, the classification proposed in that last set of parens is far superior to what I was previously suggesting.   Because - now that I think of it - the concept really can be articulated in such a way that it applies to each of the four major attachment patterns (developed by Ainsworth et al).

The final thing I was going to say (what I originally was thinking of as the 'third' kind of armistice, but which is now the fifth):  we then have to talk about the Armistice of the present moment - the Vorizenic Armistice.  This is the one that involves religious fundamentalisms at war with secular multiculturalism and the misappropriation of productive force, together with the ever-encroaching singularity that threatens to completely rend our coordinates for intelligibility and identity.  Here the topic is our armistice, whereas the above refers to something more like a 'general' description.   But our armistice can only be understood in terms of the structure of the other four.

ABDUCTION OF THE FOUR FIELDS

Starting with the present armistice - the war between liberal multiculturalism and various kinds of religious fundamentalisms and the concomitant misappropriation of industrial power that characterizes the present - we unveil the FOUR FIELDS of TRANSCENDENTAL QABALA in four abductive steps.  

1.  Secular multiculturalism must recognize its disavowed roots in protestant Christianity, particularly the Unitarian Transcendentalism of the 19th century emblematized by R.W. Emerson.  The ideals of universal freedom, equality and peace are not absolutes: they are contingent human creations.  The association with Christianity is hard to swallow for many on the left, but the alternative is to have ungrounded or falsely grounded ideals.  This establishes the FIELD of COSMOGONY:  we learn where we came from.  

2.  While continuing to reject all dogmatic and religious doctrines, we re-connect to certain existential aspects of religious life and experience that have true universal applicability.  Drawing from the three "divine virtues" of faith, hope and love, we develop and utilize the ethical categories of Adaptation, Apocalypse and Endeavor as a sort of trinitarian cybernetic engine that sustains itself and develops in the name of emancipation.  We propose that the arena of musical, artistic and intellectual culture is where these modes of being can flourish.   This is the FIELD of DEONTOLOGY

3.  We seek out the absolute truth that the hard and social sciences have to offer about the nature of ecology, subjectivity, biology so as to ground and also to update and refine the ethical recommendations developed in DEONTOLOGY, so as to over and over again refuse dogma and bigotry.  We call this the FIELD of METAPHYSICS

4.  Finally, we establish clear ideas about the next stage in human history, or rather the self-overcoming of the human.  We seek to articulate what the most desirable actually possible outcome would be for the currently living members of the human race, and then seek to transmit awareness of this possibility as a live option that would require coordinated industrial effort in coordination with divine awareness:  ESCHATOLOGY.  

JOURNALISM

We are witnessing the decline of journalism.  Soon there will be no one voice that people generally and intuitively take to represent the truth.   This is an intensification of the basic character of the Vorizenic Armistice:  dissipation and fragmentation.    

In this context, it is important that we reason our way to the ultimate truth:  the rational desire for an apocalyptic revelation, emancipatatory and egalitarian, carried out by science in conjunction with art

FALSE TARGETS

Some argue that there are pseudo-issues in politics that only, or for the most part, serve to splinter the left.   From an adequately global perspective, a different set issues would seem more important.   The types of issues usually enumerated deal with the local, with cultural heritage,  or with the exquisite distinctions of gender normativity.   These are represented as not just a distraction but as a symptom of the dissipation, weakness, decadence of the left.

This view should be rejected, even though there is a certain truth to it.   The issues dealt with by "identity politics" are extremely important - but it would be good for them to be coordinated.    

What do I mean by that?   This is a really difficult topic - and I don't have clear ideas worked out.   Consider Deleuze + Guattari's famous "second positive task of schizoanalysis":  to separate class interest from libidinal investment.   

Why did schizoanalysis fail?  Did it?  One could make the case that subject-groups and affirmation of mutant becoming and so forth amount to precisely the dissipation of the left's ability to organize.

At the end of the day, there is something to be said for discipline, ascesis and a chain of command.  The business world and world of religious orthodoxy knows all about it.

So the question is, how to implement ascesis and discipline without steamrolling identity politics by techno-prometheanism  

REASON

The current crisis is, simply put, the crisis of the Hyperborean.  Our world is drenched with reason and administration, but it is not properly coordinated.   

Reason requires imagination, judgment, attention, habit, accurate information.   The contemporary crisis is a crisis of imagination, which is itself a crisis of reason

THE TWO FORCLOSURES

The vorizenic armistice forecloses eschatology and cosmogony.  It hides them.  These are the two most important dimensions of thought - everything hinges on suffering and transfiguration at the highest level there is.  So why is the former hidden away, nudged into the shadows by the slightly different question of scientific cosmology, and the latter relegated to religious fanatics?   Because of information.   Human beings in the 21st century, as they are given more and more choices, simply become confused.  Eventually these ultimate horizons become invisible... or something to get to perhaps, eventually.. we sub in placeholder conventional opinions that support a vague agnosticism, and then focus on whatever is happing two hours from now or two weeks ago, rather than the beginning and end of time as such.   

DISTRACTION

There are channels of poetry everywhere at every moment.  These channels are tributaries leading towards a surging sea of unbearable poetry.   There's an armistice in place because the sea surges with waves that are too powerful.  What is an armistice?  An armistice is basically a rationalization.  The thing is, armistices are closely guarded.  They are held sacred.  There is a sort of perimeter of violence around them.   It is only the mentally ill who are able to really see this logic at work.   I myself tend to float in and out of sanity.  The only advantage to being in an "out" phase is that one has a very intimate experience of the sutures that make normal functioning possible.  It bears repeating - since I haven't really said it in an impactful way yet:  normal functioning inherently requires foreclosure of the ultimate truth.  Those of us who are functioning normally are turned away from realities that, were we only to slow down for a moment and face them honestly, would fry our irises and boil our corneas.   If human society has laid out various types of armistice over its history, what distinguishes  the vorizenic armistice from the others is a certain quality of dissipation...

LACK OF KNOWLEDGE

Our lack of knowledge of the ultimate nature of things is unbearable.  From every perspective, the question is always disqualified only because it is unbearable, even if a different reason is given (like that it is unanswerable, or doesn't matter, or has been answered).  

URIZEN AND VORIZEN

The Urizenic armistice was oriented towards the One.  But Urizen died and at the same time gave birth to a still-born child.  A son?  It is hard to be sure of the gender.  This child is hardly alive - indeed it is not alive at all.  But it moves, it cares, it needs.  It is not stable.  It expands and writhes.  It seeks stimulation above all else, and yet it cannot bear the full amount of stimulation that it seeks.  This is its tantalizing situation - all its wants is more, but what it wants is too much for it to handle.   But - and maybe this is the more essential point - it has no well-developed and time-tested apparatus for reaching its goal.  It is already so close - too close, closer than it even realizes, although it does dimly realize it, at times, but only partially.  And it always forgets, anyhow.  At times it sees with utter lazer-sharp lucidity.  But only for a few moments at a time.  The Vorizenic Armistice - slavery to the Many

TRUTH

There is a Lacan quote - I should find it.  I will.  It might be the beginning of the Rome Discourse or maybe The Freudian Thing - one of the Ecrits.   Man cannot bear his own truth.  To bear one's own power - to stare it in the eyes: this we cannot do.   As human beings and as a species,  we simply avoid it.  The limits of reason turn out to be libidinal before they are logical.  We cannot bear our power, so we find distractions.  A whole array of consumer goods, affects and habits owes its existence to this basic fact: the fact of the Armistice

ARMISTICE: A PRELIMINARY DEFINITION

There is something out there that is too much to bear.  This is most certain.  We will elide the questions of what exactly it is and whether it is just one thing or many things.   An armistice is a kind of structure that is built so that most of the unbearable is blocked out.  The Vorizenic armistice is the armistice that currently  holds sway.   It fosters a high level of production and consumption, even transgression - but it shirks consciousness of the greatest transformation possible