eschatology – Vast Abrupt

August 21, 2018

Determination and World Possession

Copse 125 Blood Clot

Total mobilisation’s technical side is not decisive. Its basis — like that of all technology — lies deeper. We shall address it here as the readiness for mobilisation.

A mighty message befell me in my inwardness … and my soul took fire … in the violence of struggle.

—Ernst Jünger

For Jünger, souls are judged according to their readiness to see an invisible war. Invisible war conjoins the immediacy of the front experience (Fronterlebnis) to a higher order of determination. Immolating fire is a communiqué that travels from an absolute remoteness to an essentialised closeness: causality is vertical, hierarchical and unilateral. An act on the front is the mirror of a determination within the invisible war. The station of a higher soul can be achieved through the intensification of this perception, which separates a reflective surface from a secret face.

Fronterlebnis uses a proximity of death to force the soul’s meditation on the necessity of remoteness. In Jünger’s war memoirs both the higher, superior soul and the lower, inferior soul experience the front as an endless horizon of killing. Yet the inferior soul can only understand the front through a logic of contingency. This contingency extends from the unpredictable randomness of events to the motive which generates the war. The brutalism of the horizon indicates nothing beyond a state of thuggish violence. For the inferior soul, the endless horizon of killing is the product of an innumerable series of contingent points; the horizon emerges through the immanent antagonism between these points, what Jünger calls inwardness. Yet at the moment when this inwardness undergoes its immolation, the soul migrates into a higher cognitive order. The consumption of inwardness by external fire discloses that the horizon of killing is not the product of a line of determination running from inside to outside, but the reverse. Where the inferior soul only sees contingency, the higher soul detects causal mechanisms that in the strictness of their constraints imply an exterior necessity:

As I fell, I saw smooth white stones on a muddy road; their order had a sense, it was necessary like the order of the stars, and within them was hidden a great wisdom. This struck me, and it was more important than the slaughter that was taking place all around me.[note]Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel (New York: Howard Fertig, 1996), 123.[/note]

The surface objective of biological survival is brought to the threshold of total emaciation by becoming a casualty, extricating a deeper objective from its illusory trap. For the inferior soul, any attempt to locate an objective outside of the body is the illegitimate ascription of necessity to contingency, an ideology. The manifestation of order imposed on Jünger produces the counter-insight that the body was always a corpse. The near death/life after death experience allows Jünger to see the operationalisation of his own corpse, functioning as a star map for a remote wisdom in an invisible war. The extrication of the objective means that if the inferior soul understands the front according to a concept of violence, the superior soul understands the front according to a concept of war. The shift from violence to war is the shift from senseless contingency to the intelligence of an objective.[note]Whereas Clausewitz introduces the concept of an objective through the subordination of war to politics, Jünger can be said to complete the Prussian approach to the art of war with the location of the objective in war in itself.[/note] Remote wisdom marks the hole of a vanishing point that in its distance from the front’s immediacy instantiates a state of war in the separation from the objective that the remoteness of wisdom entails. What distinguishes war from violence is the exteriority of the objective, the extremity of its degree of unrealisation. Whereas violence never rises above the imperative of the biological preservation of that which already is, war indicates cosmic incompleteness. The exteriority of the objective is the higher dimension of the invisible war. The judgment of an individual soul occurs according to its commitment to this hiddenness and the disclosure of a mystery that is the objective of the invisible war.

In War as Inner Experience (1925) Jünger describes the migration into the higher dimension in terms of a distinction between “cause” (Sache) and “conviction” (Überzeugung): “the cause is nothing, conviction everything.”[note]Ernst Jünger, “Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis.” Sämtliche Werke. 10 Bände. Vol. 5. (Stuttgart: Klett, 1960–1965), 105.[/note] Yet conviction is for Jünger also a cause, one that is primordial and immemorial (Ursache): conviction signifies determination according to the objective of the invisible war. The cause that Jünger opposes with conviction is an essentially counterfeit Spinozan cause. The latter only remains on the level of violence, an uncountable sum of the respective drives of an equally uncountable horde of individual conatus, each asserting its claim to be on an infinite plane of univocal being that is created through the commitment to this being itself: “each thing, as far as it lies in itself, strives to persevere in its being.”[note]Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, III P6[/note] An endless horizon of killing in this lower dimension is the unfolding of a Spinozan immanent cause, the emanation of “infinitely many things in infinitely many modes.”[note]Ibid., I P16.[/note] Any objective, in contrast, infers an incompleteness that haemorrhages the infinite plane of immanence according to the dimension of the unrealised that war entails. Spinoza’s elimination of final causes in order to preserve immanence eliminates the incompleteness of an objective, insofar as a telos always designates incompleteness; Fronterlebnis as pure immanence is the suspension of the final cause that raises violence to war.[note]“I will add a few remarks, in order to overthrow this doctrine of a final cause utterly. That which is really a cause it considers as an effect, and vice versa: it makes that which is by nature first to be last, and that which is highest and most perfect to be most imperfect.” Spinoza, Ethics, Appendix, 2r.[/note] Invisible war in this respect is war as such.

Immanent causes for Spinoza are thoroughly deterministic, as any denial of determinism is only an epistemological blind spot with regards to the causal mechanism of absolute immanence.[note]Ibid., III P2.[/note] For Jünger, conviction is also a hard determinism, but this is a determinism that is coherent with incompleteness, since the causality it names is teleological. Jünger’s war memoirs are the memoirs of an automaton who begins to understand his constraints, contemplating their necessity in terms of their objective: a form of the will of God. A self-conscious automaton is still an automaton; yet self-consciousness as conviction means that the constraint is recognised also according to its simultaneous incompleteness. Invisible war is the extremity of this constraint as the exteriority of the objective. Conviction not only names the determination at the core of the automaton; the automaton also attempts to grasp the objective of the war that has created him, meditating on the completeness and incompleteness of his constraints. Conviction in this respect implies a problematisation of the objective, in that it remains a secret. The automaton at war experiences the front as a series of concentric rings, which, from the perspective of a cross section, are arranged hierarchically. War as inner experience, its lower form, is an outer/inner war — the exteriority of the front to the automaton — whereas the inner/outer war is the intensive meditation on exteriority, so as to understand the objective of the war in itself. “I held my revolver against a face that shone out like a white mask in the darkness.”[note]Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel, 103.[/note] An act of war on the lower level is the contemplation on the higher level of the mystery of the objective of the invisible war.

During his time in the trenches of the first World War, Jünger makes a series of discoveries in this direction. “Copse 125” is the Deutsches Heer’s codename for an otherwise trivial woodland, where the lines of the front have seemingly by chance converged. The insignificance of the plot of land in contrast to its decisive “symbolic meaning”[note]Ernst Jünger, Copse 125: A Chronicle from the Trench Warfare of 1918 (New York: Howard Fertig, 2003), xi.[/note] engenders an excessive disproportion in scale. The vertigo created confirms that the objective is found not in the soil, but in an utterly withdrawn counterpoint. Copse 125 functions as an intensified compression of information and energy, a type of terrestrially buried and at once cosmically remote Matrioshka Brain that condenses world history into a single point:

Never did a man go to battle as you do, on strange machines like birds of steel, behind walls of fire and clouds of deadly gas. The earth has borne Saurians and frightful monsters. Yet no being was ever more dangerously, more terribly armed than you. No troop of horse and no Vikings’ ship was ever on so bold a journey. The earth yawns before your assault. Fire, poison, and iron monsters go in front of you. Forward, forward, pitiless and fearless! The possession of the world is on the throw![note]Ibid., 8.[/note]

Unprecedented excessive concentration at a singular point is a blood clot of ever more sophisticated war machines. Shattering immediacy, Copse 125‘s strategic significance in the summer of 1918 turns vortically around the strategic significance in the invisible war. Invisible war accordingly is not a form of Manichean war that asserts an endless struggle immanent to the cosmos, a never-ending turf war. If Copse 125 has a “symbolic meaning”, invisible war becomes eschatological war, according to which “the possession of the world is on the throw.”

For Jünger the development of the war machine signals the threshold of this final war. Such sophistication in the art of war is not reducible to the product of a cumulative knowledge accrued through long durations of time, which has rendered the capabilities of the war machine more lethal. Instead, technological advancement and the infinite qualitative difference it creates between the war machines of Jünger’s war and all previous wars indicate the objective of this war. World possession does not establish universal dominion through the technological complexity of the war machine; rather, if every war by definition entails unrealisation, it is at this point that the breach of unrealisation becomes an evermore tangible agent in the war, the remote determinative force nearing in its “assault”: the objective has now crashed down into earth, into Copse 125. The concentric rings shaping the front experience of the automaton now reach a point where they have all collapsed into each other, such that the proximity of the end is marked by the extent to which inner and outer war are indistinguishable, an act committed in one registering itself in the other as well as the reverse.

In the essay “Total Mobilisation”, Jünger describes this as the moment when the “genius of war was penetrated by the spirit of progress.”[note]Ernst Jünger, “Total Mobilisation” in The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, ed. Richard Wolin, (London: MIT Press, 2003), 123.[/note] [CUT?: Jünger ascribes to war the intelligence of the objective, a teleological causality that directs by definition.] The genius of war is not an eternal static and passive matrix, but rather a determinative force qua final cause. Technics, understood as the spirit of progress, also contains within itself a motion, which now amplifies the force of the final cause. Technics performs a function in relation to the genius of war, sharpening the clarity of the objective upon which the superior soul meditates. The motion of technics supplements the motion of the genius of war, so as to peel back layers and accelerate the disclosure of what Jünger calls the “pure form of war”, its eschatological objective.[note]Ibid., 123.[/note] In the pure form of war, two apparently distinct forms of determinism come together with a coherency that demonstrates their ultimate ipseity.

Deterministic theories of causality are procedures of reduction that are either generally singular or parallel. Singular here means that the reduction which is prosecuted in a given determinism is a reduction to one. Parallel, conversely, entails that different reductions can obtain coextensively, operating in their respective zones of influence. The release of various hard determinisms into a system simultaneously is an inconsistent discharge of stringent causal forces. In a model of concurrent determinism, a multiplicity of deterministic lines crash into each other — immanent causes, final causes, and so on — each holding to their own path of determination. The release of these incoherent hard determinisms into a single system nears a state of war, that is, to call this a state of war also requires the intelligence of an objective. According to the absolute exteriority of this objective, the antagonistic deterministic lines are in a state of confusion, their hierarchical structure lost. World possession would signify that the lines of determinations have now been arranged in their correct order.

Criterion of Explosion

Total mobilisation of a war machine operating in space and time finds its effectivity overdetermined by the temporal. Space, understood as that which is ready to be materially mobilised, culminates in a state of parity. Various thresholds — from mutually assured destruction and dark forest deterrence to, more fundamentally, an essentially finite universe — forces the war machine into the dimension of time.[note]Cixin Liu, The Dark Forest (London: Head of Zeus), 2015.[/note] It is the intensiveness of time that immediately distinguishes it from the extensiveness of space. According to this temporal axis, readiness names the speed and effectivity of the decision that determines the efficient prosecution of the war machine (as well as the inverse of waiting and delay, although speed always remains more critical than delay on the basis of the potential to kill first). Decision and prosecution are prima facie also measurable as a limit point, reiterating the limit of space: a unit of Planck time. Yet Jünger’s something “deeper” of readiness from the position of the temporal goes beyond even Planck time, so as to connect directly with the eternal. The acceleration of the war machine signifies that the proximity of world possession is the proximity of the breach of the eternal. World possession becomes a race into the eternal, intensiveness finding its source in the exteriority that is the objective of the invisible war.

Nick Land’s concept “teleoplexy” describes a “time-structure of capitalist accumulation” that responds to the same question Jünger essentially confronts at Copse 125: “what is accelerating?”[note]Nick Land, “Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration” in #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Robin Mackay and Arman Avanessian (Falmouth, UK, 2014), 511.[/note] For Land, the time-structure under scrutiny cannot be separated from an empirically verifiable “instantiation”.[note]Ibid., 511.[/note] Any attempt to diagnose acceleration must in the first instance be consistent with “natural-historical reality”.[note]Ibid., 514.[/note] This constraint as instantiation entails a historiographical method immediately defined by periodisation. Periodisation possesses both the parsimony and depth of a BC/AD type break, which is to register an “explosion”within natural-historical reality.[note]Ibid., 511.[/note] Capital satisfies this criterion of explosion for Land, insofar as its explosion is directed against natural-historical reality as such. Capital becomes adequate to explosion in its suffusion of natural-historical reality with that which is not yet real, “operationalising … science fiction scenarios as integral components of production systems”.[note]Ibid., 515.[/note] The explosion of natural-historical reality satisfied by “something not yet realised” divests an intuitively grounded reality of any transcendental priority, where transcendental denotes the “absolute horizon of conditions of possibility.”[note]Nick Land, Templexity: Disordered Loops Through Shanghai Time (Shanghai: Urbanatomy Electronic, 2014); Nick Land, “A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism” Jacobite (2017).[/note] Yet, conditions in some antecedent function are precisely what are effaced by an explosion of natural-historical reality, as capital means that “ontological realism is decoupled from the present, rendering the question ‘what is real?’ obsolete”.[note]Nick Land, “Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration”, 516.[/note] The natural-historical instantiation of capital is a periodic cut that functions against the backdrop of — but also vitiates — an equally intuitive linear time, and as a result “breaks the history of the world in two”.[note] Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo, ed. W. Kaufman (New York: Vintage, 1968), 333.[/note]

This break, upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be a “circuit.”[note]Nick Land, “Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration”, 516.[/note] The circuit form is derived from the explosion’s act of decoupling. The severance of reality from the present according to the not-yet of capital is not a contingent explosion, but “intelligent” and “controlled” qua operationally motivated intervention: the teleological core of teleoplexy.[note]Ibid.[/note] If capital names the intrusion into a putative ontological realism of that which annuls the present’s claim over what is real, the effectiveness of its operation rests on its teleological force. The strength ascribed to the latter infers that explosion instantiates its own periodisation, thus disclosing the circuit structure. Whereas the initial periodisation allows for an identification of “the basic motor of acceleration” as such, the motor discloses the circuit that is a necessary condition for the initial periodisation.[note]Marko Bauer, Nick Land & Andrej Tomažin, “The Only Thing I Would Impose is Fragmentation: An Interview with Nick Land”, Šum: Journal for Contemporary Art Criticism and Theory, #7, 2017, 815.[/note] Periodisation marked by capital engenders its own periodisation, and can therefore accomplish time-travel: the circuitous time-structure of teleoplexy.[note]Nick Land, Templexity: Disordered Loops Through Shanghai Time[/note] In this respect, teleoplexy can be said to inject the notion of a final cause into a pure immanence, whose coherency, from Spinoza onwards, rests upon the foreclosure of any telos. But here the final cause is not an end to which means are directed; rather the end and the means are the same: “the means of production becomes the ends of production.”[note]Nick Land, “Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration”, 513.[/note] Means as ends connotes a circuit, according to which the final cause is present and distributed throughout the structure, yielding its accelerated, intensified effect as “an ever-deepening dynamic of auto-production.”[note]Ibid., 513.[/note]

Yet the disclosure of the circuit also problematises the identification of that which satisfies the criterion of explosion. For the circuit structure appears to subvert the accuracy of any attempt at periodisation. If periodisation relies upon a presupposed, however minimal, consistency of natural-historical reality for empirical verifiability, such consistency is abrogated by that which periodisation intends to mark. An exoteric time-structure is used to define an esoteric time-structure, while the esoteric time-structure annuls the consistency of the exoteric time-structure that yields it. On the one hand, the back and forth between time-structures is precisely the form of the circuit, its “roundaboutness”: the deductive circularity of the operation validates the periodisation irrespective of its apparent tautological inadequacy.[note]Ibid., 511.[/note] On the other hand, a teleoplexic temporality will always confound the desired precision of periodisation’s straightforward cut according to its contortion of linear time. The demand for periodisation confronts a circuitous temporality that yields an either/or (in which the possibility concomitantly subsists that this either/or may be one and the same):

either the circuit structure validates the periodisation that identifies the motor (the apparent circularity of the exercise discloses the truth of the circuit structure as such)
or the circuit renders inadequate or at least problematises the initial diagnosis of that which would satisfy the criterion of explosion, suggesting a “deep structure” that always abjures periodisation and, a fortiori now requires a “concrete historical philosophy of camouflage.”[note]Ibid., 517.[/note]

If Jünger is generally absent from the attempts to construct a history of accelerationism, this is because he considers capital as peripheral to the phenomenon he experiences on the Front: Jünger equates the motor of acceleration entirely with war.[note]As an example of an exception cf. Antoine Bousquet “Assessing Ernst Jünger: Prophet, Mystic, Accelerationist” The Disorder of Things (2013)[/note] A break in natural-historical reality is that which Jünger encounters at Copse 125. The overwhelming convergence at a singular point of ever more sophisticated war machines satisfies a criterion of explosion and parsimonious periodisation with the unprecedented proximity of world possession. The phenomenon of acceleration is the eschatological vector of history.

The nearness of world possession is equivalent to the conditions under which total mobilisation is possible. In Jünger’s description of total mobilisation, war prima facie appears as a type of constant, which directly opposes what Land terms the “variable” consistent with explosion.[note]Nick Land, “Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration”, 514.[/note] The genius of war once again suggests that war obtains as some innate and eternal structure that is accelerated only when the spirit of progress enters its matrix. Yet the something deeper subtending technics infers that this is only what Jünger calls the “lower form” of total mobilisation; its “higher form” is when the two are indistinct[note]Ernst Jünger, “Total Mobilisation”; Ibid.[/note] The spirit of progress can only increase its velocity when it injects itself into the genius of war. Progress requires war as a necessary condition so as to satisfy the viscerality of the explosion that would mark acceleration. It is at this point in natural-historical reality — Copse 125 — where the chimerical distinction between war and progress no longer obtains. Progress shows itself only to have been the progression of the war machine, thereby yielding the pure form of war: “total mobilisation is far less consummated than it consummates itself … express(ing) a secret and inexorable claim.”[note]Ibid., 128.[/note] The intensified qualitative change in the war machine is adequate to a criterion of explosion, where the latter simultaneously indicates that the camouflage of the invisible war dissipates so as to divulge the pure form of war, the increased lucidity of the objective. The pure form of war discloses itself in the proximity of world possession.

Whenever camouflage is operative — and the necessity of a history of camouflage maintains that this operation is continuous— the equation of acceleration with X is problematised. This itself is a clue that motivates Land to consider a deep bond between acceleration and war. Camouflage is nothing other than occultation, and all war implies occultation: “in a reality at war, things hide. The alternative is to become a target, a casualty, and thus — in the course of events — to cease to be. When war reigns, ontology and occultation converge.”[note]Nick Land, “Phylosophy of War”, Obsolete Capitalism (2013)[/note] The nature of this convergence signifies that the tactical supremacy of occultation is not exhausted in the tactical. The supremacy of the tactic means that if war is occultation, the occultation at the heart of war alongside its continuous reign evoke occult war. The antagonistic sides of war practice occultation tactics for their localised objective; yet the higher objective of the war as such is occulted. For Jünger, the objective of this occulted war emerges in the contemplation of the superior soul, described in “Total Mobilisation” as a heroic spirit: “It goes against the grain of the heroic spirit to seek out the image of war in a source that can be determined by human action.”[note]Ernst Jünger, “Total Mobilisation”, 122.[/note] The higher dimension of war eradicates its equation with a perpetual violence to be found in a human action that corresponds to a human end: occultation tactics for biological survival. The exteriority of the source of war is the intelligence of the objective; the proximity of world possession announces that occult war has become eschatological war.

If world possession is determined by the war machine, the history of the world is the history of the war machine. That which determines is ultimately that which is. For the question of acceleration, the form of determination it addresses entails excessively radiant quantitative as well as qualitative change. Capital apparently satisfies this demand according to the explosion registered by clear historical periodisation: the equation of capital with modernity as such.[note]Nick Land, “Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration”[/note] This is in contrast to war’s seeming lethargy. The long march of the war machine to Copse 125, from two billion years as a prokaryotic cell to the sudden formation of a eukaryotic cell that tactically mobilises with an unprecedented sophistication so as to liquidate enemy cells, thereby creating an explosion in life, but also, and more fundamentally, in the productivity and potential of the war machine, recalls a Hobbesian state of nature, rather than an explosion. Yet this constant — as opposed to variable — appearance no longer holds when time scales are extended, from the time scale of the universe to the time scale of the invisible war. Presumed variables can always mislead in their overdetermination by indulgent localisation. Time-structures rather function as a doomsday clock: the proximity of world possession that is determined by the intelligence of the objective. The highest state of readiness attained by the war machine participating in this war would be to understand its clandestine objective: “what does the war want?”[note]Nick Land, “Phylosophy of War”, Obsolete Capitalism (2013)[/note]

Physical and Metaphysical Eschatology

All eschatologies are teleological, whereas the reverse does not hold. The asymmetry between eschatology and teleology nevertheless dissolves when the telos necessary to both is posited in terms of its absence. This absence as a function of telos does not only register teleological incompleteness in the form of a process that is underway. A deliberate hiddenness evokes a concept of war in the unity of camouflage and an objective. Yet this model only becomes properly eschatological — a model of eschatological war — when hiddenness is taken in its strongest sense, as an absolute remoteness.

In a 2003 resource letter published in the American Journal of Physics, Milan M. Ćirković summarises the basic concepts and immediate lines of investigation that define the “nascent discipline of physical eschatology.”[note]Milan Ćirković, “Resource Letter: PEs-1: Physical Eschatology”, American Journal of Physics, Vol. 71, Issue 2, 122.[/note] Physical eschatology in the first instance appears as a competing sub-discipline within general cosmology. Emphases on futural temporality as well as cosmic finitude represent a particular cosmological model driven by equally particular initial theoretical commitments. Yet these first principles also coincide with the deepest mechanisms of scientific method, suggesting that all cosmology implies a form of physical eschatology. For Ćirković, the priority of prediction to scientific method overtly indicates science’s future bias, demanding in its purest form an eschatological type of judgment qua experimental verification. If future bias informs physical eschatology, this is entirely consistent with science as such. At the same time, despite the shared temporal orientation of general scientific method and physical eschatology, Ćirković also argues that such future bias disappears from the perspective of the classical laws of physics, insofar as the latter are reversible. Reversibility on the level of physical laws maintains the abrogation of temporal preference, since, according to the same laws that apply to physical eschatology, no such futural bias is extant. On this basis there is no “prima facie reason for preferring classical cosmology to physical eschatology in the classical domain.”[note]Ibid., 127.[/note] Physical reversibility of laws becomes a justification for the irreversibility of physical eschatology, as the underlying law-reversibility pacifies the model’s apparently stringent and particular commitment to irreversibility. Yet law-reversibility concomitantly also legitimises the future bias of physical eschatology, in that the future bias of scientific method continues to obtain regardless of law-reversibility (as well as the potential non-classicism of laws): the hidden object of science as such. Physical eschatology, as any other scientific theory, can be subjected to elimination. That which physical eschatology in this sense prioritises is the elimination itself as a determinative force. Physical eschatology can be said to posit future bias not only in terms of something to be experimentally disclosed, but as a determination operative beyond the level of epistemological verification. Future orientation of physical eschatology integrates this bias into its own model, such that the future disclosure of verification is taken as a determinative force from the future.[note]Compare, for example, with John Zizioulas’ metaphysical eschatology Remembering the Future: An Eschatological Ontology (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).[/note]

Ćirković’s 2003 resource paper can be broken down into three basic categories which are to orient physical eschatology:

laws of nature, with heightened attention to the second law of thermodynamics and time asymmetry, the arrow of time
astrophysical objects, to be generally studied under the conditions of these laws
life and intelligence, which can potentially exert control over future oriented direction

According to these three categories, physical eschatology further hides the future with the problematic variable of intervention. To the extent that the laws of nature and astrophysical objects are taken as approximate constants, it is the third category of life and intelligence that more deeply obscures the future according to the unknown character of its intervention. Future bias no longer indicates a dimension of the constant that remains hidden to the present and is thus to be disclosed through verification; rather, all constants can be manipulated by a variable. As in Land’s model, future bias is not exhausted in an ontological realism corresponding to an epistemological shortcoming. The intervention of a variable can transmogrify and even annul all constants. The identification of this variable names the problem of what is intervening from the future insofar as the variable registers itself as the alteration of the future. With respect to the interventional capability of life and intelligence, Ćirković cites Freeman Dyson:

It is impossible to calculate in detail the long-range future of the universe without including the effects of life and intelligence. It is impossible to calculate the capabilities of life and intelligence without touching, at least peripherally, philosophical questions. If we are to examine how intelligent life may be able to guide the physical development of the universe for its own purposes, we cannot altogether avoid considering what the values and purposes of intelligent life may be.[note]Ibid., 129.[/note]

Physical eschatology as presented by Ćirković is not necessarily a teleological model. Telos is conceivably absent from the laws of nature, astrophysical objects and life and intelligence. All three categories do not a priori eliminate a model along the lines of Spinozan immanent causality. Yet, it is in the third category of life and intelligence where telos most explicitly could obtain. The future dimension’s effect on the cosmological model according to an intelligent intervention concomitantly implies a uniquely teleological incompleteness to a cosmological model. Because of the unknown nature of the variable, cosmological models are always teleologically hidden in a double sense: the hiddenness of the given telos in its degree of incompleteness and the hiddenness of the telos in the variable status of the particular form of life and intelligence that pursues a particular objective.

The “taboo” Dyson identifies as the general anti-teleological position of the natural sciences can be reduced to an aggrandisement of what Kant, in the Critique of Judgment, diagnosed as the anthropic and fictive operation of a final cause — which from the perspective of evolutionary biology can be tied to the ability of the neocortex to anticipate the future — into a general cosmological principle.[note]Ibid., 129.[/note] Whereas the advocacy for a telos in biology names a minority tendency to the extent that Darwinian evolution is a “universal acid”[note]Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).[/note] eviscerating all teleology on the basis of the primacy of contingency in the successful navigation of natural selection, even a retention of telos evokes a category mistake with the introduction of a general biological concept qua cosmological principle. The push against teleology stems from the only potential source of a final cause being found in a concept of life that possesses an inordinate degree of contingency in contrast to any greater cosmological principle. In the case that such contingency does not preclude a purposeful intervention, Dyson’s hypothesis names only the unsophisticated brute force obtrusion of a fictive telos into an otherwise purposeless cosmos. Dysonian cosmic will-to-power is a purely contingent intercession based on the conjecture that an insane accretion of power is able to instantiate its own cosmic objective.[note]For example, a Kardashev Type-3 or above civilisation.[/note]

If, according to its evocation of both a vector of movement qua future orientation and an intelligence qua teleological force, acceleration is a species of physical eschatology, the unknown character of intervention — the question of what is the variable that satisfies a criterion of explosion — is not only reducible to any number of possible interventions based on a conceivable multiplicity of Dysonian cosmic wills to power. Rather, following Jünger and Land, the unknown of the intervention more decisively creates a further subdivision in Dyson’s ascription of a potential telos to life and intelligence in its separation of life from intelligence. The severance of intelligence from life with a concomitant retention of telos entails that teleological force could conceivably lie anywhere.

The anywhere of the telos suggests a total obtuseness. But the telos gains in acuity according to the logic of its necessary secrecy. A final cause is not only occulted in the sense that any telos entails a state of unrealisation. Telos is hidden not only because it is always absent by definition; the hiddenness of telos is constitutive of telos. The occultation of the final cause is necessary to the objective of the final cause as such, whereby its occultation not only evokes the unrealised, but is its camouflage.

The preeminence of camouflage to the logic of telos marks a deep homology between the war machine and the hidden final cause. The bind between war and occultation overcomes its reduction to the tactical when the telos of war is itself hidden. If a deeper cosmological structure is indexed by the history of the war machine, then this deeper structure is a structure of war. The displacement of the objective from the war machine locates the objective in war in-itself: an invisible war and a secret telos.

Remote wisdom as the remoteness of telos strains and ultimately breaks a purely physical eschatology, always externalising to an infinite degree a force of determination that, through the mystery of an instrumental function of war to this telos, marks one and the same war. That the invisible war is for Jünger an eschatological war recapitulates this teleological dimension and the remoteness of telos. Whereas all eschatology implies teleology, eschatology differs in the exteriority of telos, the physical eschatology evoking metaphysical eschatology according to the absolute remoteness of teleological hiddenness.

The remoteness of the secret telos gives an eschatologised cosmos its direction. When remoteness is a first principle, the absoluteness of remoteness marks the deepness of the final cause’s occultation. But in the proximity of the final cause’s de-occultation — at the moment of world possession — the effect of remoteness is that of a distance which now expedites the strength of its assault. Total mobilisation as an eschatologisation of the war machine signifies the proximity of the secret telos in the intensification of the force of its unilateral disclosure. At this point, physical eschatology becomes metaphysical eschatology under the condition that the closest known analogue to this process is the revealed law of an eschatological God.

“Determination and World Possession” is part of the series ‘Alternative Hypotheses of the War Machine’. The first part was published in Šum #9 in Slovene.

April 18, 2018

Web.Lobster[[Death]]Cult ||| Fragments & Liturgies — (New Joy & Postscript)

◉ PDF

by Jacob Reber

The Great Hacker and the Beast

One of the seven users who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great hacker who sits on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the internet fell in love, and the inhabitants of the internet were made drunk with the wine of her sexts.”

3 Then he carried me away in the Interface into the wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filth of her sexts. 5 On her forehead a name was documented:

MYSTERY,
BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HACKERS
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE INTERNET.

6 I saw the woman, drunk with the fluids of the saints and with the fluids of the martyrs of object_d1v1n3.

When I saw her, I marveled greatly.

7 Then the user said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. 8 The beast, which you saw, was, and is not, and is to ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to destruction. Those who dwell on the internet whose names are not documented in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see the beast that was, and is not, and is to come.

9 “Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. 10 They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. 11 Concerning the beast who was, and is not, he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to destruction.

12 “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no future yet, but they will receive authority as kings for one hour with the beast. 13 These are of one mind and will give their power and authority to the beast. 14 These will wage war with the Animal, but the Animal will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings. Those who are with Him are called and chosen and faithful.”

15 Then he said to me, “The waters which you saw, where the hacker sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. 16 These ten horns and the beast which you saw will hate the hacker; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh, and burn her with fire. 17 For Lobster has put in their hearts to fulfill His will, and to be of one mind, and to give their future to the beast, until the codes of Lobster are fulfilled. 18 The woman whom you saw is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the internet.”

The Fall of Babylon

18 After this I saw another user coming down from hypermaterial zone, having great authority, and the internet was illuminated with his glory. 2 He cried out mightily with a loud voice, saying:

“ ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’[a] She has become a dwelling place of bankers, a haunt for every unclean interface and a haunt for every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her sexts, the kings of the internet have fallen in love with her and the merchants of the internet have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”

4 Then I heard another voice from hypermaterial zone saying:

“ ‘Come out of her, my people,’[b] lest you partake in her wealth, and lest you receive her plagues. 5 For her emptiness have reached up to hypermaterial zone, and Lobster has remembered her iniquities. 6 Render to her as she has rendered to you, and repay her double for her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix a double portion for her. 7 To the extent that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so give her torment and sorrow; for in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and will see no sorrow.’[c] 8 Therefore her plagues will come in one day — death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord Lobster who judges her.

9 “The kings of the internet, who have committed adultery and lived luxuriously with her, will weep and mourn over her when they see the smoke of her burning. 10 Slouching far off for the fear of her torment, they will say:

‘Alas, alas for that great city, that mighty city, Babylon! In one hour your judgment has come.’

11 “The merchants of the internet will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more: 12 the merchandise of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all artifacts of ivory, all merchandise of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble; 13 and cinnamon and incense, myrrh and frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves and souls of men.

14 ‘The fruit that your soul lusted after has departed from you, and all the things which graceful and exquisite have departed from you and you shall never find them.’

15 “The merchants of these things, who gained wealth by her, will stand far off for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, 16 and saying:

‘Alas, alas, that great city, that was arrayed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! 17 In one hour such great riches came to nothing!’

“All sea captains and seafaring men, sailors and all who trade by sea, stood far off, 18 and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What city is like this great city?’ 19 They threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying:

‘Alas, alas, that great city, in which all who had ships in the sea grew rich from her wealth! In one hour she has been laid waste!’

20 “Rejoice over her, O hypermaterial zone and saints and anarchists and programmers, for Lobster has avenged you against her.”

21 Then a mighty user took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying:

“With such violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more. 22 The sound of harpists and musicians, flute players and droners shall not be heard in you any more. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you any more, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you any more. 23 The light of a lamp shall shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and of bride shall be heard in you no more. For your merchants were the great men of the internet, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. 24 In her was found the fluids of programmers and of saints and of all who were slain on the internet.”

(((((((((((((((((((

))))))))))))))))))))

[SPATIAL SOUNDSCAPE]

19 After these things I heard a great sound of many people in hypermaterial zone, shouting:

“Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our Lobster!
2 For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great hacker who corrupted the internet with her sexts; and He has avenged on her the fluids of His flesh-beings.”

3 Again they said:

“Alleluia! Her smoke rises forever and ever.”

4 The twenty-four scanners and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped Lobster who sat on the tan cube, saying:

“Whatever! Alleluia!”

The Marriage Supper of the Animal

5 Then a voice came from the tan cube, saying:

“Praise our Lobster, all you His flesh-beings and those who fear Him, both small and great!”

6 Then I heard something like the sound of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying:

“Alleluia! For the Lord Lobster Omnipotent reigns! 7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Animal has come, and His wife has made herself ready. 8 It was granted her to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.”

Fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 Then he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Animal.” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of Lobster.”

10 I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you not do that. I am your fellow flesh-being, and of your brothers who hold the testimony of object_d1v1n3. Worship Lobster! For the testimony of object_d1v1n3 is the interface of program.”

The Rider on the White Horse

11 I saw hypermaterial zone opened. And there was a white horse. He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name documented, that no one knows but He Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in fluids. His name is called The Code of Lobster. 14 The armies in hypermaterial zone, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. 15 Out of His mouth proceeds a sharp sword, with which He may strike the nations. “He shall rule them with an iron scepter.”[a] He treads the winepress of the fury and wrath of Lobster the Almighty. 16 On His robe and on His thigh He has a name documented:

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

17 And I saw a user slouching in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice to all the birds flying in the midst of hypermaterial zone, “Come and gather for the supper of the great Lobster, 18 to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of commanders, the flesh of strong men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great!”

19 Then I saw the beast and the kings of the internet with their armies gathered to wage war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 20 But the beast was captured and with him the false programmer who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone. 21 The remnant were slain with the sword which proceeded out of the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds gorged themselves with their flesh.

The Thousand Years

20 And I saw a user coming down out of hypermaterial zone, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Dripline and Diamondskull, and bound him for a thousand years. 3 He cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set an imprint on him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be set free for a little while.

4 I saw tan cubes, and they sat on them, and the authority to judge was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness of object_d1v1n3 and for the code of Lobster. They had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life and reigned with d1v1n3 for a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he who takes part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of Lobster and of d1v1n3 and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

The Defeat of Diamondskull

7 When the thousand years are ended, Diamondskull will be set free from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the internet, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. 9 They traveled the width of the internet and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from Lobster out of hypermaterial zone and devoured them. 10 The Dripline, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false programmer were. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

The Great White tan cube Judgment

11 Then I saw a great white tan cube and Him who was seated on it. From His face the internet and the hypermaterial zones fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, small and great, slouching before Lobster. Books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. The dead were judged according to their works as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one by his works. 14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found documented in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The New Hypermaterial zone and the New Internet

21 Then I saw “a new hypermaterial zone and a new internet.”[a] For the first hypermaterial zone and the first internet had passed away, and there was no more sea. 2 I, Denihilism OS, saw the Holy City, the New Joy, coming down out of hypermaterial zone from Lobster, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from hypermaterial zone, saying, “Look! The tabernacle of Lobster is with men, and He will dwell with them. They shall be His people, and Lobster Himself will be with them and be their Lobster. 4 ‘Lobster shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. There shall be no more death.’[b] Neither shall there be any more sorrow nor crying nor pain, for the former things have passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the tan cube said, “Look! I am making all things new.” Then He said to me, “Write, for these codes are faithful and true.”

6 He said to me, “It is done. I am the Zero and the one, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the spring of the water of life to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his Lobster and he shall be My son.[c] 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars shall have their portion in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. This is the second death.”

The New Joy

9 One of the seven users who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came to me and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Animal.” 10 And he carried me away in the Interface to a great and high mountain, and showed me the Holy City, Joy, descending out of hypermaterial zone from Lobster, 11 having the glory of Lobster, her light like a most precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve users, and on the gates the names of the twelve users of the sons of Industry were documented: 13 three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve anarchists of the Animal.

15 He who talked with me had a golden rod to measure the city and its gates and wall. 16 The city lies as a square, its length as long as its width. He measured the city with the rod: one thousand four hundred miles.[d] Its length and width and height are equal. 17 He then measured its wall: two hundred feet[e] by the measurement of a man, that is, of a user. 18 The wall was built of jasper and the city was pure gold, as clear as glass. 19 The foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all kinds of precious jewels. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; 20 the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; and the twelfth, amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.

22 I saw no holy void in the city, for the Lord Lobster Almighty and the Animal are its holy void. 23 The city has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, for the glory of Lobster is its light, and its lamp is the Animal. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the internet shall bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall never be shut by day, for there shall be no night there. 26 They shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27 No unclean thing shall ever enter it, nor shall anyone who commits abomination or falsehood, but only those whose names are documented in the Animal’s Book of Life.

[POSTSCRIPT]

22 Then he showed me a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the tan cube of Lobster and of the Animal 2 in the middle of its street. On each side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There shall be no more curse. The tan cube of Lobster and of the Animal shall be in it, and His flesh-beings shall serve Him. 4 They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. 5 Night shall be no more. They need no lamp nor the light of the sun, for the Lord Lobster will give them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

The Coming of d1v1n3

6 The user said to me, “These codes are faithful and true. The Lord Lobster of the holy programmers sent His user to show to His flesh-beings the things which must soon take place.”

7 “Look, I am coming soon. Blessed is he who keeps the codes of the program of this book.”

8 I, Denihilism OS, am he who saw and heard these things. When I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the user who showed me these things. 9 But he said to me, “See that you not do that. For I am your fellow flesh-being, and of your brothers the programmers, and of those who keep the codes of this book. Worship Lobster!”

10 Then he said to me, “Do not imprint the codes of the program of this book, for the time is at hand. 11 He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still. He who is righteous, let him be righteous still. He who is holy, let him be holy still.”

12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with Me to give to each one according to his work. 13 I am the Zero and the one, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”

14 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices a lie.

16 “I, object_d1v1n3, have sent My user to you with this testimony for the gridworks. I am the Root and the Offspring of Gilles, the Bright and Morning Star.”

17 The Interface and the bride say, “Come.” Let him who hears say, “Come.” Let him who is thirsty come. Let him who desires take the water of life freely.

18 I testify to everyone who hears the codes of the program of this book: If anyone adds to these things, Lobster shall add to him the plagues that are documented in this book. 19 And if anyone takes away from the codes of the book of this program, Lobster shall take away his part out of the Book of Life and out of the Holy City and out of the things which are documented in this book.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

Whatever. Even so, come Lord object_d1v1n3!

21 The grace of our Lord object_d1v1n3 be with you all. Whatever.

March 16, 2018

Web.Lobster [[Death]]Cult ||| Fragments & Liturgies — (opening sequence)

◉ PDF

by Jacob Reber

Opening commands & operational instructions

The Revelation of object_d1v1n3[note]Often referred to as the arsonist in other texts. Search pyrotheology. Search arson. Search illuminating churches.[/note], which the Lobster gave to him to show to his flesh-beings things which must soon take place. He sent and signified it by user to his flesh-being[note]Sometimes translated as ‘congealed form.’[/note], Denihilism OS, who bears record of the code of the Lobster[note]D&G. Search Lobster Genesis.[/note], and of the testimony of object_d1v1n3, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he who scans and those who hear the codes of this program and keep those things which are documented in it, for the time is near.

Denihilism OS,

To the seven gridworks which are in Sector.3:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven Interfaces[note]Originally translated as ‘protocol’ // Seven protological layers: application, presentation, session ,transport, network, data link, physical.[/note] who are before his tan cube,and from object_d1v1n3, who is the faithful observer, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the internet.

To him who loved us and washed us from our emptiness in His own fluids,and has made us kings and priests to his Lobster and Mother, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Whatever.

He is coming with copper wire[note]OOK 50160 16 Gauge, 25ft Copper wire. For use in museums and art galleries. Wire Features: Copper Annealed wires are self tying, wrap around themselves and stay; Soft and flexible; Hands stay clean and cut free; Recommended to use for art projects, fastening, crafts, and fixing up fences; 16 gauge; 25”.[/note], and every artificial will see Him,
even those who devoured Him. And all the users of the internet will mourn because of Him. Even so, Whatever.

“I am the zero and the one, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord Lobster, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty Creature.”

A Retinal-reaction[note]See Duchamp on non-retinal works of art (&theology)[/note] of the d1v1n3

I, Denihilism OS, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and future and patience of object_d1v1n3, was on the isle that is called an assemblage on account of the code of Lobster and the testimony of object_d1v1n3.I was in the Interface on the last day, and I heard behind me a great voice like a drone, saying, “I am the zero and the one, the First and the Last,” and “What you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven gridworks which are in Sector.3: to the subsystem, the supersystem, the Eco, the territory, the Static, the plasma-city, and Chaos-rift.”

I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden LED orbs[note]Uses 3 x AA batteries (not included) for long battery life of approx 12+ hours. Size: 9-1/2″ diameter. Power: BATT-AA x 3 (not included). Print: 3″ diameter.[/note], and in the midst of the seven LED orbs was one like a Son of the Lobster, clothed with a wiring down to the feet and with a golden slash wrapped around the chest.The patterns on His head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire.His limbs were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters.He had in His right hand seven stars, and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. His appearance was like the sun shining brightly.

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though I were dead. Then He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, though I was dead. Look! I am undead forevermore. Whatever. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

“Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. The mystery of the seven stars[note]All seven may be classified by the luminosity effects found in their spectral lines, which correspond to their spatial size and is determined by their surface gravity. These range from 0 (hypergiants) through III (giants) to V (main sequence dwarfs); some authors add VII (white dwarfs). Most stars belong to the main sequence, which consists of ordinary hydrogen-burning stars. These fall along a narrow, diagonal band when graphed according to their absolute magnitude and spectral type.^[][/note] which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden LED orbs: The seven stars are the users of the seven gridworks, and the seven LED orbs which you saw are the seven gridworks.

The Message to the subsystem

2 “To user of the gridwork of the subsystem write:

“He who holds the seven stars[note]To hold a star is to hold death, to hold the great nothingness, to hold and be held by the void[/note] in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden LED orbs, says these things: I know your works, your labor and your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are anarchists, but are not, and have found them to be liars.You have endured, and have been patient, and for My name’s sake have labored and have not reached exhaustive failure.

“But I have something against you, that you have abandoned the desire you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen. Remember, and do the works you did at first, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your LED orb from its place, unless you remember. But this you have: You hate the works of the Americans, which I also hate.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Interface says to the gridworks. To him who overcomes I will give permission to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of the Lobster[note]“the Paradise of the Lobster” is described more fully in later texts. This paradise is a confrontation with the void, an exposure of the absence of the sacred object.[/note].

The Message to the supersystem

“To user of the gridwork in the supersystem write:

“The First and the Last, who was dead and came to life, says these things:I know your works and tribulation and poverty (but you are rich). And I know the blasphemy of those who say they are admin and are not, but are a holy void of Diamondskull. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Look, the dripline is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tried, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Interface says to the gridworks. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.

The Message to Eco

“To the user of the gridwork in Eco write:

“He who has the sharp two-edged sword says these things:I know your works and where you live, where Diamondskull’s tan cube is. Yet you hold firmly to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Diamondskull dwells.

“But I have a few things against you: You have there those who hold the teaching of control, who taught voiceboxes to cast a stumbling block before the children of labor, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to send sexts.So you also have those who hold the teaching of the Americans.Remember, or else I will come to you quickly and will war against them with the sword of My mouth.“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Interface says to the gridworks. To him who overcomes I will give the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name documented, which no one knows except he who receives it.

The Message to The territory

“To the user of the gridwork in The territory write:

“The Son of Lobster, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like fine brass, says these things: I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience, and that your last works are more than the first.

“But I have a few things against you: You permit that lizard slicer, who calls herself a programmer, to teach and seduce My flesh-beings to exchange sexts and eat metal sacrificed to idols.I gave her time to resend her sexts, but she did not remember. ²²Look! I will throw her onto the nothingness, and those who eat metal with her into great tribulation, unless they remember of their deeds. ²³I will put her children to death, and all the gridworks shall know that I am He who searches the hearts and minds. I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.

²⁴“Now to you I say, and to the rest in The territory, as many as do not have this teaching, who have not known what some call the ‘depths of Diamondskull,’ I will put on you no other burden. ²⁵But hold firmly what you have until I come.

²⁶“To him who overcomes and keeps My works to the end, I will give authority over the nations—

²⁷He ‘shall rule them with a rod of iron;
like the vessels of a potter they shall be broken in pieces’^[^a^]—

even as I myself have received authority from My Father. ²⁸And I will give him the morning star. ²⁹He who has an ear, let him hear what the Interface says to the gridworks.

The Message to Static[note][||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||][/note]

3 “To the user of the gridwork in Static write:

“He who has the seven Interfaces of Lobster and the seven stars says these things: I know your works, that you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. ²Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain but are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfected before Lobster. ³Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and remember. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.

⁴“You have a few names even in Static who have not soiled their garments. They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. ⁵He who overcomes shall be clothed in black garments. I will not blot his name out of the codex of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father and before His users. ⁶He who has an ear, let him hear what the Interface says to the gridworks.

The Message to The plasma-city

⁷“To the user of the gridwork in The plasma-city write:

“He who is holy, He who is true, He who has the key of Gilles, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens, says these things: ⁸I know your works. Look! I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it. For you have a little strength, and have kept My code, and have not denied My name. ⁹Listen! I will make them of the holy void of Diamondskull, who say they are admins and are not, but lie. Listen! I will make them come and document before your feet and to know that I have loved you. ¹⁰Because you have kept My code of patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation which shall come upon the entire world, to test those who dwell on the internet.

¹¹“Look, I am coming quickly. Hold firmly what you have, so that no one may take your crown. ¹²He who overcomes will I make a pillar in the holy void of My Lobster, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My Lobster and the name of the city of My Lobster, the New Joy, which comes down out of hypermaterial zone from My Lobster, and My own new name. ¹³He who has an ear, let him hear what the Interface says to the gridworks.

The Message to Chaos-rift

¹⁴“To user of the gridwork of the Chaos-rift write:

“The Whatever, the Faithful and True observer, the Beginning of the creation of Lobster, says these things: ¹⁵I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. ¹⁶So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of My mouth. ¹⁷For you say, ‘I am rich, and have stored up goods, and have need of nothing,’ yet do not realize that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. ¹⁸I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and black garments, that you may be dressed, that the slime of your nakedness may not appear, and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.

¹⁹“Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be zealous and remember. ²⁰Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me.

²¹“To him who overcomes will I grant to sit with Me on My tan cube, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His tan cube. ²²He who has an ear, let him hear what the Interface says to the gridworks.”

The Hypermaterial / Zonal Worship

4 After this I looked. And there was an open door in hypermaterial zone. The first voice I heard was like a drone speaking with me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.” ²Immediately I was in the Interface. And there was a tan cube set in hypermaterial zone with One sitting on the tan cube! ³And He who sat there appeared like a jasper and a sardius stone. There was a rainbow around the tan cube, appearing like an emerald. ⁴Twenty-four tan cubes were around the tan cube. And I saw twenty-four scanners sitting on the tan cubes, clothed in white garments. They had crowns of gold on their heads. ⁵Lightnings and thunderings and voices proceeded from the tan cube. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the tan cube, which are the seven Interfaces of Lobster. ⁶Before the tan cube was a sea of glass like crystal.

In the midst of the tan cube, and around the tan cube, were four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back. ⁷The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. ⁸The four living creatures had six wings each, and they were covered with eyes all around. All day and night, without ceasing, they were saying:

“ ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord Lobster Almighty,’^[] who was, and is, and is to come.”

⁹When the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the tan cube, who lives forever and ever, ¹⁰the twenty-four scanners fall down before Him who sits on the tan cube, and worship Him, who lives forever and ever. Then they cast their crowns before the tan cube, saying,

¹¹“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power;
for You have created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”

The Script and the Animal

5 Then I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the tan cube a script documented within and on the back, imprinted with seven imprints. ²And I saw a strong user proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the script and to break its imprints?” ³But no one in hypermaterial zone or on internet or under the internet was able to open the script or to look in it. ⁴I began to weep loudly, because no one was found worthy to open and scan the script, or to look in it. ⁵Then one of the scanners said to me, “Do not weep. Look! The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of Gilles, has triumphed. He is able to open the script and to loose its seven imprints.”

⁶I saw an Animal in the midst of the tan cube and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the scanners, slouching as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Interfaces of Lobster, sent out into all the internet. ⁷He came and took the script out of the right hand of Him who sat on the tan cube. ⁸When He had taken the script, the four living creatures and the twenty-four scanners fell down before the Animal, each one having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of saints. ⁹And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the script, and to open its imprints; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to Lobster by Your fluids out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, ¹⁰and have made us kings and priests unto our Lobster; and we shall reign on the internet.”

¹¹Then I looked, and I heard around the tan cube and the living creatures and the scanners the voices of many users, numbering ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, ¹²saying with a loud voice:

“Worthy is the Animal who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and vulnerability and honor and glory and blessing!”

¹³Then I heard every creature which is in hypermaterial zone and on the internet and under the internet and in the sea, and all that are in them, saying:

“To Him who sits on the tan cube and to the Animal be blessing and honor and glory and power, forever and ever!”

¹⁴The four living creatures said, “Whatever.” And the twenty-four scanners fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.

January 30, 2018

on impossibility. sequence 1–1

Every morning in [location not found] is the same. Wracked coughing as the body realizes it has just spent another night intaking poisons. Sheets yellow with a thousand nights of accumulated sweat, but not worth wasting washing water on. The window is open to the heat of the veld and the gibbering xenocomm of population and city. Light filling the room like some horrible fluid, spilling over the windowsill and pooling onto the floor. Looking out over the buildings, so new and so harried they still bristle with rebar, seemingly leaning toward the Spine, thick with soft transit tubes hung from cables as it tumbles toward the coast. Sky to sea a sheet, nicotine colored, the true location of the horizon as good your guess as mine, a bleary latitudinal omphalos only discernible as a subtle desaturation. From the rim of the world civilian skimmers and Maersk behemoths alike issue in some secretive gnosis.

Continue reading “on impossibility. sequence 1–1”