Lovers of Sophia Read online

  lovers

  of

  sophia

  jason rez a jorjani

  manticore press

  Lovers of Sophia

  Jason Reza Jorjani

  © Manticore Press, 2017

  All rights reserved, no section of this book may be utilized without permission, including electronic reproductions without the permission of the author and publisher. Published in Australia.

  BIC Classification:

  HPX (Popular Philosophy), HPCA (Western Philosophy: Ancient), HRAB

  (Philosophy of Religion), HPJ (Metaphysics & Ontology), HRQC (Esoteric).

  978-0-9945958-8-1

  m a n t i c o r e p r e s s

  www.manticorepress.net

  This book is dedicated to my best student,

  my dear friend, and fel ow Assassin,

  Selwyn Griffith.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction 9

  an introductory lecture on ethics

  16

  the

  pharmakon

  artist

  27

  building the theater of being

  81

  against

  perennial

  philosophy

  105

  verse

  4:34

  118

  a critique of shiite esotericism

  132

  spinoza,

  the

  untimely

  one

  146

  aliens and the moral law

  167

  serpent power of the superman

  197

  paranormal

  phenomenology

  216

  trial

  goddess

  250

  wittgenstein’s

  incoherent

  ethics

  317

  black

  sunrise

  340

  prisoners of property and propriety

  412

  free will vs. logical determinism

  432

  rewriting

  god’s

  plan

  445

  changing

  destiny 451

  the

  tao

  of

  bruce

  lee

  467

  philosophy,

  science,

  and

  art

  480

  gotham

  guardian 494

  Bibliography 508

  Index 516

  “Nothing is true; everything is permitted.”

  – Hassan Sabbah, Medieval Iran

  “Hassan Sabbah is the only spiritual teacher with anything to

  say in the Space Age.”

  – William Burroughs, Postmodern America

  INTRODUCTION

  This mammoth volume is a collection of twenty distinct

  philosophical reflections written over the course of a

  decade. Most of them are essays, some almost of book

  length. Others would be better described as papers. A few

  are well structured notes. There is also one lecture. A magnum opus

  like Prometheus and Atlas does not emerge from out of a vacuum, and an alternative title to these collected works could have been

  “The Path to Prometheus and Atlas.” While there are a few pieces that postdate not only that book but also World State of Emergency, most of the texts included here represent the formative phase of my

  thought. Consequently, concepts such as “the spectral revolution”

  and “mercurial hermeneutics” are original y developed in these

  essays.

  In addition to revealing the context for the genesis of specific

  concepts that I have developed, these reflections also have certain

  stylistic features and central concerns that, when taken together

  with my two published books, make it possible to discern the key

  characteristics of my philosophical standpoint. For example, I reject

  any subdivision of Philosophy into distinct and specialized fields

  such as Ontology, Epistemology, Aesthetics, Ethics, and Politics.

  The main reason that I have included “An Introductory Lecture

  on Ethics” is because it exemplifies my integral conception of what

  it means to philosophize. From the essay, “Philosophy, Science,

  and Art” it becomes clear that beyond a rejection of specialization

  within Philosophy, I go so far as to argue against any fundamental

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  lovers of sophia

  differentiation of Philosophy from the arts and sciences. It is my

  contention that philosophers (such as Aristotle and Descartes)

  determine the deep structure of successive scientific paradigms,

  at least at their inception, and that philosophical thought can take

  place in an artistic and literary medium. This is why several of the

  pieces here are interpretations of literary or cinematic works, such

  as The Trial of Franz Kafka, or two films based on the writings of Philip K. Dick. In my view, aesthetic intuition is a necessary (but not a sufficient) condition for being a philosopher.

  While on the subject of what it means to be a philosopher, let

  me point out that it is only with the publication of these essays

  that I reconcile myself to making the claim that I am one. Thus

  far I have described myself only as “an aspiring philosopher”. In

  addition to the aforementioned “Introductory Lecture on Ethics”

  and reflection on the relationship between “Philosophy, Science,

  and Art”, my diatribe “Against Perennial Philosophy” makes it quite

  clear that I do not recognize the majority of academics in the field

  of Philosophy as “philosophers” even though they disrespect the

  great thinkers of the past by referring to themselves as that. “Against Perennial Philosophy” actual y disqualifies the majority of so-called

  “philosophers” in the Canon as wel , and it suggests that there has

  hardly been any philosophy worthy of the name outside of the Indo-

  European civilizations (including Buddhist Asia).

  A philosopher is someone whose thought engages with

  fundamental questions concerning Truth, Beauty, and Justice, in

  a way that leads to the discovery of concepts with a potential to

  catalyze scientific and political revolutions. The philosopher’s ethics and politics must be grounded on his ontology and epistemology,

  and, as I have already suggested, this integral thought has to be

  guided by an aesthetic intuition comparable to that of the most

  extraordinary geniuses in literature and the arts. This is a definition that disqualifies scientists as innovative as Khayyam, Galileo, and

  Newton, political theorists like Cicero, Rousseau, and Strauss, or

  artists such as Ferdowsi, Dostoyevsky, and Kubrick. That I reflect

  philosophical y on the brilliant works of Franz Kafka and Philip

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  jason reza jorjani

  K. Dick, does not mean that I consider them philosophers. On

  this definition, there are probably not many more than two dozen

  philosophers known to recorded history. (This qualifier “recorded

  history” is important since I am certain that we have lost a great deal of legitimate philosophy to vicissitudes such as the burning of the

  Library of Alexandria or the Islamic Conquests of Iran and India.)

&nb
sp; On account of the development of at least four original concepts thus

  far, namely the “spectral revolution” and “mercurial hermeneutics”

  in Prometheus and Atlas, the concept of a “world state of emergency”

  in the book by that name, and the terrifying idea of a “destructive

  departure in worldview warfare” from the essay “Black Sunrise”

  that appears in this volume, I now see myself as (just barely) having

  joined the ranks of these fellow lovers of Sophia.

  The backbone of this collection is constituted of critical, and in

  some cases iconoclastic, contemplation of the work of my predecessors

  in the Canon: Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche,

  James, and Wittgenstein. The interpretation of Plato ventured in “The

  Pharmakon Artist” and that of Aristotle in “Building the Theater of

  Being” are total y original and extremely destabilizing to received

  tradition. The essay on Hegel’s “Paranormal Phenomenology”, which

  also adopts and adapts certain ideas from Maurice Merleau-Ponty,

  is the point of origin for the concept of “mercurial hermeneutics”

  further developed in Prometheus and Atlas.

  But it is by no means the case that these philosophical reflections

  are limited to the Western Canon. Rather, one of the distinguishing

  characteristics of Prometheus and Atlas as well as World State of Emergency is the cosmopolitan scope of my thought. My “Critique of Shiite Esotericism” and exegesis of “Verse 4:34” from the Quran, are incisive philosophical critiques of Islam. They were instrumental

  scholarly exercises on the way to the anti-Islamic argument of

  World State of Emergency. Essays like “Serpent Power of the

  Superman”, where I argue that Hindu Tantra is more Nietzschean

  than Nietzsche, reaffirm that I recognize no distinction between

  ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ philosophy. Although most of what could

  be called philosophical thought in the East is Indo-European or

  11

  lovers of sophia

  Āryan in origin, my “Notes on the Tao of Bruce Lee” suggest that

  Āryan traditions like Buddhism can be augmented by assimilating

  elements of non-Āryan traditions such as Taoism. As I argued in

  both Prometheus and Atlas and World State of Emergency, I see this innovatively evolving cosmopolitan humanism as one of the most

  distinctive qualities of the Indo-European community. Bruce Lee is

  Āryan, not Chinese – and I say that mainly on account of the form

  of his thought, rather than his half-German genetic inheritance or

  his upbringing in the British colonial culture of Hong Kong.

  By the way, as “Trial Goddess” strongly suggests, I also consider

  Franz Kafka to be an Āryan. Fragmentary as his writings may be,

  in my view Kafka is the peak of German literature – or rather the

  cathedral gloom of its most horrifyingly abyssal depth. How integral

  Jews have been to defining the most Āryan of attitudes and ideas in

  the Western Canon is also clear from the overwhelming influence

  of Baruch Spinoza on the development of the core structure of

  Nietzsche’s thought, which I trace in the essay, “Spinoza, the

  Untimely One.” Nietzsche, the progenitor of the Āryan Superman,

  himself recognized the Jews as a world-historical community

  who, as compared to their small numbers, have demonstrated an

  incomparable genius in every field of human endeavor, producing

  some of the most brilliant philosophers, scientists, artists, and mystics.

  To the horror of those who consider cosmopolitan Jews to

  be nothing other than crafters of corrupting golem, in the essay

  “Prisoners of Property and Propriety” I argue that Karl Marx was a

  devotee of Prometheus – the most Āryan of all divinities. Moreover,

  it is in this essay on Marx and other radical Marxists that I first

  developed the concept of the “spectral revolution” as early as 2010.

  I synthesized Prometheus and Atlas from this essay with Deleuze’s

  idea of conceptual personae in “Philosophy, Science, and Art”

  and Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of spectrality as I interpret

  it in “Paranormal Phenomenology”, in order to produce the core

  structure of my magnum opus. Reflecting on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s

  concept of language games was also instrumental to arriving at the

  idea of “worlds at war over Earth” in Prometheus and Atlas.

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  jason reza jorjani

  My thinking defies all binaries. More than that – it mocks them.

  Those who know how to read esoterical y, as I know how to write

  esoterical y, ought to have discerned that in Prometheus and Atlas.

  Hermes or Mercury, the Trickster, is not the book’s vil ain. Like

  the figure of The Joker in the essay “Gotham Guardian”, he (or she,

  another false binary) is an agent of chaos and a de-structuring force

  required for any new world order. This is what the Alt-Right never

  understood about Pepe, the incarnation of the ancient Egyptian god

  Kek. Of all the figures in the leadership of the Alt-Right, I was Kek’s most faithful emissary. Richard Spencer and Daniel Friberg are just

  the devil’s playthings.

  This brings me to “Black Sunrise”, which is by far the most

  disturbing essay in this collection and the only one in which I

  develop a new concept beyond those of my first two books. While

  a superficial reading might leave one with the impression that this

  is a Fascist manifesto, those who are attentive will find no explicit

  endorsement. Even more thoughtful people would recognize that

  the text carries out what occultists call “revelation of the method.”

  The method in question is the means whereby a global Fascist

  state could be established on this planet, well within this century.

  I conceptualize this method as “destructive departure in worldview

  warfare” – a loose translation from the much more evocative German

  phrase that I coined to express this idea: Abbauende Aufbruch ins

  Weltanschauungskrieg. This is not a hypothetical idea.

  It is, in practice, the most radical form of psychological warfare

  imaginable. It presupposes an anarchical existential ontology

  on the basis of which one can captivate entire societies through

  the manipulation of false binaries that form the fabric of their

  weltanschauung. The societies are broken down and then re-

  conquered by a breakaway civilization, in comparison to which

  the target societies are simulacra with programmable mytho-

  poetic variables. I disclose the modus operandi of this occulted

  Fascist breakaway civilization. But what is more interesting, from

  a philosophical standpoint, is the way in which this disclosure

  serves as the context for an exploration of some radical ideas about

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  lovers of sophia

  the nature of space-time and the possible non-linearity of human

  history reaching all the way back to the antediluvian civilization of

  Atlantis.

  These questions about Time, and specifical y whether it is possible

  for the future to re-write the past, are at the heart of the debate over free will and determinism. One of the oldest philosophical debates,

  it is central to at least four of the
pieces in this book: “Free Will vs.

  Logical Determinism”, “Rewriting God’s Plan”, “Changing Destiny”,

  and “An Introductory Lecture on Ethics.” Readers who are familiar

  with Prometheus and Atlas will know that my argument for Free Wil , which draws heavily on the metaphysics of William James, also

  featured prominently in that text. Consequently, this concern with

  the metaphysical preconditions of human freedom, conscientious

  action, and genuine creativity can rightly be seen as one of the most

  defining characteristics of my thought. These four essays on free will should leave no doubt that I am, above al , a freedom fighter. It is

  because, like Zarathustra and Buddha before me, I recognize that

  superhuman gods are real but unjust and deceptively manipulative

  that I reject democracy as a political form that is capable of protecting the creative power of the precious individual genius. Democracies

  will always be instruments of these master manipulators, whether

  through their direct power over the psyche of the ignorant mob or

  through their dealings with oligarchs who hide behind the façade

  of democracy in order to outlast other more forthright forms of

  tyranny.

  My philosophical project ultimately represents a rebellion

  against all forms of tyranny, including tyranny of the majority. Its

  goal is the highest human self-consciousness and the most creative

  self-determination. One reason that this has not been understood is

  that my detractors, and those who have defamed me, are not capable

  of seeing past their own noses. At its deepest and most esoteric level, my thought, like that of Plato or Nietzsche, is scaled to thousands of years of human and post-human evolution. People who think that

  John Rawls is a philosopher and waste their time writing about him

  are ants laboring in the shadow of my obelisk. What is written in

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  jason reza jorjani

  these pages is not for them. It is for you, lovers of Sophia – all of

  you, across the ages into the distant future, into the lighthouses of a galactic Alexandria. From Zarathustra onwards, we are all flames of

  the same undying cosmic fire. We are the glowing forge of futures

  past.

  15

  AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON

  ETHICS

  At the risk of stating the obvious, let me begin by asking

  you to recognize that whatever the specific content of any