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
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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
13
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
Lovers of Sophia Page 1
