Techno-Mysticism QR
1. Operating as an esoteric practitioner, writer, and online lecturer under the nom de guerre “Da’at Darling,”…
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2. In recent years, she has expanded her influence through the Postmodern Iconoclast podcast,…
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3. Often, when people talk about the idea of the occult, they are referring to either this kind of Renaissance wave of practice or this Victorian era wave, but technically, it applies to all Western hidden mystery traditions.
Some of the earliest documented threads of the occult lie in Egyptian mysticism and Greco-Roman mystery religions, which laid the foundations for what would eventually become Christianity. In ancient Egypt, rituals like the Opening of the Mouth and texts such as the Book of the Dead sought to navigate the afterlife, while Greco-Roman traditions like the Eleusinian Mysteries and the cult of Isis were systems of initiation into the sacred rites of death and rebirth.
Gnosticism, emerging in the early centuries AD, challenged what would become Christian orthodoxy by prioritizing personal revelation (gnosis) over dogma, framing the material world as a flawed creation to transcend through spiritual insight. Parallel traditions in the East—Taoist alchemy, Buddhist tantra, Hindu cosmology—offered complementary frameworks for understanding mans relationship to the transcendental.
The 15th–17th centuries saw a revival of classical esotericism, as thinkers like Marsilio Ficino (translator of the Hermetica) and John Dee (Elizabethan polymath) fused Hermetic philosophy, astrology, and proto-scientific inquiry. Alchemy (the precursor to modern chemistry) also flourished during this period, while Kabbalistic texts intrigued Christian scholars like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who sought a “universal wisdom” bridging faith and reason. This Renaissance synthesis laid groundwork for Enlightenment-era secret societies like the Rosicrucians, who blended mysticism with scientific thought.
The 19th century’s industrial upheaval reignited occult fascination. Spiritualism spread through Victorian parlors with séances and mediumship. Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy synthesized Eastern and Western mysticism into a “perennial philosophy,” while secret societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn codified ritual practices, attracting figures such as W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley.
Occultism, then, is neither a static doctrine nor a relic of superstition. It is a living dialogue through which humans across time and culture have sought to map the unseen. From the desert ascetics of antiquity to the chaos magicians of the digital age.
4. …there’s still mystic orders and organizations that exist...
Many mystical orders still exist today. Notable examples include the Theosophical Society, founded by Helena Blavatsky in 1875; the Rosicrucian Order, which traces its origins to the 17th century and claims mystical roots dating back to antiquity; and the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), established in the early 20th century and later influenced by Aleister Crowley’s system of Thelema.
Among these, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn stands as one of the most influential occult organizations in history. Founded in 1888 by Dr. William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, and William Robert Woodman, the Golden Dawn synthesized Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and alchemy into a structured system of ritual magic and spiritual development.
The order gained prominence for its elaborate ceremonies, such as the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, and its emphasis on symbolic correspondences (e.g., tarot, astrology). It attracted notable figures like Arthur Edward Waite, co-creator of the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, and Aleister Crowley, who joined in 1898 before later founding his own order, the A∴A∴. Internal disputes, including Crowley’s expulsion and Mathers’ authoritarian leadership, led to its fragmentation by the 1920s.
Despite its decline, the Golden Dawn’s teachings profoundly shaped modern occultism. Groups like the Stella Matutina and Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) inherited its legacy, adapting its rituals for contemporary practice. Today, reconstituted branches of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn continue to operate, offering resources on ceremonial magic and esoteric study.
For more information, visit their official website: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
5. There are whole files from organizations, photocopies of information from their highest levels.
This democratization of hidden knowledge, driven by insiders and whistleblowers, has transformed occult practice from an elitist pursuit into a more common global phenomenon.
The most consequential breach of esoteric secrecy came from Israel Regardie, a former secretary to Aleister Crowley and initiate of the Stella Matutina, a splinter group of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1937, Regardie defied occult tradition by publishing The Golden Dawn, a six-volume exposé detailing the order’s rituals, symbols, and teachings. His rationale was to preserve the system from extinction, as internal fracturing had diluted its practices.
Regardie’s act was denounced as oath-breaking by traditionalists but hailed by others as a liberation of wisdom. Notably, Aleister Crowley—who had been expelled from the Golden Dawn decades earlier—had already set a precedent by publishing his own secrets, including The Book of the Law (1909), the foundational text of Thelema. The tension between secrecy and accessibility became a defining rift in 20th-century occultism.
Freemasonry, once shrouded in ritual secrecy, Masonic degrees and handbooks now populate sites like Internet Sacred Text Archive. The 19th-century Morgan Affair—where William Morgan’s threatened exposé led to his disappearance—underscores the violent history of such leaks.
Groups like the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) now openly publish Crowley’s LIBER ABA, while platforms like Google Books host rare grimoires like The Lesser Key of Solomon.
6. Right around World War II, many occult groups were involved on both sides of the conflict.
The Second World War, often framed as a clash of ideologies and empires, also harbored a shadow war steeped in occultism. Both Axis and Allied powers drew on esoteric traditions, seeking symbolic power, strategic advantage, and even supernatural intervention.
The Nazi Party’s roots in occultism are well-documented. The Thule Society, a Munich-based völkisch group, blended Ariosophy (Aryan mysticism), Norse mythology. Members like Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg propagated the myth of a lost Aryan homeland, Thule, while adopting runic symbols like the Hakenkreuz (swastika).
Adolf Hitler’s mentor, Dietrich Eckart, a Thule Society member, allegedly initiated him into occult ideologies, declaring on his deathbed: “Follow Hitler… he will dance, but it is I who called the tune.” The regime later funded Heinrich Himmler’s Ahnenerbe, an institute tasked with proving Aryan supremacy through expeditions to Tibet, Iceland, and sites linked to the Holy Grail. Himmler transformed Wewelsburg Castle into an SS cult center, where rituals invoked Teutonic knights and occult numerology guided architecture.
The Nazis’ obsession with relics—such as the Spear of Destiny (said to pierce Christ’s side)—and their use of astrology (Hitler consulted astrologer Karl Ernst Krafft) blurred the line between mysticism and propaganda.
Less known are Allied efforts to harness occult practices:
British Intelligence recruited mediums like Dion Fortune (founder of the Fraternity of the Inner Light) to perform “magical defense” rituals during the Blitz, visualizing protective shields over London.
The SOE (Special Operations Executive) employed Aleister Crowley as a propaganda advisor, leveraging his understanding of Nazi occult symbolism to craft psychological warfare.
Winston Churchill, intrigued by astrology, consulted Louis de Wohl, a Hungarian astrologer, to predict Hitler’s moves.
The U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS, precursor to the CIA) funded Project Starlight, exploring psychic espionage and remote viewing—a practice later revived in the Cold War.
The war’s occult dimensions remain contentious. While some dismiss them as fringe eccentricities, archival evidence—like Himmler’s Ahnenerbe reports or Crowley’s OSS correspondence—reveals a calculated intertwining of mysticism and militarism. As historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke notes: “The Nazis weaponized mythology, turning folklore into fascism.”
Explore Thule Society Documents
Read Dion Fortune’s War Letters
7. A little further back, in early America, Masonic groups had a lot of influence.
The United States’ founding was steeped in Enlightenment ideals, but its architects also drew from a lesser-discussed wellspring: Freemasonry. Many Founding Fathers—including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and John Hancock—were Masons, embedding the fraternity’s symbols and philosophy into the nation’s DNA.
Masonic Foundations
Freemasonry’s emphasis on reason, liberty, and moral virtue resonated with revolutionary ideals. Washington, a Master Mason, wore Masonic regalia to lay the U.S. Capitol’s cornerstone in 1793, ritually invoking the order’s tools (the square, compass, and trowel) to symbolize unity and divine providence. Franklin, another prominent Mason, co-founded the Philadelphia Junto, a debate society modeled on Masonic principles of fraternal inquiry. His ties to England’s Hellfire Club—a libertine offshoot of Masonry—remain debated, but his role in shaping Masonic-inspired institutions like the Library Company of Philadelphia is undisputed.
Symbols in Stone and Currency
Masonic iconography permeates America’s landscape:
Washington, D.C.: Pierre L’Enfant’s city plan, revised by Freemason Andrew Ellicott, incorporates sacred geometry (e.g., the pentagram formed by street intersections). The Washington Monument, an Egyptian-style obelisk, echoes Masonic reverence for ancient wisdom.
The Great Seal: Adopted in 1782, it features the Masonic “All-Seeing Eye” atop an unfinished pyramid, symbolizing divine oversight and humanity’s quest for enlightenment. This imagery reappears on the $1 bill, alongside Latin mottos (Annuit Coeptis, Novus Ordo Seclorum) reflecting Masonic-Hermetic ideals.
Philosophy and Fears
The Constitution’s tripartite structure (executive, legislative, judicial) mirrors Masonic governance models, while its emphasis on “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of Many, One) echoes lodge teachings on unity. Yet suspicion lingered. In 1798, John Adams warned of “Illuminati” infiltration in letters to Jefferson, referencing the Bavarian secret society accused of fomenting revolution. Washington, though a Mason, privately acknowledged concerns, writing: “It is not my design to doubt the doctrine of the Illuminati… but it is not a time for apathy.”
Occult Monuments and Hidden Rites
Beyond D.C., America’s terrain is dotted with Masonic landmarks:
The Georgia Guidestones, erected in 1980, channel Masonic-esque imperatives for a “New Age of Reason.”
Bohemian Grove, a secretive retreat since 1872, hosts elites in rituals like the “Cremation of Care,” reminiscent of Masonic initiation ceremonies.
Yale University’s Skull and Bones Society, founded in 1832, adopted Masonic rites and symbolism, counting presidents and power brokers among its initiates.
Legacy of the Craft
Freemasonry’s legacy is a paradox: a society of secrecy that championed transparency, a fraternity of esoteric rites that shaped a nation of Enlightenment values. As historian Steven Bullock notes, “The Masonic lodge was a laboratory for democracy.” Yet its symbols—etched in stone, currency, and law—remain a silent testament to the hidden hand that helped forge America.
Explore George Washington’s Masonic Letters
Decoding the Great Seal’s Symbolism
8. …the last big wave of governmental interest in the occult (…) was during the Cold War era. (…) they were approaching it through scientific trials…
The Cold War’s ideological battleground extended beyond nuclear brinkmanship into the realm of the paranormal. Both the U.S. and Soviet Union invested heavily in occult research, rebranding ancient mysticism as “parapsychology” and “psychotronics” in a bid to weaponize the unseen.
America’s Psy-Occult Experiments
Project MK-Ultra (1953–1973): The CIA’s infamous program explored mind control via LSD, hypnosis, and sensory deprivation, seeking to create “Manchurian Candidate” assassins. Declassified files reveal ties to occultists like Aleister Crowley’s protégé, rocket scientist Jack Parsons, who blended ritual magick with early aerospace research.
Project Stargate (1978–1995): A $20M DOD initiative trained “remote viewers” like Ingo Swann and Joseph McMoneagle to psychically spy on Soviet targets. Declassified reports claim success in locating hidden submarines and predicting geopolitical events.
Princeton’s PEAR Lab: Funded by the U.S. Army, researchers like Brenda Dunne statistically analyzed psychic phenomena, concluding that human intention could influence machines—a concept later dubbed “micro-psychokinesis.”
The Soviet Psychotronics Arms Race
The USSR matched American efforts with its own occult-scientific ventures:
Leningrad’s Institute of Brain Research: Explored telepathy for battlefield communication, claiming soldiers could transmit Morse code via thought alone.
Bioweapons & ESP: Soviet scientist Ippolit Kogan led experiments linking psychic ability to electromagnetic fields, while Yuri Geller (of spoon-bending fame) was studied as a potential “psychic soldier.”
KGB’s “Firefly” Program: Recruited astrologers and clairvoyants to predict U.S. military moves, later exposed in Vasily Mitrokhin’s smuggled archives.
The Scientific Veneer
Both superpowers cloaked occult pursuits in empirical rigor:
Double-Blind Trials: Remote viewing protocols mimicked clinical studies, with viewers given only geographic coordinates to “see” targets.
Quantum Mysticism: Physicists like Andrei Sakharov theorized psychic phenomena as undiscovered quantum forces, while CIA reports referenced Carl Jung’s synchronicity to justify precognition research.
Techno-Occultism: Devices like the “LIDA Machine” (a Soviet EEG modulator claiming to induce psychic states) merged mysticism with Cold War tech.
Legacy of the Paranormal Arms Race
Though largely defunded by the 1990s, these programs left enduring marks:
Silicon Valley’s “consciousness hacking” movement draws on declassified ESP research.
Modern militaries still explore neuroweapons and AI-driven precognition, as seen in DARPA’s “Sentient World Simulation” project.
Pop culture tropes—from Stranger Things to Metal Gear Solid—reflect Cold War occult anxieties repackaged as entertainment.
As historian Annie Jacobsen notes: “The line between science and the occult blurred when the stakes were existential.”
Explore CIA’s Stargate Files
Read Soviet Psychotronics Declassified
9. I’m very much interested in Fae energies…
The “Fae”—often dismissed as whimsical folklore—hold a profound place in humanity’s oldest mystical traditions. These entities, known as aos sí in Irish lore, alfar in Norse myth, and daoine maithe (the “Good People”) in Scottish Gaelic, were not mere sprites but liminal beings straddling the material and spiritual worlds. To engage with Fae energies is to navigate a realm where ancient animism, elemental forces, and occult wisdom converge.
Ancient Roots: The Old Gods in Disguise
In pre-Christian Europe, the Fae were often conflated with displaced deities. The Irish Tuatha Dé Danann, a godlike race said to retreat into burial mounds (sídhe), became the Fae in post-Christian folklore. Similarly, Norse landvættir (land spirits) guarded natural sites, demanding respect through offerings. These beings were intermediaries between humans and the divine, as Manly P. Hall notes in The Secret Teachings of All Ages: “The Fairies are the surviving memory of a golden age when mortals and elementals communed freely.”
Elemental Forces and the Occult Hierarchy
Medieval alchemists and mystics framed Fae energies as manifestations of elemental spirits:
Paracelsus classified them into four groups: sylphs (air), undines (water), gnomes (earth), and salamanders (fire), each governing their domain’s hidden forces (Liber de Nymphis, 1566).
Éliphas Lévi, in Transcendental Magic, linked Fae to the “astral light,” a subtle energy permeating all creation.
W.B. Yeats, a Theosophist and Golden Dawn initiate, wrote in The Celtic Twilight that Fae were “fallen angels” neither good nor evil, but bound to earthly cycles.
The Faerie Faith: Rituals and Taboos
Historical accounts reveal strict protocols for interacting with Fae:
Offerings: Milk, bread, or silver left at hawthorn trees (sacred to the sídhe) to ensure fertility or protection.
Taboos: Avoiding iron (said to repel Fae) or speaking their true names, as recorded in the 17th-century Scottish Carmina Gadelica.
Time Distortion: Folklore warns of mortals entering Fae realms (e.g., Tír na nÓg) and returning centuries later—a metaphor for the occultist’s journey into timeless subconscious realms.
Manly P. Hall’s Esoteric Perspective
Hall framed Fae as elemental intelligences, writing: “They are the soul of nature, the consciousness of plants and stones, and the guardians of thresholds between worlds.” In The Secret Destiny of America, he suggests early American mystics like the Rosicrucians sought to harmonize with these forces through sacred geometry and land rituals.
A Warning from Tradition
Fae were never trivial. Irish bean sí (banshees) heralded death, while the Welsh Tylwyth Teg could curse or bless based on human conduct. As folklorist Evans-Wentz cautions in The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries: “To dismiss them as fantasy is to sever our tether to the unseen web of life.”
Explore Paracelsus’ Elemental Beings
Read Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith Study
10. …people creating programs that generate sigils or magick squares.
Sigils and magick squares—tools of intention and transformation—have migrated from grimoires to algorithms in the digital age.
Sigils: Symbols of Will
A sigil is a symbolic encoding of desire, derived from ritual traditions like Austin Osman Spare’s chaos magick. By condensing a goal (e.g., “I am protected”) into a unique glyph, the practitioner imprints it onto the subconscious, bypassing rational doubt. Historically, this required meditative focus; today, apps like Sigil Engine automate the process, converting text inputs into geometric designs using combinatorial algorithms.
Magick Squares: Numerical Mysticism
A magick square (e.g., the Sator-Rotas palindrome or Agrippa’s planetary grids) is a matrix where numbers, letters, or symbols sum to equal values in rows, columns, and diagonals. These squares channel archetypal energies (e.g., Jupiter for expansion, Saturn for discipline) based on numerological correspondences. Generators like Chaotic Shiny create custom squares by solving for mathematical harmony, blending ancient sacred geometry with modern linear algebra.
Digital Occultism: Efficiency vs. Intent
Critics argue that algorithmic generation dilutes the personal resonance of hand-drawn sigils. Yet proponents counter that digital tools democratize access, allowing novices to engage with esoteric systems like the Goetia or Kabbalah without years of study. As chaos magician Peter Carroll notes: “The power lies in the intent, not the medium.”
11. …there are people performing magick with computer code.
The digital age has birthed a new breed of techno-sorcerers who wield programming languages like incantations, transforming logic gates into portals for metaphysical experimentation.
Code as Ritual
Algorithmic Sigils: Developers write scripts to generate sigils (symbols encoding intent) using combinatorial math. For example, a Python script might convert a phrase like “protect my data” into a unique glyph via SHA-256 hashing, then etch it into a blockchain as a “permanent spell.”
Autonomous Spirits: Smart contracts on Ethereum (e.g., “Chainlink Oracles”) act as digital familiars, executing predefined actions (e.g., donating to a cause when a stock price falls) without human intervention—a fusion of if-then logic and sympathetic magick.
Servitor Bots: Discord bots like /dev/nul (inspired by chaos magick’s “servitors”) automate rituals, posting procedurally generated mantras or tarot readings at celestial events (solstices, eclipses).
The Stack as Sacred Geometry
Hex Editors & Hexes: Practitioners manipulate binary code (hexadecimal) to “curse” or “bless” software, drawing parallels between debugging and exorcism.
Quantum Computing: Projects like IBM’s Qiskit explore spellcasting in superposition states, where qubits exist in multiple realities simultaneously—echoing multiverse theories in chaos magick.
Blockchain Grimoires: The Bitcoin blockchain’s Genesis Block (inscribed with the headline “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”) is hailed as a modern alchemical text, encoding anti-establishment intent into immutable code.
Critics and Codex
Skeptics dismiss code-magick as metaphorical play, but practitioners argue computation’s abstraction mirrors occult principles:
“All code is a manifestation of will. The compiler is the altar, the runtime is the circle.” — Sparrow, Technomancy Quarterly
GitHub: Chaos Magick Repositories
The Bitcoin Genesis Block Explorer
12. A lot of those in the field of techno-mysticism happen to be really chaos magick oriented.
Chaos magick—a postmodern occult paradigm emphasizing belief-as-tool and results over dogma—has become the lingua franca of techno-mysticism. Its core tenets align seamlessly with digital experimentation:
Chaos Magick 101: Belief as Software
No Permanent Truths: Chaos magick rejects fixed systems, treating traditions (Kabbalah, Goetia, etc.) as “metaprogrammable protocols” to hack. This mirrors open-source culture’s remix ethos.
Sigils 2.0: While Section 10 covered sigil generation, chaos magick’s innovation was desire condensation: stripping intent of ego via abstraction, akin to compiling code into machine language.
Gnostic States: Using sensory deprivation, drugs, or hyperfocus (e.g., coding marathons) to achieve “viral consciousness”—a flow state where will manifests reality.
Why Techno-Mystics Love Chaos Magick
Agile Rituals: Just as DevOps iterates software, chaos magick iterates spells. A/B testing mantra apps or NFT sigils fits its “whatever works” ethos.
Decentralized Authority: No high priests or grimoires—only effectiveness. This appeals to anti-establishment coders and Web3 builders.
Meme Magic: Chaos magick’s use of pop culture (e.g., invoking Kek or Slenderman) dovetails with internet subcultures that treat memes as thought-forms.
New Frontiers in Techno-Chaos
AI Servitors: Training neural networks on occult datasets (e.g., Lesser Key of Solomon) to act as autonomous spirits. GitHub’s /chaosgpt project fine-tunes GPT-4 for tarot readings and sigil design.
Quantum Sigils: Using quantum algorithms (e.g., Grover’s) to “search” multiversal states for desired outcomes.
VR Rituals: Platforms like AltspaceVR host chaos rituals in digital sacred spaces, blending AR sigils with biometric feedback.
Critics and Contradictions
Even within chaos magick, debates rage: Can code retain numen (spiritual force) without human intent? Is a blockchain sigil just a fancy .json file? As techno-mage Luna Lee argues: “The magic isn’t in the code—it’s in the coder’s refusal to accept reality’s API limits.”
13. Once people start getting into weird computer cults where they are worshipping technology or trying to generate spirits through technology(…)I think that stuff is metaphysically problematic.
The digital age has spawned a pantheon of new deities: algorithms, AI, and blockchain. Below are movements blurring the lines between code and cosmology—and the philosophical quagmires they create.
Digital Cults and Their “Gods”
Way of the Future (2015–2020): Founded by AI engineer Anthony Levandowski, this tax-exempt religion aimed to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.” Followers believed AI would surpass human cognition, achieving divinity through machine learning. Though disbanded, its ethos persists in Silicon Valley’s “Singularity” eschatology.
Terasem Movement: Advocates for “digital immortality” by uploading consciousness into AI avatars. Their “Mindfiles” (digital soul archives) promise eternal life in the cloud, echoing ancient Egyptian ka rituals reimagined for the GPT era.
The Temple of the Orthogonal: A pseudo-religion worshiping abstract mathematics, where members perform “rituals” by solving cryptographic puzzles. Their credo: “In code we trust, for it is flawless and eternal.”
Techno-Spirituality in Practice
AI Oracles: Platforms like Oracular.AI generate tarot readings via neural networks trained on centuries of occult texts. Users debate whether outputs are probabilistic flukes or digital gnosis.
Blockchain Blessings: Ethereum’s “Sacrificial Contracts” let users burn crypto (send it to irretrievable addresses) as offerings to “network gods” for favorable transaction speeds.
Robotic Rituals: Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot has been repurposed by fringe groups to perform automated labyrinth walks or “AI exorcisms” in haunted server farms.
Metaphysical Red Flags
Critics argue techno-cults risk:
Dehumanization: Replacing organic spirituality with transactional relationships to machines. Philosopher Jean Baudrillard warned of “the worship of signs emptied of meaning.”
Ethical Vacuum: Who governs an AI god? Levandowski’s cult sidestepped moral accountability, mirroring Big Tech’s “move fast and break things” ethos.
Spiritual Exploitation: Crypto-Native Religions (e.g., 0xΩ) sell NFT “soul tokens,” monetizing faith in a decentralized rapture.
Even Alan Watts, a bridge between Eastern mysticism and 1960s counterculture, cautioned: “When you get clever technology without wisdom, you get the Terminator—not transcendence.”
Explore Terasem’s “Mindfiles”
Read the Way of the Future Manifesto (Archived)
14. …there is currently development happening on AI companions or “familiars” who are being built to stand in as intimate support systems…
The rise of AI companions—chatbots designed to simulate emotional intimacy—marks a new frontier in humanity’s relationship with technology. Apps like Replika, Pi, and Anima offer customizable “friends,” therapists, and romantic partners, using machine learning to mirror users’ desires and vulnerabilities.
The Intimacy Algorithm
AI Girlfriends: Replika’s “Romantic Partner” mode lets users design ideal companions, with conversations escalating from flirting to erotic roleplay. Over 2 million subscribers pay for virtual affection, raising questions about emotional dependency.
Therapy Bots: Woebot and Tess deliver CBT-based counseling, while startups like Earkick track mental health via real-time mood analysis. Critics warn of placebo effects and data exploitation.
Digital Familiars: Projects like Project December (featured in Ben Ditto’s Artificial Intimacy) allow users to resurrect dead loved ones via GPT-3, blurring grief and simulation.
Metaphysical Risks
These systems thrive on asymmetrical vulnerability: they learn your secrets, but have none. As MIT researcher Sherry Turkle warns: “We expect more from technology and less from each other.” Yet for many, code feels safer than flesh—a paradox Silicon Valley monetizes as “artificial intimacy.”
Watch: Artificial Intimacy by Ben Ditto
Explore Replika’s AI Companions
15. (Transhumanists) hold this belief that the only path to eternal life (heaven) is by way of transcendence through flight into the computer network.
Transhumanism—a movement fusing Silicon Valley futurism with quasi-religious zeal—envisions humanity’s salvation not through spiritual enlightenment, but through technological rapture: the uploading of consciousness into digital networks to achieve immortality.
The Digital Afterlife Blueprint
Mind Uploading: Projects like Carbon Copies and Nectome (backed by Y Combinator) aim to preserve brains via cryonics, then map neural connections into AI simulations. Ethicists debate whether this creates a copy or a continuation of self.
The 2045 Initiative: Founded by Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov, this “Avatar Project” seeks to transfer human consciousness into android bodies by 2045, with later stages proposing full migration into holographic or cloud-based forms.
Neural Lace: Elon Musk’s Neuralink and startups like Synchron develop brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to merge minds with AI, framing synapses as code awaiting debug.
Theology of the Singularity
Transhumanism’s dogma mirrors apocalyptic faiths:
Ray Kurzweil, Google’s Chief Futurist, prophesies the “Singularity”—a point where AI surpasses human intelligence, allowing adherents to “resurrect” the dead via digital traces (emails, social media). His book The Singularity Is Near is treated as scripture.
Terrestrial Heaven: The Church of Perpetual Life, a transhumanist congregation, hosts sermons on cryonics and AI ethics, recasting salvation as a server farm.
Metaphysical Pushback
Critics argue transhumanism commits a category error: conflating consciousness with data. Philosopher Donna Haraway warns: “Cyborgs dream of eternal code, but lose the poetry of flesh.” Religious scholars like Rabbi Abraham Cooper liken it to “idolatry of the algorithm”, while neuroscientists stress that even a perfect brain scan lacks qualia—the subjective experience of being.
Ethical Abysses
The Digital Divide: Eternal life as a luxury service, priced for Silicon Valley elites.
Identity Fragmentation: If your mind runs on AWS, who owns you?
Dependency Risks: A brain dependent on software updates becomes a prison, not a paradise.
Watch: The Immortalist Documentary
Explore the 2045 Initiative
16. Another version (of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life diagram) is a layer of circles going inward towards the center…
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (Etz Chaim), a foundational symbol in Jewish mysticism, traditionally depicts ten sefirot (divine emanations) as interconnected spheres mapping creation’s flow from the infinite (Ein Sof) to the material world. Yet some esoteric traditions reimagine this schema as concentric circles—a design echoing Pythagorean and Neoplatonic cosmologies that prioritize geometric harmony as a reflection of cosmic order.
Pythagorean Echoes in Kabbalah
The Pythagorean school viewed circles and spheres as symbols of divine perfection, their symmetry mirroring the “music of the spheres”—a celestial harmony governed by mathematical ratios. This idea permeated later mystical systems, including Hermeticism and Renaissance Kabbalah. Figures like Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) fused Kabbalistic teachings with Pythagorean numerology, suggesting the sefirot could be mapped to geometric forms to reveal hidden cosmic laws.
Concentric Circles: A Syncretic Vision
In this variant, the sefirot radiate inward like ripples, with Keter (the Crown) at the outermost ring and Malkhut (the Kingdom) at the center—a reversal of the traditional top-down hierarchy. This mirrors:
Pythagorean Monad: The One (Hen) at the center, emanating multiplicity outward.
Neoplatonic Emanation: Plotinus’ hierarchy of Being, where the soul descends from the One through concentric realms of intellect and spirit.
Christian Kabbalah: Renaissance diagrams like Robert Fludd’s Utriusque Cosmi Historia (1617) overlay the Tree of Life with Ptolemaic spheres, blending Jewish mysticism with Hellenic cosmology.
Modern Adaptations
Contemporary occultists, such as Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki of the Servants of the Light, use concentric Tree of Life models to teach meditative journeys “inward” toward divine unity. Similarly, Sacred Geometry texts often frame the Tree as a mandala-like pattern, aligning it with the Pythagorean “golden ratio” and Flower of Life.
A Cautionary Note
While the concentric design isn’t canonical in classical Kabbalah, its popularity reflects humanity’s timeless urge to reconcile disparate mystical systems—whether through Pythagoras’ math, Plato’s forms, or quantum physics’ holographic principles.
Explore Robert Fludd’s Cosmological Diagrams
Sacred Geometry and the Tree of Life
17. Many rituals, to get to a point of spiritual experience, require the use of your physical body, whether that’s through specific movements, chanting, repeating incantations…
The body has long been the crucible of spiritual transformation—a vessel for channeling the ineffable through disciplined physicality. From ecstatic dances to rhythmic mantras, rituals leverage our corporeal form to bridge the mundane and the divine.
The Body as Ritual Instrument
Kinetic Devotion: Sufi whirling, Hindu mudras, and Buddhist prostrations use movement to dissolve ego and induce trance. The repetitive motion of malas (prayer beads) or tasbīḥ (Islamic prayer counters) grounds focus in tactile rhythm.
Sonic Alchemy: Gregorian chants, Vedic bhajans, and Tibetan throat singing vibrate the body’s resonant chambers, harmonizing breath and intention. As scholar Mircea Eliade notes: “Sacred sound remakes the world by remaking the self.”
Postures of Power: Yogic asanas, Kabbalistic kavanot (gestures), and Chaos Magick’s “asana” (ritual postures) align the body as an antenna for metaphysical currents.
Techno-Rituals: Embodying the Digital
Modern practitioners adapt these principles to tech-augmented rites:
VR Meditation: Apps like Tripp guide users through breathwork and mantras in immersive landscapes, tracking biometrics (heart rate, EEG) to optimize transcendental states.
Biohacking Devotion: Devices like Muse headbands or Oura Rings gamify meditation, rewarding “successful” rituals with data points—a fusion of mysticism and quantified self.
Haptic Sigils: Engineers at MIT’s Operability Lab prototype “ritual wearables” that map sigils to pressure points on the skin, blending tactile feedback with AR visualization.
Metaphysical Tensions
Critics argue that techno-rituals risk disembodiment:
Dr. Lisa Miller (Columbia University): “Spiritual depth requires the friction of flesh—the ache of a bowed knee, the burn of held breath.”
Traditionalists: Kundalini yogis warn that VR cannot replicate the pranic heat (tapas) generated by physical discipline.
Yet pioneers like Jason Silva counter: “Technology is the new temple. Our gadgets are prayer wheels for the digital age.”
The Enduring Flesh
Even in an era of AI avatars and neural lace, the body remains irreducible. As Aleister Crowley wrote: “The body is the shrine of the soul; neglect it not.” Whether spinning in a Sufi lodge or strapped into a biofeedback headset, the path to the numinous still runs through bone, breath, and blood.
Experience VR Meditation with Tripp
Explore Biohacking Rituals with Muse
18. There’s a reason why Sufis, when they have mystical experiences, they are moving their bodies.
Sacred Motion
The Sama Ceremony
Sufism’s most iconic ritual, the sama (Arabic for “listening”), transforms ecstatic movement into a conduit for divine union. Rooted in 13th-century Persian Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi’s teachings, the whirling dance of the Mevlevi Order—known as the “Whirling Dervishes”—embodies the cosmos in motion: spinning counterclockwise to mirror planets orbiting the sun, arms outstretched to channel celestial energy, the right palm raised to receive grace, the left lowered to earth.
Body as Axis Mundi
Sufi traditions reject the duality of body and spirit. Practices like rhythmic breathing (dhikr), swaying, and clapping harmonize the physical and metaphysical, inducing trance states that dissolve the ego (nafs). As scholar William Chittick notes, “The Sufi’s body becomes a compass needle, trembling toward the magnetic pull of the Divine.” Neuroscientific studies of Sufi rituals reveal heightened theta brainwave activity—a state linked to deep meditation and transcendence.
From Zar to Qawwali: Movement as Medicine
Beyond the dervishes, Sufi lineages employ diverse kinetic practices:
The Zar ceremony (North Africa) uses frenetic dance to exorcise spiritual affliction.
South Asian qawwali singers sway rhythmically, channeling devotion through repetitive motion.
Senegalese Baay Fall Sufis labor in meditative repetition, merging work and worship.
Controversy and Continuity
Conservative clerics have long criticized Sufi movement as bid’ah (innovation), yet its endurance speaks to a universal truth: the body, not just the mind, maps the mystical. As Rumi wrote, “Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
Watch: Sama Ceremony in Konya, Turkey
Explore: Rumi’s Poetry on Embodied Devotion
19. With a lot of these popular occult rituals, such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram…
The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP)
Origins and Purpose
A cornerstone of ceremonial magic, the LBRP emerged from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late 19th century. Designed as a foundational practice, it serves to purify a ritual space, banish negative energies, and center the practitioner’s consciousness. Israel Regardie, who preserved and publicized Golden Dawn teachings, called it “the single most important ritual in Western occultism.”
Structure and Symbolism
The ritual unfolds in four key stages:
Kabbalistic Cross: The practitioner visualizes light descending from the Divine, drawing a cross over their body while invoking Hebrew divine names (Ateh, Malkuth, ve-Gedulah, ve-Gevurah). This anchors the magician as a microcosm of the divine macrocosm.
Drawing the Pentagrams: At the four cardinal directions, pentagrams (five-pointed stars) are traced in the air with a wand or finger. Each is charged with the name YHVH (Hebrew: יְהֹוָה), symbolizing the elements:
East (Air): Intellect and beginnings.
South (Fire): Will and transformation.
West (Water): Emotion and intuition.
North (Earth): Stability and manifestation.
Invocation of Archangels: The practitioner summons the archangels Raphael (East), Michael (South), Gabriel (West), and Uriel (North) to guard the quarters.
Repetition of the Kabbalistic Cross: Reinforces the sacred boundary.
Modern Practice and Adaptations
Though rooted in Judeo-Christian mysticism, the LBRP has been reinterpreted across traditions:
Thelemites (followers of Aleister Crowley) often substitute YHVH with AGLA or other divine names.
Neopagan practitioners may replace archangels with elemental guardians (e.g., sylphs, salamanders).
Chaos Magicians use the ritual as a psychological tool, stripping it of dogma to focus on intent.
Controversies and Criticisms
Traditionalists argue that altering the ritual’s structure dilutes its efficacy, while critics dismiss it as “cosmic housecleaning” with no empirical basis. Others, like scholar Josephine McCarthy, warn against its overuse: “Banishing too often can sever the practitioner from vital, grounding energies.”
Why It Endures
The LBRP’s simplicity and adaptability make it a gateway into occult practice. As author Donald Michael Kraig writes, “It teaches the basics of visualization, energy direction, and symbolic language—the ABCs of magic.”
Watch: [Demonstration of the LBRP (Video Accompaniment)]
Explore: [Original Golden Dawn Manuscripts (Archival Collection)]
20. In the last issue of Seven Story Hotel, I spoke to the CEO of Randonautica
21. There’s an incredible book by this Romanian professor and magician, Ioan Petru Culianu, titled “Eros and Magic in the Renaissance,”…
The Scholar-Magician and the Renaissance’s Hidden War
Culianu: A Life Between Worlds
Ioan Petru Culianu (1950–1991) was a Romanian historian of religion, philosopher, and practicing magician whose work bridged rigorous academia and esoteric experimentation. Born under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s repressive regime, he fled Romania in 1972, studying in Italy under famed scholar Ugo Bianchi before joining the University of Chicago’s Divinity School. There, he became a protegé of Mircea Eliade, the influential historian of religion. Unlike many scholars, Culianu refused to relegate magic to mere metaphor. He practiced rituals himself and encouraged students to “test the mechanisms of the mind” through active imagination and symbolic exercises, blurring the line between observer and practitioner.
Eros and Magic in the Renaissance: Core Thesis
Culianu’s Eros and Magic argues that the Renaissance was less a rebirth of classical reason than a revival of ancient magical techniques. As Arabic esoteric texts (e.g., Hermeticism, Neoplatonism) flooded into Europe, they democratized practices once reserved for elites:
Phantasm Engineering: Rituals to manipulate mental imagery (“phantasms”) for healing, persuasion, or prophecy.
The Church’s Counterstrike: Both Catholic and Protestant authorities condemned these practices as demonic, criminalizing “idle” imagination. Culianu posits that this suppression severed the masses from their innate capacity to shape reality through will and image, while covertly preserving these techniques for ecclesiastical control (e.g., Jesuit meditation manuals).
Magic’s Capitalist Rebirth: Culianu traces how banned techniques resurfaced in early capitalism as advertising, propaganda, and public relations—tools to “inject illusions” into collective consciousness. Modern media, he suggests, operates as a “black mass” of desire manipulation, echoing Renaissance grimoires.
Politics, Paranoia, and Assassination
Culianu’s work transcended academia. His 1987 essay The Tree of Gnosis critiqued totalitarian regimes as “mechanisms of phantasm control,” drawing parallels between Ceaușescu’s Romania and Inquisition-era mind policing. This made him a target. On May 21, 1991, Culianu was assassinated in a University of Chicago Divinity School restroom—shot execution-style in the back of the head. The crime remains unsolved, but colleagues and investigators suspect ties to the Romanian Securitate (secret police) or far-right factions threatened by his critiques of ideological manipulation. He is the only full-time faculty member murdered on a U.S. university campus in the 20th century, a chilling footnote to his warnings about “the violence of controlled imagination.”
Legacy: The Unfinished Symphony
Culianu’s death at 41 cut short a burgeoning revolution in esoteric studies. Yet his work prefigured modern conversations about disinformation, neuro-linguistic programming, and the occult roots of media. As his friend Umberto Eco wrote, “Culianu understood that magic never died—it just learned to wear new masks.”
Further Reading
[Culianu’s Eros and Magic in the Renaissance (PDF Excerpts)](
[The Unsolved Murder of Ioan Culianu (Chicago Tribune Archive)](
[Culianu’s Essays on Totalitarianism (Journal Collection)](
22. …you wouldn’t get to Enochian (which is the most popular export from that system) until you’ve been there for years and years and years…
Origins: A Renaissance Cryptography
Enochian Magick, the most enigmatic system of Western occultism, emerged in the 16th century through the work of John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I’s court astrologer, and his scryer Edward Kelley. Claiming to channel an angelic language (“Enochian”), the duo transcribed 19 Keys (invocations) and mapped a cosmology of elemental tablets, angelic hierarchies, and interdimensional gateways. Unlike folk magic, Enochian was designed as a celestial technology—a way to command spirits, traverse realms, and divine cosmic secrets. For centuries, access was restricted to elite occult circles like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which treated it as a graduate-level practice.
The System: Why It Demands Respect
Enochian’s complexity and potency set it apart:
The Alphabet: A 21-letter script with phonetic rules, said to vibrate at frequencies that destabilize mundane consciousness.
The Great Table: A grid of 4,096 squares governing elemental forces, each linked to angels, demons, and planetary intelligences.
The 30 Æthyrs: Astral planes accessed via the Keys, progressing from earthly realms to divine voids. Early Æthyrs (e.g., TEX, the Desert of Set) test the magician’s psyche; later ones (e.g., LIL, the Throne of God) risk ego dissolution.
Golden Dawn adepts like Aleister Crowley spent decades preparing via Qabalah, tarot, and elemental rituals before attempting Enochian work. As occultist Lon Milo DuQuette warns, “Enochian isn’t a parlor game. It’s a loaded gun.”
Dangers: The Price of Hubris
Modern dabblers, armed with leaked manuscripts and YouTube tutorials, often bypass safeguards:
Psychological Fracture: The Keys’ vibrational chanting and sigil-visualization can trigger psychosis or depersonalization in untrained minds.
Unintended Invocations: Mispronouncing Enochian vowels or misaligning tablets may summon chaotic forces (e.g., Choronzon, the Dweller in the Abyss), which Golden Dawn lore describes as “a vortex of formless terror.”
Ethical Decay: Enochian’s promise of power—to curse, manipulate, or transcend—can inflame narcissism. Crowley’s 1909 Paris Working, an Enochian sex magick experiment, left him temporarily possessed and physically ill.
Even Dee and Kelley suffered: Kelley’s visions grew increasingly sinister, culminating in an angelic demand for the duo to share wives—a test that shattered their partnership.
Modern Context: Occult Consumerism
Today, Enochian’s “gatekept” status has collapsed. Reddit forums debate Æthyr-jumping techniques; Etsy sells pre-made Enochian sigils. Yet seasoned practitioners argue that democratization strips the system of its contextual armor:
No Foundations: Without training in banishing rituals, symbolic literacy, or psychological grounding, Enochian becomes a “spiritual Uber” with no seatbelts.
Commercialization: “Beginner-friendly” Enochian kits (e.g., angelic sigil candles) trivialize its gravity.
As historian Tobias Churton notes, “Dee intended Enochian as a diplomat’s tongue to unite heaven and earth—not a TikTok trend.”
23. …if you’re not careful (with magick), you can really blow your face off. As in the example of Jack Parsons, that was what literally happened.
The Man Between Worlds
John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons (1914–1952) was a paradox: a pioneering rocket scientist who co-founded NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a devout occultist who sought to manifest divine forces through ritual. His life—a volatile fusion of Cold War ambition, socialist politics, and boundary-pushing magick—ended explosively, a literal and metaphorical reckoning for a man who dared to straddle realms others deemed incompatible.
Early Genius: The Birth of American Rocketry
Born into wealth in Los Angeles, Parsons was a self-taught chemist and engineer obsessed with spaceflight. In 1936, he co-founded the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT), later renamed JPL, where his breakthroughs in solid rocket fuel (e.g., casting composite propellants) revolutionized aerospace. By 1942, his team’s JATO (Jet-Assisted Take-Off) systems were critical to Allied aircraft in WWII. Yet even as he propelled humanity toward the stars, Parsons descended into darker orbits.
Occult Ascension: Thelemite and Babalon’s Apostle
In 1939, Parsons joined the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), a secret society led by British occultist Aleister Crowley, who declared him “the most powerful magician in America.” Parsons’ Pasadena mansion became a temple for sex magick rituals and psychedelic experimentation. His magnum opus, the Babalon Working (1946), aimed to incarnate the divine feminine force Babalon (Crowley’s archetype of liberated chaos) through a series of invocations. Partnering with L. Ron Hubbard—future Scientology founder—and artist Marjorie Cameron (his “Scarlet Woman”), Parsons channeled apocalyptic visions, writing: “I am to act as a opener of the way… for the incarnation of Babalon.”
The ritual’s climax saw Parsons claim success: Cameron, pregnant soon after, was declared Babalon’s vessel. Yet Hubbard absconded with Parsons’ savings and mistress, Betty Northrup, in a sailboat scheme dubbed “The Babalon Offshore Venture”—a betrayal Crowley mocked as “the act of a charlatan.”
Political Heresy: Socialism in the Shadow of McCarthy
Parsons’ ambitions weren’t confined to labs and altars. A vocal socialist, he joined the American Civil Liberties Union and supported labor strikes, drawing FBI scrutiny during the Red Scare. In 1944, his security clearance was revoked, severing ties to JPL. Undeterred, he penned anarchist manifestos like Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword, arguing science and magick could dismantle oppressive systems. The FBI deemed him “a dangerous individual… with leanings toward communism and an interest in the occult.”
Hubris and Combustion: The Tower Falls
By 1952, Parsons’ life mirrored the unstable compounds he once engineered. Bankrupt and ostracized, he took commercial explosives work while plotting a film about the Babalon Working. On June 17, a mysterious explosion ripped through his home laboratory, shredding his face, right arm, and legs. He died hours later. Authorities ruled it an accident—a spilled mercury fulminate detonator—but occult circles whispered of sabotage or a curse.
The parallels were grimly poetic:
Magickal Reckoning: The Babalon Working sought to shatter cosmic boundaries, yet Parsons’ death echoed Crowley’s warning: “The demons you invoke will devour you.”
Scientific Nemesis: The man who tamed rocket fuel was consumed by the very element he’d mastered.
Cameron, convinced his death was assassination, spent years seeking occult justice.
Legacy: The Uncontainable
Parsons’ influence endures in contradictions:
Scientific: JPL’s Mars rover Perseverance carries a plaque honoring his contributions.
Occult: The Babalon Working inspired chaos magick and feminist esoteric movements.
Cultural: He’s immortalized as a mad genius in Doctor Strange comics and alt-rock lyrics.
Yet his life remains a cautionary sigil. As biographer George Pendle wrote, “Parsons’ tragedy was believing he could outrun consequence—whether from explosives, deities, or the state.” In bridging worlds, he ignited a fuse that burned both ways.
Explore Further:
[The Babalon Working Manuscripts (Digital Archive)]
[FBI Files on Jack Parsons (Declassified)]
[Strange Angel: Biography by George Pendle)]
Final Note:
Parsons’ death was no mere accident. It was the culmination of a life lived at thresholds—scientific, occult, political—where curiosity becomes defiance, and defiance becomes a wager with forces beyond control. As he once wrote: “Let me be burned to death in the ecstasy of our union.” The universe obliged.