July Book-Blog: The Unruled, a Mage: the Ascension faction based on Federico Campagna's Technic and Magic and John Fowles' The Magus
Squeaking in under the wire of not being two months behind...
N.B. this was originally going to be a double-feature w/August - I forgot to change the title before posting, silly me! fixed now. August book-blog forthcoming.
July Book Review: Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality
Technic and Magic, by Federico Campagna, is a marvellous rare bird - the book of metaphysical speculation that is reasonably well-written, comprehensible for laypeople, and attempts to make definite suggestions for how to live on the basis of its outline. Campagna even describes it at one point as being self-help adjacent, which I think is not wholly inaccurate - it falls a little short on practical vision, but nobody's perfect. I think you should probably read it. I will now snipe at it for several hundred words.
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| Also the cover is amazing |
It has been noted that explaining something to others is one of the surest signs you've understood it, so let's give this a shot:
We live under a system of reality, Technic, that prioritizes 'essence' or 'language', the description and measurement of things, rather than things as they are, their 'existence'. This is not language in the poetic mode, but the rigid urge to make everything fill a role and be nothing but an 'Abstract General Entity', an instance of that role. 'Instances' may be indefinitely produced without distinction, which is the ultimate goal of this model of reality - or unreality, as the erasure of the ineffable existence of things ('life') actually undermines everything between existence & essence, i.e. reality. Aware of our unbearable unreality under this model, we are reduced to depression or violence.
Late capitalism as well as all other governing regimes of modernity arise from these principles, presenting life as a risk to be mitigated and attempting to fit all of existence into neat boxes of definitions, numerical values, identities*, all of which should be maximized. The solution, therefore, cannot be found in purely material reforms - the reality-model needs to be altered, we need 'reality-therapy'
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Campagna's solution? Begin by adopting an ineffable-existence-centric model (here called Magic, which need not be supernaturalist - it sort of resembles weird materialist models, and indeed Tim Morton wrote the introduction) internally. If you actually decide to attack Technic head on, you're probably going to end up in jail, so be more subtle. Live under the radar, not as an anarchist forever defined by a relationship to authority but as an anarch, alway-already unruled, compliant only when convenient; he draws a comparison with the Oran fatwā of 1502 that allowed newly-Castilian Muslims to pretend to convert to Christianity in word and deed in order to escape persecution. The goal is not to abandon linguistic description of reality, but to place it in a subordinate position to existence itself:
Borrowing a metaphor that was dear also to the Sufis, we could say that the realm of existence is like a slate of glass (though this glass should be imagined at a near-liquid state) varying in colour and thickness at different points As the light of existence traverses it, individual things appear as the catalogue of detectable modulations in the colour and intensity of the light. Although the boundaries between individual things are somewht fuzzy, it is possible to appreciate the difference between various modulations of the light, as functions of the varying intensity and colour taken on by the first emanating principle. Yet, all things are at the same time in perfevt seamless unity with each other, inasmuch as they are all made of one and the same light, that is, of emanated existence.
This is potentially inspiring, even as an avowed anarchist† and no fan of the 'anarch' term's origin. I'm not going to be sectarian about this - one can see a parallel quite easily with the idea of prefiguration, and becoming obsessed with fighting unfreedom at the expense of being free is a real risk. I'm not, however, sure if Campagna has a particularly useful answer. (He certainly doesn't engage much with ideas of prefigurative politics, disappointingly since he does dip into Stirner). This is where the book gets a lot more fuzzy - he talks a bit about finding others with similar understandings of the Magic-al reality of existence and 'initiating' them, about re-developing a relationship with the world in itself rather than for us, and about looking for opportunities to 'strike back' against Technic, but does not offer one (1) practical example of what this would look like. The idea is that the belief that reality is actually always-already saved, that existence cannot be destroyed and is the root of all things, comes first, and from this new ways of thinking and doing politics will flow. Fine. I kinda find the whole 'idealist/materialist' discussion a bit philosophically incoherent, even if I align with historical materialist theory and praxis in many ways - because the case for any sort of mind/body or individual/society dualism is increasingly disintegrated in modernity. To wax Latourian, we're all concatenations of other actors as well as origins of action in our own right, and a thought or idea either acts and is therefore real insofar as that word means anything, or doesn't and isn't.
It's not like historical materialist perspectives are blind to the mutual influence:
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| Satdeep Gill, CC-by-sa 4.0 |
- Realistically most of the people who are going to read this book are:
- academics or middle-class people with time on their hands
- who aren't put off by the word 'magic' in the title or a back cover that reads 'We take for granted that only certain kinds of things exist - passports but not angels, electrons but not nymphs'
- who have actually encountered the book, and this is just random chance influenced by the number of copies it's financially viable to print (it looks like it's been reprinted an impressive 12 times, but given the topic that might well mean like 40-60,000 copies, or c. 1 copy per ~140,000 people on earth at the upper end)
- Not all of the people who read the book will agree with it and not all of those will have the timeenergy to put it into practice even assuming they can work out what that would look like
- Those people will have a harder time convincing people who didn't self-select into reading the book in the first place to take it on board
- Even if widely accepted, the relative quietism the book advocates will actively slow any change it produces, and
- We don't have unlimited time to change the world before substantial harm is caused!!! At best, we're going to have the most liberatory trickle-down consequences of a cosmological model on the cinder
It's interesting to note that Campagna came out of occupy and anti-work, both of which are movements with laudable goals and rather idealized (OK, idealist) opinions about how they were going to get there. Is 'let's all believe life matters really hard' the 'let's throw a street party until it turns into a revolution' of the academic left? I hate making this point, because it's been made badly by people who've done much more posturing and much less for social change than the most performative of occupy types, but it's where I find myself settling.
I've skipped over a lot of theory here, and been fairly critical. I did actually like the book a lot: it's tightly written, dense with theorists (particularly from the Islamic mystical tradition, ideas of which it draws on extensively) without ever struggling to make itself understood, and it makes a compelling case when it's talking about its model of reality and un-reality. It managed to explain gnostic emanationism, which much of the text is modelled on structurally, in a way that makes sense, and that alone should be worthy of some kind of prize. What I didn't see was a transformative solution, and so that's what most of this review is about, but there's so much worthwhile in the book before you get to that point.
*although broadly fairly progressive, Campagna does that slightly annoying thing a lot of theorists are doing lately where he critiques liberal identity politics, specifically around gender identity, and then doesn't like suddenly recreate a materialist model of gender about it or something, which leaves a slightly sour taste. If it matters, why doesn't your model of the reformed world address it, and if it doesn't matter, why did you decide to take a snipe at a vulnerable and currently (and in 2019) very much persecuted minority? I don't think he's ill-intentioned but sigggghhh.
† Which to be clear is also a position Campagna's at least adjacent to - more on his earlier work in a tick
Gameable Content: The Unruled, a Mage: the Ascension faction
Anyway so check back in 100 years, but I don't think secret circles of initiated academics thinking differently is going to be the thing that slams the brakes on the runaway train of... whatever the fuck, late-capitalist kyriarchy let's call it. But what if it could? As I was trying desperately to think of something gameable to come out of this, I listened to this 2019 episode of Mage: the Podcast where Victor Kinzer says he wishes there was a technological (or at least broadly 'scientific modern') mage faction who weren't the Technocratic Union, specifically referencing the idea of a secular anarcho-syndicalist mage faction. And I thought - OK, not the same thing, but same ball-park, and the corebook gives a pretty simple template to follow.*
If you'd like a pretty PDF, here's a link. Otherwise, read on:
Unruled†
‘Knowing you are not free is wisdom; then knowing you are is salvation.’
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| I made it... basic pieces are clipart and a photo of what I think was an Andalusian islamic roof |
The world is held in thrall to language. Numbers, words, all description – a precise reckoning that completely overrides the actual substance of reality. When we call a car a car, we ignore the truth of each individual part and of the whole in favour of a unit of production, one in a potentially-infinite series of such units. Out of this model of unreality, where everything exists for its role and actual, messy, beautiful life is despised, emerges all the woes of late-capitalist postmodernity under its Technocratic consensus. When what is is thus undermined, is it any wonder that Marauders and solipsistic or omnicidal Nephandi are coming to dominance in the Ascension War?
The Unruled emerge in opposition to the linguistic milieu, what philosopher Federico Campagna calls ‘Technic’ and a less serious Unruled might jestingly name ‘the Matrix’. Their opposition, though, has to be pragmatic. They’ve seen how the Traditions and Crafts, especially their close cousins the Hollow Ones, either spend their lives being hunted and destroyed or sink into despair and corruption. Rather than rage against the machine, they prefer to ignore it entirely in their heart of hearts, living as if already totally free without compromising their social position. Theirs is a vision of an almost indescribable true reality or ‘life’ which they see filtered through all things like light through a thick sheet of stained glass, and they believe that by quietly living in and spreading this knowledge they can do more good than with a wild assault on the Consensus.
The first known Unruled sects came into being in the wake of the World Wars, though they trace their intellectual lineage back to the mediaeval and early modern Islamic mystical tradition, particularly those of its members who sought the ineffable whilst feigning conversion to avoid persecution. It was in the trenches, however, that the order came into being, as the modernist vision first quavered and then shattered under showers of death. Mass conscription saw many who would otherwise have filled the halls of academia take a prefatory course in the horrors of war: sequenced, interchangeable, faceless legions, their internality stripped away by the uniforms of national fictions that overruled their lives. Amongst those who Awakened under the strain, many grew into a deep skepticism of all existing social orders, coupled with a visceral understanding of their power. They conformed in the face of an overwhelming social pressure, many even joining the Technocratic Union if recruited, but within themselves and amongst close associates they nurtured a dream of something better.
Communication within scattered shadow networks is comparatively easy for Mages, and over time the discontents coalesced around a unifying idea: the ideal of Ernst Jünger’s ‘Anarch’, the man (they were usually men) who, rather than railing like a mere anarchist against the power of rulers, lives as if already Unruled. They came to recognize that all authority and definition is a mere product of the true nature of being, a subordinate element which cannot be abandoned in favour of pure dissolution, but at the same time cannot be allowed to take precedence over its own origin point. Being mostly scholarly sorts, they didn't fight back directly, preferring to slowly reconstruct reality behind a mask of the unreal.
They have recently made overtures to the Disparate Alliance, but thus far been rejected. Their rejection of ‘linguistic reality’ can sound uncomfortably like the conservative opposition to ‘identity politics’ so common in the academic spaces that they inhabit, which obviously goes against the liberatory and strongly community-focussed aims of the Disparates, whilst certain Ahl-i-Batin in particular see their secularized use of Islamic practices as downright appropriative. It doesn’t help that, since they share an interest in academic spheres, the Unruled are often quite willing to collaborate with the Order of Hermes, philosophical Etherites, and fringe members of the NWO’s Ivory Tower, albeit that they make their differences with these groups quite clear. Probably their closest allies are the Hollow Ones, who they essentially see as poor cousins with a martyr complex whilst being seen as tied-down losers too attached to their comforts and privileges to really want to challenge them.
STEREOTYPES
The Traditions: Marvellous goals, truly marvellous – but doomed to burn out in the face of the hurricane of unreality.
The Technocracy: Almost all are tools and maintainers of this murderous reality-system. Many are also intelligent enough to see things our way, given the opportunity, but that’s rarely a risk we can take.
The Crafts: They’re usually working to the same ends we are, but chained by their petty provincialism.
Factions: The one exception to the Unruled’s cautious, subtle approach are the Actualists, who work to turn potentialities into realities to shatter the ‘suspended existence’ of Technic, with little concern for the safety of Sleepers who after all are always-already saved in their ineffable being, and need only to realise it. Closely linked to several Taftani, though less explosive, this group has been the driving force behind the push to join the Disparate Alliance – which may partly explain its failure. They find themselves quite at odds with the Boschi, who use complicated and multi-layered symbolism to encode their insights into structures and creations that can spread the word without ever directly implicating themselves, and the Apophorics, who take a vow of silence which may only be broken where speech directly leads to self-actualization in order to free themselves from linguistic tyranny. Finally amongst significant groups, the Unruly (pejorative, but embraced) reject the anarch-anarchist distinction, joining or chronicling liberatory movements and attempting to provide a perspective that will keep their comrades’ eyes focussed on freedom rather than mere struggle and suffering.
Organization: A loose network of scholars (both lay and academic) with similar interests, the Unruled tend either to form small cells of no more than 10 like minds plus a few fascinated students, or to work alone. They keep track of each others’ publications or lectures, and include elaborate sets of symbols and codes to identify themselves. As their Craft grows with the ongoing fraying of Unreality, several larger conferences and a regular journal, Ab Sol, have been organized to tighten their bonds.
Initiation: Unruled initiation usually starts when a student in meets or seeks out a scholar who seems to understand the world more deeply. If, through extensive conversations and engagement with important works, they embrace Unruled ideas (ideally with a degree of critical caution), they are invited to meet with a small circle of fellow-travellers who together perform a small ritual of thanks for Life and its beauty. At this point that the full scope of the group begins to be revealed.
Affinity Sphere: Prime or Mind
Focus: The Unruled hold a range of philosophical positions, united by their dedication to faith in the real. For them, everything’s an illusion, prison, or mistake insofar as the world of essence goes, but potentially a useful one if placed as a subordinate refraction of a pure existence or ‘life’ wherein creation’s divine and alive (more panpsychically than pantheistically, though some members do hold deeper religious convictions) and so it’s all good – have faith! They subtly strive to bring back the golden age in which humans recognized this universal truth, through academic and literary use of Craftwork (writing or art,) Crazy Wisdom, Faith and Reality Hacking alongside often-secularized ‘psychological’ uses of any number of overtly ‘magickal’ practices that create a deeper recognition of existence. The most common instruments are art (high-culture, from poetry to garden planning redolent with deeper symbolism); books & periodicals; group rites in small circles of initiates; meditation, offerings and sacrifices or prayers and invocations (to re-establish a relationship with existence); symbols; and voice & vocalizations.
Example Rote:
Reconstruct Reality (Prime 2/Mind 2 (optional 3)
8 successes, almost always Coincidental
The mage creates a piece of art – a beautifully-designed garden, erudite poem, or inspiring text – that has the effect of reaffirming reality and fighting despair in all who engage with it. A creature who spends time enjoying the item for its artistic merits regains 1 point of Willpower and a sense that the ways of the world aren’t as real as they pretend. A given creature may gain this benefit once per story.
*~700 words of general backstory; ~80 on organization and initiation; ~160 on focus; affinity sphere/s; stereotypes box; 2 pages total. I've also fit in some factions and an example rote
† If you're not running a game with VtM lore in it you can just call them Anarchs.
OK, that's all I've got this time around. Signing off.
Jago
Also finished reading for pleasure this month: Courtenay Raia, The New Prometheans: Faith, Science and the Supernatural Mind in the Victorian Fin de Siècle
Also reading for pleasure this month: Gary Zhexi Zhang (ed.), Catastrophe Time!; Kieron Gillen & Dan Ross, Once and Future*; David Abulafia, The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans; Peripheresense, worldling sǝᴉʇᴉʌᴉʇɔɐ faggot
Also reading for pleasure this month: Gary Zhexi Zhang (ed.), Catastrophe Time!; Kieron Gillen & Dan Ross, Once and Future*; David Abulafia, The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans; Peripheresense, worldling sǝᴉʇᴉʌᴉʇɔɐ faggot
Next month's book-blog: Our first novel, John Fowles The Magus
*I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but comics are only getting listed here if they're being binged, i.e. read at faster than release rate. I'm also keeping up with The Power Fantasy and Department of Truth in the background
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