Back to index
Temples
Sacred buildings for the execution of open and public religious rituals. See, by way of comparison, monasteries.
The Zoroastrian revolution is clearly seen in ancient Iranian architecture. Both sacrificial alters and burial sites disappear when Zoroaster’s theological broom sweeps clean across the Central Asian highlands. Because there are no longer any tyrannical gods to placate, and bodies no longer need to be embalmed or in any other way prepared for the afterlife in eternity, but are instead recycled in a natural way, for example, as food for vultures. The Zoroastrians build ascetically bare temples, painted in white, where the community gather around the atash bahram, the eternally burning flame in the centre of the temple, the symbol of the infinite expansion and ecstatic intensity of the cosmos. That Zoroastrianism as early as 3,700 years ago was practising such seemingly modern ideas as ecological sustainability, radical gender equality, collective ownership of resources and tolerance of deviant human character traits, is quite consistent if one takes Zoroaster’s ideology as a starting point.
If spoken language constituted the first dimension in the complex universe of language, written language must have appeared as pure magic when it gained a foothold as the second dimension and in a heartbeat enabled the building of the first civilisations and empires in history. And it is exactly thus – as (dangerous) magic – that Plato portrays writing in the dialogue Faidros. It is sufficient to imagine how impressive the first agricultural temples must have appeared in comparison with nomadism’s unassuming, temporary earthen floors for rain dancing which preceded them. With the arrival of the printing press, humanity entered the third mass medial dimension in the universe of language. Now it was accessibility – written texts suddenly became much cheaper – and the speed of the production of text that impressed to such a degree that the entire activity suddenly shone with a magical glow.
We return to syntheism as the social theory of everything, and of course it accommodates both the Deleuzian and the Badiouian variants of pathos. Deleuze’s entheist multiplicity takes its point of departure in Pantheos, while Badiou’s entheist multiplicity takes its point of departure in Atheos. Deleuze is the pantheological prophet, Badiou is the prophet of atheology, and entheology is the oscillation between these two antipoles; a movement that is completed through the addition of Syntheos to the syntheological pyramid. In the midst of this earth-shattering oscillation, Deleuze and Badiou, the event’s two prophets above all others, are in agreement that what is most important for the syntheist is the decision to enter at least one of the temples that is devoted to either Pantheos or Atheos and engage in its activities, while the ethically reprehensible thing to do is to remain passively outside. Both these temples are needed as foundations. Both these temples fill us with wonder and produce spiritual truth. Deleuze’s pantheology moves in the direction of Entheos, Badiou’s atheology reaches out towards Syntheos. It is pantheology that makes us appreciate the existential intensity of existence, to further develop pantheism into entheism, while it is atheology that drives us to long for the fulfilment of the utopia and which makes us consummate atheism via its deepening in syntheism.
It seems, ironically enough, as though Badiou’s and Zizek’s nostalgic notion of revolution suffers from a glaring lack of, precisely, the revolutionarity. The syntheists, on the other hand, have their sights set on something much more radical. The singularity is the definitive event according to the criteria we use in this book. And there are already three parallel revolutions in progress – even if Badiou and Zizek with their conservative templates and blinkers appear unable to apprehend them – namely: The expansion of the Internet, the relationalist paradigm shift within both physics and sociology and last but not least the chemical liberation. The singularity that is our transition from humanity to transhumanity is one of the three revolutions’ merging supraevents in a not too distant future. The fourth singularity in history is already waiting in the wings. All we need to do is take Critchley’s advice which tells us to first build the syntheist temples and monasteries, where through our subtraction from the surrounding world we can enable the revolution as the truth as an act of our time. We are ourselves the fourth singularity!
In its capacity as theological anarchism par excellence, syntheism is the netocracy’s own built-in metaphysics. But the battle against the statist-corporativist establishment is neither simple nor has it any preordained result in a contingent and indeterminist world. At least not in the short term. There are trends and there are counter-trends. What many people forget is that nation states, which have long appeared to be so “natural” and God-given, actually were the result of never-ending bloody and hard-fought wars of religion in the old Europe. Consequently, the choice of strategy is entirely decisive for the outcome of this struggle. The global empire will borrow many features from, for example, Ancient Rome and Medieval Europe. The first Christian congregations, the Mithraic orders, the Masonic lodges, the cathedrals and monasteries that were built during the Middle Ages are therefore all excellent sources of inspiration for a rising elite who believe in the need for, and want to engage in the building of, syntheist temples and monasteries in the global empire.
The building of syntheist temples and monasteries is preceded by the early 21st century’s experimentation with temporary autonomous zones. The nation state is eroding in conjunction with, and as a result of, this ongoing paradigm shift. Since the resources for maintaining law and order are always limited, the regulatory framework of the nation state cannot be upheld during and in particular after a revolution of the magnitude that we are talking about when we talk about the Internet. We must prioritise, to a great extent we must pretend that we are upholding the old law in every respect. The ensuing anarchy turns into a plurarchy – a democracy in a real sense has never existed – which consists of an infinite number of smaller, competing and above all chaotically overlapping centres of power. The response to the plurarchy, which also constitutes its inherent opportunity and promise, is the establishment of temporary autonomous zones. These consist of everything from eco villages that are developing models for sustainable lifestyles that can later be copied and disseminated; to participatory festivals where attention is maximised through a generous sharing of resources, while capitalism is banned within the confines of the event with the purpose of deinstrumentalising and enlivening the relationships between human beings. The syntheist mission is consequently to build temples as participatory art manifestations and monasteries as revolutionary cells in the midst of the global empire’s initial and most hectic chaos.
Since syntheism is the religion of the Internet age, syntheist temples and monasteries are both physical and virtual. In its capacity as a potential manifestation of Syntheos, the Internet is an excellent environment for spiritual work. When the temporary experiments are transformed into permanent autonomous zones, they will emerge as finished temples and monasteries. In relation to the alienated, chaotic surrounding world, these oases of authentic living and sustainability will shine with the power of attraction. But they will also demand from new members an honest distancing of themselves from capitalism’s short-term and tempting superficial rewards; a distancing from bourgeois individualism and its fixation on exploitation in favour of netocratic dividualism and its quest for imploitation. This spiritual work must be carried out without the slightest instrumentality in human relations, without the least ulterior motive of any dividual gain for any single syntheist agent. Unlike the individual, the dividual is not the centre of existence, but subordinated to the network as the fundamental metaphysical idea. Dedication to the syntheist congregation is the bond to theological anarchism’s practical execution, without beating about the bush or any caveats. This dedication is confirmed before the community as a truth as an act, for example, in the syntheist act of baptism: the infinite now.
The strategic prophet of the previous paradigm shift, G W F Hegel, defines his philosophical project as the construction of a bridge between the sacred and the secular. He distinguishes between three different spirits with the following characteristics: the objective, the subjective and the absolute spirit. What is important in our turbulent age here and now is to take Hegel’s advice and set aside the objective and subjective spirits to instead assume the vantage point of the absolute; to first equip ourselves thoroughly for the coming struggle between the bourgeoisie and the netocracy and then position ourselves on the battlefield, conscious of and in accordance with the radical truth as an act in the new paradigm. The paradigm shift is namely occurring right under the very noses of the old power elite; it establishes a completely new power system in a completely different place than the previous one (see The Netocrats) and thereby offers historically unique possibilities for a radical and genuine change in society’s orientation and organisation. But the paradigm shift can only be apprehended in the necessary detail from a position permeated by subtraction. Therefore the syntheist temples and monasteries are far more than merely exotic oases for some kind of collective spiritual pleasure. They are, in fact, the necessary points of departure, the revolutionary cells, in the subversive utopian project that goes under the name of the Syntheist Movement. It is there that new thoughts are being thought.
Last modified 7. August 2016 at 00:05:58