A blast from the past: "The Fandom Cults of Draven"

 

Self-portrait by Kurt Draven from his manifesto Codex Veritas Neo

In the early years of this blog, I noted Kurt Draven, a fellow who'd started a cult where he claimed to be Neo out of The Matrix (a trans dude in an era before the Wachowskis came out, which says a lot I suppose). I critiqued his idealism and he came into the comments to whine at me.

Now I find out, years later, that it wasn't the first or the last cult he'd created; that he'd also been Fox Mulder and Angel out of Buffy and went on to be Anakin motherfucking Skywalker; that he was a multiple drug addict and arrested for several crimes. And all this without the charm and grace of my other favourite dubiously-multiple, possibly-faking-illness, fanfic-based cult leader, Andy Blake.

 

 

 

TWENTY YEARS CHAOS MARXISM

The conceptual categories have changed, several times; the original impulse remains valid; the project continues, such as it is.

 In the meantime:

One of the complexities of the social world is that magic is simultaneously real (as in, an activity that humans actually do and that has practical impacts in the social world), and the vast majority of the magical thinking that occult communities engage in is utterly complete make-believe bullshit....

The essence of Real Magic (not fabulist bullshit) is something like the art and science of understanding and utilizing the actual real feedback loop between our imaginations and our socially (and materially) constructed world. Which ironically fabulists are tapping into when they traffic in bullshit 

 

 

weev was always a nazi, again

90s & 2000s Internet culture was filled w/ ppl playing w/ the idea that 90% of reality is perception & that thus if you alter perception, you change the world. Lotta good people & interesting work came from those waters, but so did misanthrope edgelords like thiel, weev, andreessen, yarvin, land, &c

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— Dr. Damien P. Williams can't think of a fun display name right n (@wolvendamien.bsky.social) April 17, 2026 at 1:17 AM

Chaos Marxism was part of that tendency, and - as RU Sirius pointed out - perhaps destabilizing consensus reality altogether wasn't exactly a well-thought-out strategy.

Next time the sorcerer's apprentices will have to study more before we open the door to the Other Zone. You were so enthusiastic about the solve that you didn't even think about the coagula. And that's why we're in Issue 12 of Moore's Providence right now and goddamn Shub-Niggurath is coming right this way.

Well, I wouldn't put it in such ableist language, of course, but, YES.

Parasite goodness

 

The project is still on

 Read this (ThreadReader version). Even though the author is a hard materialist/individualist, I think it's vitally important for the work I've been trying to do here for almost *checks watch* HOLY CRAP ALMOST TWO DECADES. I hope to formulate a proper response soon. 

My mother's New Age perspective is more or less that whatever you believe is, by definition, true for you.

...So she will howl at me and my sisters when we bring up wildly abusive things she's done, "Why are you choosing to believe that?!! What does it benefit you!?"

— go to the elephant site @rechelon@mastodon.social (@rechelon) May 23, 2023

Happy New Year! (Or: Intentions Against Cynicism)

 

Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended. Thus, he whose migration (hijrah) was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger; but he whose migration was for some worldly thing he might gain, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated.

It may be the case that irony was once a powerful tool in the hands of the oppressed, exposing the hypocrisy of those in (political or religious) power. Sadly, this does not hold anymore - not in rich capitalist parliamentary democracies, in any case. Pop culture has internalized the 60s ethos of corrosive irony. It shows in second-tier comedians reproducing hierarchy - in the name of anarchy - by mocking progressive restrictions of discriminatory expression.

Of course, the left is not free of this type of irony, either. Much of what’s been written on this blog over the past few years has commented on this convergence of the worst parts of online culture and progressive social movements.

For the coming New Year, I wish every reader of this blog and of these words the clarity to see their motivations, the guilelessness to strive for pure intentions, and the grace to receive these.

P.S.

Here's another Hadith for you:

"God is beautiful and loves beauty"

I still remember the day, about three years ago, when I witnessed the beauty of souls trained in Sincerity and Love. I said to myself: "I don't know what it is these people have, but I want it, too." I cannot claim to have been more than moderately loyal to this commitment. But I do sincerely believe that it matters to have a commitment to strive after the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

Humility is endless

The stuff I was writing here 15 years ago reads like a virgin writing about sex, and there's a damn good reason for that.

Not that it's worthless, but it's theoretical. 15 years of practice has taught me humility, and a struggle with shame and despair. Perhaps it can all be recycled to the good. We'll see.