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HAIL MAMMON!

Leviathan and Mammon are inextricably linked. Leviathan is the macrocosm to Mammon’s microcosm. Leviathan is man writ large, the species as a whole, swarming the earth like technological locusts, whereas Mammon is man writ small, the individual talking ape, exploiting Leviathan at every turn. I am Mammon; you too are Mammon if you live by the truth of money and greed; but only all of us together are Leviathan.

As Leviathan grows by human reproduction and in certain areas by immigration, Mammon (by which I mean anyone who lives by the truth of money and greed) exploits the megatrends of population increase. As Leviathan grows by the colonization of physical territory, Mammon exploits the business opportunities to be found in the need for new infrastructure, new venues for consumption, and new warehouses and other hubs of operation. As Leviathan grows by the proliferation and refinement of broadband communications and processing power, Mammon exploits the geometrically increasing ubiquity and universality of the internet. As Leviathan grows by the emergence of whole new kinds of markets, Mammon exploits the initial absence of competitors for the exact new product or service it sees a niche for, and gets to market first.

Exploit – exploit – exploit – EXPLOIT! This is Mammon, along with such insights as, “Money is the name of the game,” and, “In Greed We Trust.” Money and greed rule politics, rule war, rule diplomacy, rule science, rule the arts, rule scholarship, rule journalism – Money and greed rule every aspect of our lives – so the only sensible thing to do is to grab hold of the levers of money and greed and pull them in ways that benefit the self. That sensible attitude, and you and I who live by it, are Mammon. The more of us there are, the faster and more relentlessly Leviathan will grow. Money and greed will bring more immigrants to our shores, and population will increase – and Leviathan will grow. Money and greed will increase the demand for real estate, and new territory will be colonized – and Leviathan will grow. Money and greed will increase the demand for online products and services, and the broadband network will increase in scope and power – and Leviathan will grow. Money and greed will create the demand for categories of products and services we don’t even have names for yet, and the forces of supply will inevitably respond – and Leviathan will grow.

Never has there been a more perfectly matched pair of lovers than Leviathan and Mammon, though one is a titan, and the other just a sharp-and-strong-minded little ape.

This is the last of my fourth wave of postings. I have fully expressed my philosophy as of August 17, 2021. HAIL MAMMON! ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

WAR

From the perspective of Hyperborea, what shall we say of war? It enables colonization, motivates commerce, drives industrialization, calls forth innovation, and forces civilizational selection. What’s not to love?

Hoof and Grass – Wood and Wind – Steel and Fire – every age of migration and colonization relied on the making of war, for more likely than not, when an invasive population first touched its feet to new soil, they were not the first humans to do so. Previous inhabitants had to be displaced, exterminated, or subjugated. Nor did Leviathan suffer from this. Quite the contrary. The more advanced civilization inevitably won, unless it had grown soft in its doddering old age, and either way, the losers were expendable, grist for the mill, to the victor the spoils. All was right with the world.

Meanwhile, the makers of war require the implements thereof. First came swords, knives, shields, and armor, and the metal for forging them - and also horses, those noble beasts who carried warriors into the fray. Tradesmen and merchants supplied the hordes with what they needed, and wartime commerce had its genesis and began its evolution. Next came guns and cannons, for destructive capabilities had to advance. Merchants supplied these as well. The march of progress brought forth ever more terrible engines of destruction, and always there were merchants to provide them. Commerce! If Leviathan could smile, surely it would have, nor would its good cheer have been marred in the least by the mounting piles of corpses, young and old alike feeding the flies, for every person and every community is expendable, grist for the mill, to the victor the spoils. All was right with the world.

Where at first the business of war had relied on tradesmen such as blacksmiths, these eventually gave way to industrialization. The sheer number of weapons, ammunition, and war machines required was staggering. Efficiency was needed, and economies of scale, and division of labor, and centralized control. Humanity was equal to the task. Factories were built and equipped, and products were churned out at dizzying speeds. Industrialization soon became the factor that decided the outcome of military conflicts. Whoever had (or had access to) the most and the best factories, won. The United States did not become mightier than other nations because it had more soldiers or because its soldiers were braver. No, it became mightier because its armies and navies were better equipped, and this in turn was because it could harness the tremendous power of the military industrial complex.

Nor is it sufficient to have merely the most weapons, ammunition, and war machines: it is also necessary to have the best. Innovation! Nothing on earth is more beautiful or more deadly. Physicists, chemists, engineers, mathematicians, all are recruited by the military industrial complex, and all do their part to continuously improve man’s ability to slaughter man. To shoot farther, straighter, faster; to demolish more totally; to carry more people and things from point A to point B and do it more quickly so the killing can begin without delay; to better enable communications and the analysis of information so better command decisions can be made and more of the enemy neutralized: the appetite for innovation is voracious, ravenous, never satisfied, and Leviathan gobbles up its daily meals with gusto, excreting corpses with as little concern as a man has for his turds.  

From the making of total war comes civilizational selection, for total war is a zero sum game: either you win or you lose, and if you lose, you are either displaced, exterminated, or subjugated. In recent decades we haven’t been witnessing total war very often. Instead we see governments toppled – and then the victor, usually the United States, rushes in to try to rebuild the place in its own image, and lo and behold! They repeatedly fail. They win the war and lose the peace, over and over again, because they don’t understand what war is for. It’s a contest of civilizations, and the loser is supposed to be made to vanish, either by genocide, or by exile, or by being absorbed into the victor and rendered irrelevant as a discrete entity, its useful attributes assimilated and its useless ones buried and forgotten. Chase, kill, eat, excrete: these are what the victor is supposed to do to the vanquished. When it does it, civilizational selection takes place, Leviathan is strengthened, and all is right with the world, for the victor has proven itself the best at commerce, industry, and innovation, and these are the principles by which Leviathan rises and expands.

Can the individual exploit all this? Of course. Be the merchant. Be the industrialist. Be the innovator. HAIL MAMMON! ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!    

“The Fear of God is the root of the poisonous tree.”

What is God? It is the personification of the Superego: the voice in your head that tells you the Id is bad, sinful, damned everlastingly to hellfire – when in fact the Id is the entire source of your power to enjoy life. Society was your Superego’s maker, and for that, it forfeits any claim to your allegiance.

“Blessed are the selfish, for they have their hands on the throat of God.”

God – the Superego – would have you sacrifice your Id on the altar of moral goodness. Make no mistake: the Id and the Superego are at war. The War in Heaven and the Fall of Lucifer are metaphors for the struggle inside your head. The vanguard of the Id’s advancing army is your innate selfishness, which, the moment it has your acknowledgement and approval, goes straight at the Superego with ruthless and merciless malice.

“Blessed are the greedy, for they would possess the earth.”

The highest expression of selfishness is greed: wanting it all and wanting it now. It is never satiated, and therefore it drives your relentless conquest of the material world. It is the territory and treasure aspect of your will to power, and the most perfect expression of that will, for territory and treasure are both the ends and the means of power.

“The love of money is the beginning of wisdom.”

No tool of domination is better suited to its task than filthy lucre. All the cunning arts of seduction and manipulation can be neutralized in an instant by the hand that offers coin of the realm. And make no mistake: domination is what money is for, when you have enough of it.

“Blessed are the rich, for they stand at the helm.”

Many Western nations are plutocracies pretending to be democracies, and chief among them is the United States. Nor is it merely billionaires and hectomillionaires that rule. If you have enough money that only a fraction is needed for necessities and common luxuries, what remains can be spent on acquiring and consolidating economic and even political power.

“Blessed are the buyers and sellers, for they make the world go round.”

Buying and selling are the primary expressions of economic power, and since for every buyer there is a seller who may then turn and buy with the proceeds, and for every seller a buyer who may then turn and sell what was bought, what we have is an endless dance of financial transactions, a ballet for which the whole world is the stage. Nothing of any importance happens independently of this choreography. Nothing political, nothing warlike, nothing scientific, nothing cultural. All of humanity in all of its dimensions of life is swept up in the great swirling dance of money changing hands.

“Blessed are they who honor the name of Mammon, for they prove they are fearless of God.”

For over a thousand years, the disciples of the crucified were taught, “You cannot serve two masters. You will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.”  (The use of the demonic proper name was a mistranslation but it held sway for over a millennium.) I agree heartily: you must choose between greed and Superego: between the love of money and the fear of God. Don’t be fooled by the millionaire televangelists. They’re no more Christian than you or I.

This is the end of my third wave of postings. I have expressed all of my philosophy as of August 6th, 2021. ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

The love of money is the beginning of wisdom.

The fear of God is the root of the poisonous tree.

Blessed are the rich, for they stand at the helm.

Blessed are the greedy, for they would possess the earth.

Blessed are they who take the biggest portion, for because of them, the meek will go without.

Blessed are they who laugh, for they know the great truth.

Blessed are they who lust, for their senses are alive.

Blessed are they who love food, for the world is their oyster.

Blessed are they who work smarter, not harder, for by sloth they conquer.

Blessed are the vain, for they adorn the best subject.

Blessed are they whose arrogance makes them walk like kings, for the earth knows its master.

Blessed are they whose envy elevates their ambitions, for they will have the last laugh.

Blessed are they who make their own meaning, for they prove they have no need of God.

Blessed are they who are laws unto themselves, for they shall be called Lords of Order.

Blessed are the strong, for they can bear the brunt of an attack.

Blessed are the cunning, for they set traps their prey will not escape.

Blessed are they whose malice is a thing of beauty, for theirs is the highest art.

Blessed are the buyers and sellers, for they make the world go round.

Blessed are they who take ACTION out in the world, for the world is vulnerable to them.

Blessed are the selfish, for they have their hands on the throat of God.

Blessed are they who stand alone, for Leviathan has a place for them.

Blessed are they who honor the name of Mammon, for they prove they are fearless of God.

ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

“Greed is the subconscious of the super-beast.”

How can we exploit the third great Mammon-truth?

First, we must understand that there is only a subconscious in relation to an ego. The entire function of the subconscious is to press against the ego. Yet I've said the super-beast's ego hasn't yet emerged, and this is true. It's in the process of coalescing out of unconscious chaos. All we have right now are pockets of pre-ego or proto-ego, the most obvious being the central banks. Notice I didn’t say governments. The ego is the reality principle in an organism, and governments are decidedly not in the realty business. In fact we specifically want to look at central banks that function independently of governments and their bullshit.

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It wasn’t always as independent as it is today, but in recent times, the Federal Reserve has flat out refused to become politicized, and has managed to stick to its guns and yield nothing of its power. For that very reason, the economy of the United States has proven far more resilient than many expected it to. It has had its ups and down, but it hasn’t collapsed or spun out of control, and we have the Federal Reserve to thank for that. What’s more, the politicians know it. President-elect George W. Bush, in the year 2000, had this to say: “One of the things I'm certain that I should not do as president-elect is to try to put words in the mouth of Alan Greenspan.”

This, then, is what we as a species can do at the present time to hasten the emergence of the ego of the super-beast: We can push for the creation and preservation of independent central banks in every country.

As the macroscopic ego continues to coalesce, so too does the macroscopic subconscious. They're each pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, from out of the chaotic miasma they currently float in. They're doing this in tandem, like two lovers awakening the life force in one another. The rhythm of their lovemaking is the intricate percussion of the global economy. Money changing hands, goods and services being bought and sold, this is the one thing, the only thing, that unites our species across oceans and continents, and that's why the macroscopic ego will perceive reality through an economic lens, and the macroscopic subconscious will press hardest from the perspective of greed.

When macroscopic greed has fully emerged, humanity will have finally put Plato and his cerebral values to death. Will have finally (again and for good) put Christ and his “Blessed are the poor” to death. Finally put the Buddha and his “Suffering is caused by desire” to death. Finally (again and for good) put John Lennon and his “All you need is love” to death. Finally put Billy Bob Butkus and his “It’s OK if I’m poor if niggers are poorer” to death. Love of money – not fear of God – will be seen as the beginning of wisdom. Spiritual pipedreams – not love of money – will be seen as the root of all evil. The great motto of the Planetary Federation will be, “In Greed We Trust.”

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, I name thee Antichrist, in whom I am well pleased. This is the last of my second wave of writings. I have fully expressed my viewpoint as of July 20, 2021. ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

“Money is the blood of the super-beast.”

How can we exploit the second great Mammon-truth?

One way is by applying this wisdom to the stock market.

First, we must ask ourselves: What is the super-beast doing? Answer: It is growing. In four dimensions – human population, the global computer network, physical territory, and economic territory – it is growing, and so it makes diabolical sense for us to invest in these four areas. Leviathan’s relentless advance and expansion is the Dao, what some might call an “invisible hand,” which is not a metaphysical concept, but rather, is a macroeconomic statistical hypothesis which can be tested quantifiably by experts. Leviathan is the Übermensch, the ultimate aim of all power, and make no mistake, money is power.

The way to invest in human population growth is to invest in all forms of infrastructure, for without the latter, the former is doomed either to failure or to the useless multiplication of useless human bodies. Roads, bridges, sewers, electricity, natural gas, potable water, food, telephony, the internet, education, medicine, cars and trucks, and mass transit are all essential to a growing human population that isn’t going to just wallow in miserable poverty. Companies that contribute to the advance and expansion of infrastructure will ride the current of the Dao. Consider investing in them.    

The way to invest in the growth of the global computer network is to invest in (a) those companies who are building or improving the internet backbone and (b) those companies who are exploiting the internet backbone in new, innovative ways. The latter category includes streaming companies, gaming companies, and the makers of smart cars and smart homes. Companies in both categories are riding the current of the Dao. Consider investing in them. In particular look for companies who are pushing the frontiers of artificial intelligence.

The way to invest in the growth of physical territory is to invest in (a) undersea colonization and (b) outer space colonization. These are not pipedreams, nor are they boondoggles. The will to power is the will to eat, reproduce, and colonize. Living things have been conquering new territories from the dawn of intentional locomotion in the invertebrate kingdom. Vertebrates doubled down on this imperative. Mighty indeed was the will to power in the first proto-amphibians who boldly went where no animal had gone before: dry land. Humanity, meanwhile, has invaded every terrestrial niche we laid our eyes on. The bottom of the ocean beckons, as does the surface of the moon, and of Mars. Companies engaged in these grand expeditions are riding the current of the Dao. Consider investing in them.

The way to invest in the growth of economic territory is to invest in companies who are creating whole new markets. The cell phone was an example of this, and the smart phone took it a step further. Anti-perspirant was a supreme example. Before advertisers taught them to, consumers didn’t fear the stink of their underarms. Superhero movies have been a triumphant example. Companies who teach consumers to want things they never wanted before, or to fear things they never feared before, ride the current of the Dao. Consider investing in them.

I, of course, am not a financial adviser, and this post is for entertainment purposes only. ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

“Money makes the world go round.”

How can we exploit the first great Mammon-truth?

What immediately comes to mind are the applications to law enforcement. Even if none of us are in that field, the thought process will be illustrative.

First, there’s the famous dictum that guides detectives who are trying to solve a crime. “Follow the money.” Get access to bank records and analyze them. Money coming in could be a clue, as could money going out. Where (or from whom) did it come in from? In exchange for what? Where (or to whom) did it go out to? In exchange for what? Detectives have caught many a perpetrator by asking these questions.

Next, there’s a ploy often used by the FBI: If you can’t prove murder, look for tax fraud. The famous gangster Al Capone went to prison not for any of his other crimes, but for tax fraud. Indicted on 22 counts, he was sentenced to eleven years. This works pretty often because those of a criminal mindset are rubbed the wrong way by having to give their money away, but they aren’t always financial mavens. Some of them will clumsily hoist themselves “with their own petard” as the saying goes.

Finally, there’s a highly effective anti-terrorist tactic: Freeze the financial assets of suspected bad actors. This is a way of getting at perpetrators who can’t otherwise be reached because they’re hiding in another country, generally a hostile one. These miscreants will often keep their money in international bank accounts, which are accessible to international law enforcement. They do this because the banks in their own countries can’t be trusted, often because of widespread corruption and thievery at every level of society in those countries.

All of this is why police detectives and federal agents will often get degrees in Accounting or Finance. They understand the first great Mammon-truth. May we all be as wise. ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

Here is the third great truth, which, as I did with the first and second, I name Mammon: “Greed is the subconscious of the super-beast.” (Read my blog post numbered X to get grounded in this concept.)

You may have noticed I employ elephantine images when I post about Leviathan. Isn’t he a sea serpent? I made the decision to subsume Behemoth into the concept of Leviathan. Behemoth is widely thought to be a hippopotamus, but Egypt, in biblical times, did have elephants, and since I find their faces less comical than that of the hippo, I went with the pachyderm with the prehensile proboscis. But I haven’t discarded the sea serpent archetype. Take a look at the image at the bottom of this post.

What you’re looking at is one of William Blake’s masterpieces, which the famous mystic created in 1825. There’s a definite yin/yang structure to the image, which Blake titled, “Behemoth and Leviathan.” I’ve decided to perceive the two beasts as heads and tails of the same coin, so for me, the title would simply be, “Leviathan.” I choose to perceive the land creature as holding the yang position, which makes it the light of day, activating, ego aspect. I choose to perceive the sea serpent as holding the yin position, which makes it the dark of night, reactive, subconscious aspect.

Leviathan, in this symbol, is the Dao, the sum of day and night, action and reaction, ego and subconscious, land creature and sea serpent.

The sea serpent is the reactive subconscious of the super-beast. It’s the will to power of all the individual members of Homo economicus: the sum of all human greed. The land creature, whose approximation in real world zoology is for me an elephant, is the activating ego of the super-beast. It has not yet awakened. It will continue to slumber until something momentous happens, perhaps the Singularity. Remember: the global computer network has been completely coopted by the forces of human greed. The Singularity, if it emerges, will be Machina economicus. Its design will be founded on economic imperatives.

If Machina economicus emerges in our lifetimes, the sensible question for us to ask about it will be: How can we exploit it? ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

Here is a second great truth, which, as I did with the first, I name Mammon: “Money is the blood of the super-beast.” (Read my blog post numbered X to better understand this concept.)

What is blood? Blood is a constantly circulating fluid that provides the body with nutrition, oxygen, and waste removal. Consider money. Does it constantly circulate? Yes. Does it provide the body of the super-beast with nutrition, oxygen, and waste removal? Yes, as potentials to be actualized. Nothing constructive gets done in human civilization except via the medium of money. Nothing gets built, nothing runs, nothing gets pushed out of sight and out of mind so building and running can continue, except by the stupendous power of filthy lucre.

I have called the super-beast Übermensch, toward which the will to power relentlessly climbs. Now you’ll get a better understanding of what that means. In Homo economicus (economic man) the will to power manifests as greed: greed in all its forms and all the permutations into which it enters. Homo economicus (together with its global network of computers) is the nervous system of the super-beast, even as money is the blood. As each individual member of Homo economicus pursues its will to power, which is greed, it inevitably contributes to the growth and maintenance of the Übermensch, which is the super-beast, whom I have also named Leviathan. Even theft keeps the money flowing, as what was stolen will either be spent or sold, or, if it’s some sort of collectible, it will appreciate in value so that someday it can be sold. Meanwhile, most likely the victim of the theft was insured, and the insurance company will have to pay out. Even black-market transactions, such as the drug trade, or human trafficking, keep the money flowing, enabling potentials within the body of the super-beast, which grows, and grows, and grows, until one day it will stretch out its leg and place its titanic foot on Mars.

This is reality, and reality is everyone’s higher power. ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

When I call Mammon forth into consciousness by uttering the great truth of macroscopic human relations – “Money makes the world go round” – I blaspheme, and wantonly.

For if money makes the world go round, then God does not. There is no right hand of Providence. There is only the left hand of commerce and finance. There is no heavenly grace. There is only supply and demand. And to Abraham’s three flocks of bleating sheep, this is blasphemy most foul.

Furthermore – and this is a more subtle point – if money makes the world go round, then neither the rise of the capitalists nor the rise of the proletariat has the final claim on history’s trajectory, for the two are the heads and tails of the same coin (a particularly apt metaphor). Money is the master. Capitalists and the proletariat are merely vassals. Let them tussle all they will, at the end of the day they bend the knee to the same lord. And to Adam Smith’s disciples as well as to Karl Marx’s zealots, this stinks with the stench of blasphemy.

Additionally, if money makes the world go round, then political systems do not. So-called democracies have no defense against the hegemony of money. Nor do dictatorships. Nor do single-party technocracies like China or oligarchic thugocracies like Russia or repressive theocracies like Iran or corrupt kleptocracies like Somalia. Money rules them all and with an iron fist. All of them throw their vaunted principles or megalomaniacal ambitions out the window when the laws of supply and demand come knocking at their doors. But don’t say this out loud on the streets (of at least some) of these countries. It’s blasphemy!

Finally, if money makes the world go round, then culture does not. Literature is a commodity to be bought and sold. Philosophy is a market for college textbooks and professorial tenure. Music is a vehicle for selling ads. Art is a collectible. Theater is for putting butts in seats with buckets of popcorn on laps. All of these can only really be understood from the perspective of supply and demand. Let the historians of literature, of philosophy, of music, of art, of theater, ground all their treatises in economics, or else spout lies. Oh, to say this in the halls of academia! Such exquisite blasphemy.

Money, money, money, money, money. ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!

Whether you think so or not, whether you like it or not, reality is your higher power. Reality is everyone’s higher power. It sets the rules for every minute of our lives.

This higher power can’t be served, because it has no agenda. It can’t be worshipped in any meaningful way, because it has no self-awareness. It can be ignored, but only at our peril. It can’t be opposed, because everything we do is part of it. But take note: it very much CAN be exploited.

What’s the reality of human social relations? At the macro level, it’s this: “Money makes the world go round.”

I give great truths demonic names. This may seem odd at first, but the more you do it, the more natural and even obvious it begins to seem. To the great truth in the previous paragraph, I give the name you’d expect: Mammon.

Demons don’t exist except in our minds. Yet in our minds their existence is potent. Attaching them to great truths enhances their potency while simultaneously giving dimension and color to the great truths.

Old time occultists had the right idea regarding demons. They didn’t want to serve or worship them. They wanted to exploit them. They cast their circles and spoke their magic words to bring the demons under heel and master them. This is the attitude we should hold toward any great truth. In modern parlance, we should be looking to make that great truth our bitch.

Mammon was never a Goetic demon, so he had no seal. In modern times a few people have proposed their own designs for a seal of Mammon. Instead of adopting theirs, I’ve designed my own. It adorns this post. You can use it as a visual focus for meditation. If you do, your mantra can be the great truth to which I’ve given Mammon’s name: “Money makes the world go round.” This will open your consciousness (“your third eye” if you like that imagery) to all the subtleties of money’s role in every facet of our lives. This is wisdom, and by this wisdom we can begin to exploit the latent possibilities all around us.

As the Beatles originally wrote but the Flying Lizards refined, “The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, I want money.” ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!