During this lecture we took a look at the cultural and psychological aspects of conspiracy theories and how they are relevant in today’s [speculative] reality.

The discussion synthesized theories of Icke, Žižek, Negarestani, and Han-yu Huang.
 

“[T]he Real cannot be signified not because it is outside, external to the symbolic order, but precisely because it is inherent to it, its internal limit: the Real is the internal stumbling block on account of which the symbolic system can never “become itself,” achieve its self-identity. Because of its absolute immanence to the symbolic, the Real cannot be positively signified; it can only be shown, in a negative gesture, as the inherent failure of symbolization.”

—Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies from Han-yu Huang, Trauma, Paranoia, and Ecological Fantasy in Don DeLillo’s Underworld: Toward a Psychoanalytic Ethics of Waste (2009)

“By fatally overexposing themselves to horizons from beyond, the State’s occultural agents gradually construct bridges and unlock gates between the borders of the State and occult entities of the Outside. This panorama of emerging duplicity is anticipated by pulp-horror’s obsession with the spontaneous disorders caused by occultural guardians, rebel Lamassus and independent scarecrows hunting farmers and desolate lands with a passion. (Such narratives of insurgency recall the catholic obsession with gargoyles.) Fulp-horror quite rightly detects an ominous tendency of the State towards the employment of hyperstitional and occultural agents.”

—Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia (2008)

“With our concept-making apparatus called “the brain” we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled “reality” and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see “reality” differently.”

—Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia (1965)

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