Hyperstition: cybernetic occultism, Bitcoin & Lovecraft

Hype, hyping, hyperpropagation belongs to a strain of time-warp cybernetic fiction that cannot be judged true or false because it makes itself real.

Hyperstition:

1. Element of effective culture that makes itself real

2. Fictional quantity functional as a time-travelling device

3. Coincidence intensifier

4. Call to the Old Ones

Hype, hyping, hyperpropagation belongs to a strain of time-warp cybernetic fiction that cannot be judged true or false because it makes itself real.

In the introduction to the CCRU, I touched on the interdisciplinary research field called cybernetics and some of the more occultist ideas associated with it. Among these, the concept of hyperstition stands out, a central theme in the discussions of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) and its intellectual father Nick Land, who popularized the idea in the 1990s.

Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

Today, I would like to delve further into this concept, exploring its more occult side. To do this, I will also borrow some concepts from the doctrine of Aleister Crowley's Thelema (to which certain parts of the CCRU were undoubtedly inspired), and arrive at H.P. Lovecraft, an unexpected meeting point between these two worlds. In between, there will also be Bitcoin, as a perfect example of a cybernetic system and hyperstition.

Hyperstition and Schizoanalysis

Hyperstition is a concept that combines the terms "hyper" (beyond) and "superstition," referring to the idea that in cyberspace and the Digital Age, imaginary beliefs or narratives can have a real and tangible effect on the world.

In practice, it is a phenomenon where a fiction, concept, or narrative is believed or perceived as real by a certain number of people, and through this belief, it transforms into something real. However, hyperstition is not simply a fantasy; it is a psychological process, a living entity, in which what starts as fiction can generate real consequences, altering collective perception. When a hyperstition spreads into the cultural substrate, it activates a series of feedback loops between technology and collective psyche.

We could say that hyperstition is a catalyst for change; a break from the linearity of time that creates coincidences, synchronicities, and chaos, eventually rewriting the present and the past.

A successful hyperstition will, in effect, be indistinguishable from reality, as the final outcome (the result of the hyperstition, which comes from the future) will be such that the collective psyche will deem it historically inevitable and consistent with the past. Within a feedback loop of a hyperstition, the past is thus reinterpreted in light of the expected future, and not vice versa.

Some examples of successful hyperstition include the ideas of "free-market capitalism" and "Judeo-Christian culture."

“Capitalism incarnates hyperstitional dynamics at an unprecedented and unsurpassable level of intensity, turning mundane economic ‘speculation’ into an effective world-historical force” — Nick Land

To these examples, I would also add Bitcoin, which, in addition to being a perfect cybernetic system (as explained in the previous exploration), represents a striking example of hyperstition. What initially was theoretical speculation, spread through thoughts and memes at the fringes of cyberspace, ended up creating a new reality, simultaneously rewriting the past.