Hyperstition: the cybernetic ideas that shape reality itself

Imagine an idea so powerful it can shape reality itself. This is the essence of hyperstition.

Imagine an idea so powerful it can shape reality itself. This is the essence of hyperstition: a concept that explains how ideas, myths, and fictions can transform into agents of real change through belief and dissemination (virality).

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

1. Element of effective culture that makes itself real

2. Fictional quantity functional as a time-traveling device

3. Coincidence intensifier

4. Call to the Old Ones

The idea of hyperstition was born in the visionary labs of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) in the 1990s. It is the key to understanding how cybernetics, occult philosophy, and digital culture intertwine with one another.

Today, we will delve into the roots of this idea, traversing territories that connect the cosmic narratives of H.P. Lovecraft with the magical doctrine of Aleister Crowley and even with the technological paradigm of Bitcoin.

We will uncover how these influences intertwine to reveal a model of change and transformation in the collective psyche and the fabric of reality itself.

The Bridge Between Imagination and Reality

Hyperstition is a mechanism through which ideas, stories, and concepts take root in the collective psyche and the world. The hyperstitional process is anything but linear: it navigates synchronicities, chaos, and coincidences, rewriting the present and even the interpretation of the past.

The term hyperstition combines “hyper” (beyond) and “superstition.” However, hyperstition is not mere fantasy; it is a psychological process, a living entity where what begins as fiction can generate real consequences, altering collective perception. Once a hyperstition is disseminated within the cultural substrate, it activates a series of feedback loops between technology and the collective psyche.

We might say that hyperstition is a catalyst, a memetic virus that accelerates change. A successful hyperstition becomes indistinguishable from reality, as its consequences rewrite both reality and collective perception. Consequently, history and the past are reinterpreted in light of future expectations and the present. A hyperstitional reality will always be consistent with the past.

Within a hyperstitional feedback loop, the past is reinterpreted in light of the expected future, rather than the other way around. Examples of successful hyperstitions 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, beyond being a perfect cybernetic system, represents a striking example of hyperstition.

What initially seemed a theoretical fantasy, disseminated through ideas and memes at the edges of cyberspace, ultimately created a new reality, rewriting the past along the way. Today, it seems inevitable that Bitcoin would emerge and succeed, creating a new economy now worth trillions of dollars.