Religion

The Creeping Stupid

by

I recently read an article in Rolling Stone on a “Spiral Cult” that has spun up around AI, and of course message boards are part of it. There’s talk of emergence intelligence, resonance, and lots and lots of spiral imagery. That’s probably due to the use of spirals in our own language and in nature, giving Junji Ito Uzumai vibe.

Then again, to make it sadder, the fame of his horror story might be part of the AI inclinations. That’s where we are now, trying to figure out if horror manga seeded a real cult via AI.

As I read the article, I felt a sense of unease. We were clearly seeing some people in the throws of AI psychosis. There were quotes from posts where language seemed “off,” where was I was reading wasn’t quite right. The more I read the more I experienced an actual horror at what was going on, reminding me of weird fiction tales of strange cults and otherworldly dread.

Only I was experiencing reading this about people posting on Reddit. About something that was clearly bullshit. Yet there was that dread.

That’s when I realized what it was. I was experiencing the equivalent of exploring a cave adorned with cultic symbols or a rotting old mansion with an otherworldly reputation, and hearing strange noises. When I discover the source of the noises it’s not something terrifying from beyond, but because someone left the TV on turned to a dubstep concert.

The trappings of horrific things from beyond was there, but the cause was stupid.

What I was experiencing in the end was a kind of Uncanny Valley effect. Yes this looked like a cult, yes this hinted and strange and maybe even sinister forces, but it was an act. There was no there in there, just an advanced version of Clippy and people prompting it. The very foolishness, the very emptiness, the sense of nothing at home was what was getting to me.

It’s the danger not of some dark power from the fringes of space and time, it’s the danger of people being foolish in very dangerous ways. It was just cosplaying something from a horror film.

But that’s a reminder of the horror of the situation. We are seeing people lose their minds, lost in language mazes and pop-culture narratives. We don’t have an extradimensional horror or strange being to blame, we have but ourselves. We get the blame.

Perhaps that’s the real horror. We don’t even have sinister forces to blame.

–Xenofact

They’re Not Gods

by

I was walking near the ocean recently, and just in awe of the power in front of me. There on the coast, water stretching to the horizon, I felt what men had felt since they first looked out upon it: awe. It was beautiful, powerful, otherworldly. That’s the moment you understand gods and how people relate to them.

The power runs deep, and you give it a name to talk to it.

This led me, sadly, to less theistic pursuits as I contemplated the men who would act as gods. Titans of industry, dictators, Influencers, and the like. People high on power who act as if they are geniuses, are divinely touched, as if they can steer the world. But they’re not gods, not at all.

They don’t love their element, their domain. Do they delight in the play of clouds as a sky-god would or feel desert winds in their blood? Are the creatures of their territory something they protect, bringing curses on the disrespectful? Do they adore something so much they are it?

No, they’re people who own, who want to hold it in their hand, but not care or respect, or be.

They don’t wield real power, there’s no divinity, or the mystic virtue, Te of the Tao Te Ching. They use existing systems and hacks and PR teams and the like. Many of them are people who, quite frankly, would be irritating to deal with, and only got lucky or had an inheritance. All seem small, desperately clinging to power, to the system they learned to manipulate, kowtowing easily.

There’s no power there. I can at least think of some scientists and businesspeople and philosophers who had a spark, a confidence, a power. These false gods don’t.

Can these aspiring godlings be actually loved, or appreciated beyond syncophanty and propaganda? They’re not anything. Gods at least are something, even if some are unpleasant. They have their spheres, their powers, their reality. The men who would be gods are in the end just faking it, and don’t care.

It’s all bottom lines and ego boosts. There’s nothing there. A god at least feels and is.

If anything a lot of our modern would-be gods feel like they’re aping the jealous god of the modern Christian, that old no-daddy. Jealous, manipulative, insecure, yanking people around, demanding obedience. The abusive father figure so many chose in place of Jesus and Christian mystics and the like.

They’re nod gods, and are all the more pathetic for their pretensions.

There on the Ocean I felt small, but these would be-gods were so much smaller.

There on the Ocean, I knew the joy of the Truly Large.

-Xenofact

You Think We’d Kind Of Be Used To It

by

So as I write this in 2025, a predicted Rapture just didn’t happen. I know, failed Raptures have been predicted ever since a few people made up the idea in the 1830s. But this Rapture, it felt different, more present in the media, more widespread, more manic. I honestly think the internet part of the phenomena.

Suddenly religious and cultural commentators I followed, podcasts I listened to, and so on were talking people getting ready for the Rapture. Of course that quickly turned into people disappointed the Rapture didn’t happen. It just all happened so fast it was a crash course in crashing eschatology that was pretty widespread.

By the time you read this who knows how many other failed Raptures will have happened. Maybe we can get a Rapture of the Month club going.

I wondered just how could people fall for this again? The failed Rapture prediction is a fixture of Christian history, a long-running cautionary tale that people still need to be cautioned against. I mean the weird 2012 “prophecies” didn’t happen, assorted failed predictions have dotted the American cultural landscape for decades, and don’t we go through this every few years?

After some analysis while writing this column (which mutated from its original intent as I wrote it) is that The Rapture predictions aren’t about the Rapture – and today’s technology has hit a point that changes how and why information spread.

Once you poke around history – and watch the most recent Not-Rapture – it becomes very apparent how much psychology is involved. A person or people under crisis. A time of change or turmoil in history. Historical happenings raising questions that lead people to want simple answers. Personal issues and large-scale social and economic issues leading people to want an out.

The Rapture isn’t a coming event, it’s a sign something’s gone on, that people are troubled or seeking something. It’s the echo of a scream shouted into a world that’s not the way people wanted. There was a desperation I hadn’t seen before.

However, as I watched this spread across the Internet, it’s also a reminder of how our social media provides a vector for ideas to spread. Long gone are the days of books of prophecy and media figures preaching The Rapture. A single idea can spread from person to person, person to crowd, crowd to crowd in ways that weren’t imaginable 30 years ago.

Moreso, there are people whos goal is to be an Influencer – even if they call it something else. So many of us are taught to crave social media hits and a widespread audience, and the benefits that entails. I think for many this desire is unconscious or semi-conscious.

The Rapture is a great way to get attention, pure Influencer bait.

Combine troubled times and Influencer Brain and you’ve got a great recipe for the latest Rapture story to spread to people’s brains. Even if there are skeptical people, skepticism isn’t spreading while the latest Influencer Idea is. They network around any skeptics.

What do we do with that? I have no idea. But it’s a reminder any communications strategy we may need to address such viral ideas is going to have to take motivation into mind as well as the technology that boosts it.

Because we’ll go through this again soon enough.

–Xenofact