Theosophy and Vril: How a Secret Society Shaped Science Fiction

The following is from @Logo_Daedalus's WALL OF TEXT 6/6/23. It has been automatically split into paragraph breaks by ChatGPT. The title was also generated by ChatGPT.

Today, I've been thinking more about UFOs and the prevailing cosmology of science fiction. Science Fiction is one of the most important imperial technologies of the West. China recognizes this, which is why they've been pushing their own Science Fiction franchises.

Science Fiction is essentially an Eschatological Literature which posits not "how things are right now" or "how we got to where things are now" the way that the Romances of former eras did (all deriving from Romans-- Roman Novels-- the "Matters of Antiquity" such as the "Matter of Britain" or the "Matter of Rome").

This is essentially a literature that engages in Prophecy-- self-consciously, Science Fiction writers are presented as "prophets" in a way that "literary fiction" writers since the dawn of Sci-Fi have not.

What's curious though is that the best "literary fiction" writers incorporated this innovation of Science Fiction into their aesthetics long ago-- Nabokov is one of my favorite "Science Fiction Writers" & although Richard Dawkins is too stupid to understand Kafka, Kafka is also a "Science Fiction Writer" in the same way that Gogol or Borges is a Science Fiction writer-- we now live in an age where Peter Thiel names the corporate owner of Urbit "Tlon" after the eponymous Borges story. We have already long inhabited a "Science Fiction" worldview.

When George Lucas wrote Star Wars, he was already paying homage to generations of Science Fiction before him. & all Science Fiction derives from the utopian literature of the renaissance-- in which the New Jerusalem, the telos of History, was posited as a City of God, the City of the Sun by Tomas Campanella (from "The Islands of the Sun" by Iambulus), Thomas Moore's "Utopia," Bacon's "New Atlantis," The Voyage of Icaria, The Adventures of Telemachus, Robinson Crusoe, & of course the Rosicrucian Manifestos.

There is also the component tradition of the "dystopian" literature, or the Science Fiction of Pessimism, as found in Voltaire's Candide or Swift's Gulliver's Travels. But one of the most influential Science Fiction visions was "Vril" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the Benthamite utilitarian conservative scion of British Columbia's gold interests.

This was a massive influence on later Theosophical literature, & this "theosophical literature" is itself Science Fiction. The protagonist of Vril is involved in imperial assessments of mineral interests. He stumbles upon an antediluvian mega civilization existing in a network of tunnels underneath the world.

The denizens of this civilization have what could be described as "the force" in the Star Wars universe-- a parapsychological power, the power of telepathy, as mediated by a mysterious "invisible force" that is also like a fluid called "Vril" -- of course a fantastic reconception of electromagnetism which is becoming a major object of scientific investigation in the 19th century.

The denizens of this sublunary kingdom threaten to recolonize the world, after having surpassed humanity both retrotemporally & futuristically-- the "Vril-ya" race are superhuman, always have been, & will return to conquer the world & subjugate mankind, based upon Benthamian/Malthusian presuppositions-- "they will run out of space underground & emerge to take over the surface of the world."

It's ultimately a vision of a British Imperial officer in the 19th century recognizing that whoever will come to dominate electricity, the powers of electro-magnetism, will conquer the world. This is why as soon as this work came out, people were already claiming to be "Vril" or inducted into the mysteries of the Vril themselves. This would mean, effectively, to announce oneself as the inevitable elect superhuman community which would dominate & replace the "surface dweller normies" who hadn't become a part of the Vril-fandom yet.

Blavatsky reimagines this superhuman race as conquering not by force of arms (as Edward Bulwer-Lytton had)-- but through Charisma. The theosophists turn this conception into a hagiographical designation for the "martyrs of science" -- Buddha becomes an initiate or avatar of the Vril-Power, Christ's miracles are all explained by Vril-Power, the renaissance alchemists who invented this utopian literature of science fiction become instead "prophets of the Vril."

This cosmological development is itself the subject of later Science Fiction-- for instance, the character Reverend Nevil Maskelyne in Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" is not only a real figure, but shares a name with the Nevil Maskelyne who was a famous magician & wireless telegraph official in the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. He also just so happened to produce the special effects for Edward Bulwer-Lytton's theatrical adaptation of his Vril novel.

What I suggest is that every posited "alien" is actually the alienated self-consciousness of this class of technocrats who are coming to dominate the world in the 19th century & onward. We have a great Science Fiction hagiography about Oppenheimer coming out soon, this is why. These "visionaries of science" are presented to us as aliens-- as superhuman by means of their technical ability to control invisible forces.

What's more supernatural, really, than the operations of the Deep State as we call it? Deep how? Deep... Underground? Deep Underground Military Bases? Is this not just the story of the Vril-Society preparing for its world conquest? There's an element of hyperstition here, where the "fandom for Science Fiction" is motivated by this fandom to enter this same roll in society. It's a means of re-territorializing the technocratic bourgeois as a priest class, rather than as a commercial class.

The "rootless cosmopolitical" intelligencer of imperial technique becomes the alien-elect. Raytheon via the British GCHQ BAE Systems Lockheed Martin &c for instance has a brand deal with the Harry Potter franchise to inculcate a sense of "technological wizardry" as a motivation for working within the military industrial complex. Look up the "Cyber Schools Hub Program" if you don't believe me. This is in essence what "Fandom" means.

The very first "Fandom" in this sense were the secret societies of the Freemasons which developed their own set of literature, costumes, rituals, passwords, jargon, etc to develop a cosmopolitical society beyond the warring churches. These societies were not for proletarians, but for the bourgeois & the ancien regime, to develop a common spirit between them. The priestly power of the ancien regime was granted to the commercial power of the bourgeois.

This is so common now that it's almost insane to describe it--we barely can imagine how else things would work. This is how Yale & Harvard work--you get tested & selected for your empirical demonstration of "parapsychological power" or "IQ" (which is of course "genetically inherited") as if they're searching for your latent "Vril Power" as a "Gifted" child, & then you get inducted into "your true society" by being alienated from your "inherited" class position.

Harry Potter isn't a muggle, it just seemed that way, he was always alienated from his "humdrum" muggle life as a surface dweller normie because he was predestined to be a Deep State Operator. Aren't you also, precocious child, alienated from your own "humdrum" life in the post-industrial deproletarianized sprawl of the Anglosphere? Aren't you destined to become inducted into the secret history of the underground elite? Maybe you see Fox Mulder & say "that's literally me"--maybe you watch Alex Jones, maybe you're a member of "Anonymous" or any of the other fandoms-of-the-elect which reveal to you your destiny to be on the side of the winners of history in the end-times of total control over electromagnetism?

Science Fiction is not delimited to a specific set of "fandoms" you see-- it's the prevailing mode of socialization & it's reflected in literally everything. This is a far cry from the fantasy of pirates & cowboys that predominated the pulp literature-- it's really the detective & the "Science Hero." The detective is the protagonist who is "alien" to all levels of society, outside of society, but intimately capable of surveilling & understanding its levels as a mechanism.

The detective is the one who "gets it" -- the science fiction detective isn't merely solving a murder, but solving the entirety of history-- the science fiction detective discovers that there's really an "Alien Deep State" etc etc. Even the protagonist of Borges's Tlon Uqbar Orbits Tertius is this detective who is capable of discerning the "alien invasion" of British Utilitarian Idealism which has replaced history with a collaborative forgery. There's no question for this protagonist to "do something" about any of it-- the story ends with his enlightenment-- he "gets it" & is now one-way-or-the-other complicit or "elected" to be "in the know."

There's no question about revealing this to humanity in some way that this "invasion" is forestalled-- that's definitionally impossible within the confines of this cosmology. Once you "get it" -- you're as enlightened as you can be. You are either spared or "taken out" if you do anything else with this information but spread its consciousness. You "get it" now-- you've been socialized into the Science Fiction World Fandom-- now do you want to work for the RAND Corporation? Do you want to work for Palantir? What are you going to do about it?

You can explain it-- as I'm doing-- but this does not change anything. If anything, all of this is advertising for "the elect" to get in on it themselves, or to demoralize anyone who feels this is somehow sinister. See the petty tyrants of "conspiracy theory science fiction" cults. Reiki Healing "Alien Contact" theosophical healing cults are no different from ESALEN or the CIA. You can start a Podcast with this information. You can create your own fandom. Joe Rogan has a Mothership. "I'm an alien."