[UNLOCKED] The Secret of the Ancestor Simulation

There was a tweet I can no longer find1 that said something along the lines of this:

If we’re all living in an ancestor simulation then there’s a possibility that our social media posts are the only concrete record of our original’s lives, and everything about our lives between those posts is just extrapolation.

There are a few interesting places to go from this starting point. First of all we have to ask, is this potential far-future use of social media (and blog posts, newsletters, podcasts, etc) intentional or merely a side effect? Could it be foundational to the creation of social media (or the internet as we know it), or is it just a happy accident that we’re creating shadow selves for possible digital reincarnation?

We know that many Silicon Valley types (Elon Musk most notably) are interested – or believe – in simulation theory, so it’s not much of a stretch to consider that (at least subconsciously) designers, developers, and engineers in SV are considering the sites, apps, and tools they create from the POV of their usefulness for a simulation.

If we live in the Prime Reality (as in, if we are not living in a simulation2) then the internet as a whole could be seen as a data gathering tool created to add verisimilitude to any possible simulation our descendants may create in the future – raw data, additional detail/context, and a timeline for the simulation to follow.

If, on the other hand, we do live in a Simulated Reality, then these tech companies could simply be a front put in place through subtle manipulations by the superusers3 in order to integrate the hard data they had on their ancestors (ie. the people that we are shades of) into the simulation. The internet becomes the backbone of the simulation, giving us places and times when we need to be posting, as well as what we need to actually post – the words, pictures, emojis, links, or whatever. The simulated person (ie. you or me) would have a detailed psychological and personal profile4 created by the vast reams of data that has been fed into the ancestor simulation5, and what we do/say/feel/experience between our social media postings, messages sent to friends and family, or purchases made via online stores, etc, would be an extrapolation based on the highly detailed data set they have on each person.

Now, the second road we can take this premise down is where I get to merge my interests in the occult and simulation theory… If a post to social media is a piece of concrete data that the simulation must follow, then wouldn’t it track that a simple social media post could alter your life in some way?

Whether you’ve ever prayed, tested out sigil work in the chaos magick sense, or read The Secret, you already have some idea of what I’m talking about – the notion that you can manifest something you desire in your life by appealing to, or manipulating, the universe or some higher power of your choice. (This is of course an oversimplification and also conglomeration that many people would likely take issue with, but I’m trying to keep things streamlined here.)

Chaos Magick is the example I’m most familiar with6, but if you’re unfamiliar with what I mean by that, read this piece by Grant Morrison – Pop Magic!, taken from Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. I offer the above examples simply as an… um… example – the actual form your manifesting takes is entirely secondary, and indeed even within chaos magick there are people who practice other belief systems as their main magickal tool (perhaps bringing to it a distance or rationality often lacking from a purely religious/spiritual belief).

Now, I’m not (necessarily) suggesting that a simple social media post is enough to manifest anything into your life besides some dopamine, anger, anxiety, or confusion – depending on the types of response you receive. What I am saying is that if you hold on to ancestor simulation theory in the same way that a Christian holds to their faith in God, then posting to social media would be at least as powerful as any other form of chaos magick working.

As Morrison says in Pop Magic!, chaos magick should be approached as a science – if you follow the basic guidelines as they’re outlined you will see a result. You experiment, and you record your findings. So, if you want to test this theory out, all you need to do is post.

I would suggest something subtle. You can’t simply say “Holy fuck, I can’t believe I just won a million dollars on a scratch ticket,” for a few reasons. First, you’re referring to something in the past, but obviously that hasn’t happened, so it can’t happen. Second, have you even bought a scratch ticket? (And third, can scratch tickets even pay out that much? I’m not actually sure.) But you could say, “Holy shit, I’ve got some huge news, but I can’t talk about it yet! So exciting!” What might that huge news be? Who knows! It could be anything, but most likely it will be related to something else that is happening in your life. Are you trying to get pregnant? Waiting on a job promotion? Waiting to hear back on a job interview? If you’re in publishing, might you be hoping to sell a book or a film option soon? You can’t manifest things out of nothing – they will be woven together from the threads of your life, often in unexpected or oblique ways.

Caveat: The universe has a sense of humour, so if you give it room for interpretation, don’t be surprised when it does something a little funky. I added “So exciting!” to the example above because otherwise “huge news” on its own could be taken any number of ways.

You also need to remember that the entire basis for this magickal working is a belief that social media is tied in to an ancestor simulation, so if anyone asks you what your big news is about don’t send them a DM telling them you’re just fucking about with ancestor simulation chaos magick. Tell anyone you want in-person, but don’t talk about it at a meta-level on any platform whose data may one day be combined into the simulation7.

Let’s go back to our original fork in the road – where one path is for if we are in the Prime Reality, and the other is for if we are in a Simulated Reality. If we are indeed in the PR, and all the information we’re feeding into the Stacks might one day be used to build an ancestor simulation, then I’m sorry to say that you won’t be able to manifest anything using this particular tool (though, honestly, chaos magick is right there if you’re curious and cautious). But, even though the you that is here and now might not see any benefit, the you that is one day reconstituted inside an ancestor simulation could live a far more interesting life depending on the data you’ve fed into the system. Fake it ‘til you make it… as another you entirely.

On that second path, where this really is an ancestor simulation, these social media manipulations would be a simple way to alter your life (and possibly prove [if only to yourself] that we are indeed living in an AS). But remember the Monkey Paw. Maybe you’re going to overhaul your life to look like an Instagram influencer so you can laze about in the sun drinking margaritas and getting paid for it – but is that the life you actually want? Your income can be disrupted or destroyed by changes to the algorithm, you’ll spend hour after hour taking photos until you get just the right one, the app will run your life because they demand constant engagement and if you slack off, someone else will be there, ready to swoop in.

Be careful what you wish for, because if this works, you might just be stuck with it, and if not you then a digital self that is modelled off you. Don’t you want what’s best for your digital clones?

Up to this point I’ve focused on the purely personal possibilities8 of Sosh Magick™, but what potential could it have for creating or boosting larger movements, forging groups, and/or altering the course of history?

Anyone paying attention to the weird, occult, and/or tech portions of the internet probably remembers hearing about Pepe Meme Magick (primer here) in the aftermath of Trump’s election. The basic assertion there – coming from far-right figures – was that the mass proliferation of Pro-Trump Pepe memes acted as a sort of mega-sigil that was intended to win Trump the presidency. As Trump did in fact win, they took this as a sign that their meme magick worked.

While I wouldn’t go that far9, it’s apparent that Pepe meme magick had the effect of building and reinforcing a community of like-minded people, and the importance of that cannot be understated. It created a banner for people to rally around (for some that banner was ironic, for others it was genuine), and even if those people weren’t as racist, fascist, bigoted, or hateful as the worst people in the group, their presence helped legitimise the movement and thus its hatred. It’s impossible to say how many Pepe Peeps are still caught up in the Trump hysteria and/or QAnon, but if nothing else, Pepe meme magick helped carve out an online space for these groups, ideologies, and conspiracies to grow. It might not have put Trump in the Oval Office, but it served an important function nonetheless.

But Pepe is old news. The mind virus of the current moment remains QAnon, but even then the notion that it could have been a mass magickal working (even accidentally) didn’t occur to me until Austin made the suggestion, but as soon as he said it, it seemed so obvious.

If you’ve got any knowledge of (or experience with) sigil work, then the idea of “Pepe Meme Magick” makes sense as soon as you hear it. Sigil work involves taking your intention and breaking it down into a representative symbol. Pepe meme magick involved taking pro-Trump intentions and putting them into a representative symbol that could be shared (and would be shared, as that is the sole purpose of a meme)10. QAnon as Sosh Magick™, on the other hand, might not be as easily recognisable, but I think it holds.

Intention, will, and focus are always important facets of any magickal work. The creation of a sigil (or a mantra) requires focus – you write out your intention, then you begin manipulating those words and letters, then you break them down further into their constituent parts and put them back together in a way that looks/feels right. Now, most QAnon tragics aren’t themselves ‘creating’ anything, but they are obsessively poring over, and interpreting, Q’s drops. They are imbuing these messages with meaning and intention, and they are devoting huge amounts of time to the Q drops, the discussions around them, and the associated online media and communities.

If Pepe meme magick created fertile ground for the next big online movement, QAnon is growing in that space like a weed. (Or, if you like, if Pepe was John the Baptist, then Q is Jesus.)

The only part that I’m missing so far is the intention. The intention of Pepe meme magick was obvious – it was visible in every gross mass of blond hair drawn in MS Paint – but if you took QAnon at face value then you would expect the intention was… to stop child sex trafficking? While also stringing up Democrats who have nothing to do with it (apart from helping enable it with laws like SESTA/FOSTA)? And/or perhaps installing Trump as some sort of heroic warrior slash God-Emperor figure?

In the end it was TrueAnon11 that shone the light on the intent behind the QAnon magickal working, and how it all culminated in the Capitol Riots on January 6th. The entire QAnon movement was a mass ritual, and the people that died on that day were a blood sacrifice, but the intent was not to secure a second presidential term for Trump, but rather it was to secure a return to the (neoliberal, imperialist, America-first-but-in-a-polite-way) status quo.

Here's an extended transcript from the episode 128 of TrueAnon, (lightly?) edited for clarity:

Brace Belden: It all led to this, right? It all led to where we are right now. And where we are right now, is the ship has been righted. Well the ship was never truly askew, but that’s the irony of Trump. […] People thought of Trump and sort of memed Trump into being this populist insurgent who was changing politics and everything was going to be different, but what Trump was a four-year slow motion human sacrifice.

In order for things to get back— Not even to get back, to get forward. Trump himself is the Great Reset. Because that’s what they needed after Obama. They needed, “Okay, we need to let them blow off some steam, we needed Trump.” I’m not even saying there’s a group of shadowy men in some dark, smoky room talking about this, I’m saying this is a spiritual reality, right? And this is the reality. This is what happened.

[Liz Franczak had some very smart things to say here, but it was more political and grounded. For the proper madness like what I’m talking about here we need to continue with Brace…]

Brace Belden: Trump was basically, like, this way for everything to reconstitute itself; his blood is baked into those bricks of that new foundation. That’s something I’m really thinking about, right?

Like, Trump himself is what they call a Paiculum, which is a way for worshippers to commune with a god. And in this case Trump was not the god. Trump is the sacrifice in this. We’ve got three elements here. We’ve got the people, or rather the worshippers, we have the sacrifice, and we have the god. And the worshippers really here are all of these basically foot soldiers of these institutions which need to reconstitute themselves. Sort of the new Biden era. And Trump himself is the victim there. It’s like the spirit of America just wrenched his little fucking head up and slit his throat and it’s bleeding out.

It is incredible to watch, because Trump himself, he thought he had this religion growing up around him – and he did! He had this Q thing, and all these middle-of-the-road MAGA people; the people who thought he could do no wrong. And, in fact, he was wrong, he was not actually in control of that. I don’t know who was, but certainly he wasn’t. He is however bonded with these people, so their sacrifice, this sort of beginning the warm-up on the 6th [of January], […] you have that sacrifice going on, all the deaths from that […], and then you have Trump the next day […], sacrificing himself or being sacrificed – I don’t know how to explain it – in order for the old order to basically come roaring back like a tidal wave.

There’s this historian of religion, Jonathan Z. Smith, who says any explanation of sacrifice is in fact a theory of religion in miniature. And that’s what we saw, right? We saw two clashing religions; we saw the religion of Trump, which is sort of this insurgent thing that was really sort of worshipping this false idol, and we had this religion of America, which is worshipping this very real thing. They think they’re worshipping the American state, this beautiful country, but they’re actually worshipping the deep state. And we saw this mass violence that breaks out at the Capitol that comes from the energy that sort of subconsciously lurks in the minds of these MAGA-type people, that has been building up for the past for yours, and really just growing to these incredible heights. I’m not baffled, but I’m impressed by how much these people are able to work themselves up. I would not jump through a window at a loaded gun; that is not something that I would do. I have very strong political beliefs, and that seems like an insane thing to do. It seems like, literally, the definition of self-sacrifice.

They have this subconsciousness, all this alienation and hate and fucking depression, it burbles up and leaps out, and they jump out to satiate themselves. But in that satiation, they thought they were going to get something, in fact, they let themselves be slaughtered and their blood [is] flowing on the floors of the Capitol. And all the pig-men and they’re little bag-heads crawled out and lapped it up. And so all this shit you’re seeing, all the tears, all this stuff like, “Oh god, democracy is in peril,” no, this was a blood sacrifice and the people that drink that blood could never be more satisfied.

I don’t know that what Brace says is true (Nothing Is True), but it makes a certain sort of occult sense (and this sort of occult thinking gives us another lens through which to attempt to make sense of the chaos and carnage that is geopolitics).

The spilled blood forced America to reckon with the true anger and violence of this movement, cutting down a budding American fascism before it could fully bloom12.

That on its own sounds like a good thing (is a good thing compared to the previous equivocating from the media, politicians, Big Tech, etc), but it’s difficult to celebrate. For one thing, with the incoming administration, I imagine we’re likely to see America go further down the hole toward something like a technocratic neofeudalism domestically, and a reinforcement of Pax Americana elsewhere in the world, as they struggle to secure dwindling resources. And secondly, there’s no telling what the backlash from this will look like. We’re seeing the media and tech companies distance themselves from these dangerous right-wing movements now, but we’re yet to see how these movements will evolve under this new pressure. If law enforcement continues to turn a blind eye to white supremacist violence (and they almost certainly will), then something far more dangerous could be coming down the pipe.

Perhaps this is the Monkey Paw all over again. The centrist status quo was able to finally discredit Trump and the movement surrounding him13, but at what cost?

Sosh Magick™ remains a dangerous and underexplored place.