SNC

Open Questions

In all of 2024 to date, I have engaged in proper, creative numogrammatics on only one occasion. If you don't know what this is, just hang tight. Sometime in February I was visiting a couple precious friends of mine who have a whiteboard on their fridge; and I scrawled a numogram on it, with the letters AZSHJQ written in the six central zones and the four outer zones scratched out. This was something no one on Earth had ever done before, and while the significance was clear to me, I didn't explain it until a few weeks later. At the time I'm writing they have yet to erase it—which gratifies me, since other than that, I really have nothing to show for this year.

There are plenty of reasons I can give for this lack of activity, but it is nevertheless an aberration. From late 2019 to the end of 2023, you could regularly find me spinning out numeric diagrams of obscure provenances, writing inscrutable nonsense with specific gematricular properties, putting together rituals with no apparent purpose, or making absurd arguments about the nature of "lemurs." For just over four years this was part of my daily life, and the habits of numogrammatic practice are very much hammered into me. This phase of patience does not imply that there will never again be activity; I do not think I have put these instruments down forever. But it has given me a useful chance to think carefully about what exactly it is that I was doing in the first place.

What is numogrammatics?

I'm going to assume you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say "numogrammatics." It's actually good if you don't, because its best practitioners don't either; they are acquainted with what they work with, but not exactly with what it is they're doing. But to get to that point, you first have to acquire a bunch of false images of what numogrammatics is so that they can then be stripped away by the reality of the practice. So let me try to give you some of those false images. Nothing I am going to say in the following paragraph is something I agree with, to the point that some of it is painful and embarrassing for me to even write because it is so ultimately misleading)!, but it's all useful to know at the start.

Numogrammatics is a practice which was originally developed in 1990's England by the para-academic "Cybernetic Culture Research Unit," or CCRU, and by 0rphan Drift, an art collective. It is a form of occultism or esotericism founded on two central objects: the Numogram, or Decimal Labyrinth, which is a modified version of the Tree of Life constructed through certain basic mathematical operations; and the Pandemonium Matrix, a goetia of forty-five demons with numeric correlates on the Labyrinth. Numogrammatics draws on but significantly modifies Gnosticism, Qabalah, Thelema, Theosophy, Chaos Magick, and the I Ching, and especially centres the concept of Lemuria, Helena Blavatsky's lost continent inhabited by the proto-human Lemurians, as well as Crowleyan and Kabbalistic Gematria. Numogrammatics is also deeply influenced by continental philosophy and critical theory, most especially by Deleuze and Guattari, as well as by the work of the philosophical work of the CCRU and its individual members.

Now that I've said a bunch of things which are usefully but embarrassingly false, let me say something which is relatively true. Numogrammaticism, which is the practice of numogrammatics (given that I have just described numogrammatics as itself a practice, this may justifiably confuse you), is essentially parodic. In part, this is because, to do numogrammatics properly, you are not supposed to believe in it. Numogrammaticism is based on "unbelief," which is not exactly disbelief, but is rather a habit of approaching some object (in this case, numogrammatics) without considering questions of belief. It is in that way similar to the common concept of "suspension of disbelief," but wheras suspension of disbelief results in a kind of local belief, unbelief also implies suspension of belief—or really, just a general state of suspension. We might connect this to certain other philosophical practices, such as the Husserlian epoché or bracketing, though without the assumption that we thereby attain a higher epistemological position. So below, so below, so below... Numogrammaticism can only operate on the terms of numogrammatics, and can only aspire to internal consistency, never to ontic or epistemological accuracy. In this sense, numogrammatics resembles poetic formalism, in which compliance with (and creative application of) the form is the essence of poetic practice. Poetic formalism can and often does appear pointless, and numogrammaticism has much of the same pointlessness, which it embraces. But numogrammaticism also has a history of claiming that it is at the core of other currents in esotericism. It implies esotericism in general is, in the end, unbelievable and a waste of time.

That numogrammaticism is "a waste of time" = AQ 245 = seething void = made with love = sleight of hand (these may make sense if you're not new to numo) is very much essential to what the practice is. The term the CCRU used which most clearly matches up with numogrammaticism is "time sorcery," and the numogram is often enough called a "map of time." Yet crucially, numogrammatics is "of time," not "in time": rather than a transcendent theory of time, which takes elements such as the stars and maps them to a temporal structure which goes beyond them, numogrammaticism looks to transcendental time, the aeon of continuous variation out of which temporal sense arises. To learn what on Earth this means, it's worth reading Anna Greenspan's thesis. The experience of practicing numogrammatics in time thus tends to create a kind of temporal gap, a drain in time's river, where the flow of time bleeds out into an aeon which is of time but not in time. Yet from the perspective of being-in-time, this does look like a giant hole or waste in the course of one's life, like a single contemplative moment called numogrammatics erupted into time again and again and stole away hours, days, weeks. That is how it looks to me, at least.

Though numogrammatics looks like an esoteric tradition (albeit one nobody actually believes in), what it actually is is a contemplative moment, an instantaneous gate. For this reason, on Discord, my status is usually "instantaneity (like sunspots)"—which are equivalent in the AQ gematricular cipher. The numeracy of numogrammatics is suited to express this instant, which is the reason for numogrammatics's preference for numbers rather than speech: every numogrammatic concept is expressed in crisp numeric terms which are continuous with every other numeric concept. It's for this reason that the standard of "who is a numogrammaticist" must be facility in reading and interpreting those numeric terms. For instance, the Decimal Labyrinth and the Pandemonium Matrix are not at their core two separate entities, but two "implexions" of the numogrammatic plane of consistency. Every "demon" "lemur" is a much better term, and has been the consensus for the last two decades of the Pandemonium Matrix is likewise a numogrammatic implexion, as is every zone of the numogram; there is not really a limit to how many of these there are. You can read a bit more about this in the primer I... kind of wrote, under a persona/carrier that I am at some remove from here. While the fact that numogrammaticism unbelieves in the occult mythos of numogrammatics is one way of understanding the conceptual gap between the two, an equally true understanding of the same gap is that numogrammatics is necessarily not a practice of humans but of numbers among themselves, with its "practitioners" necessarily standing at some remove.

Numogrammaticism is in large part the product of people trying, and failing, to figure out what doing numogrammatics would mean in the first place. All numogrammaticism has something of a prefatory character, confining itself to the margins of an eventual numogrammatic practice which cannot and will not arise. For this reason, it is actually basically impossible to oppose numogrammatics without inadvertantly becoming a numogrammaticist; the dynamic of unbelief is such that any affective stance toward numogrammatics produces numogrammaticism, which can just as easily be theorized by its opponents as its proponents. This possibility of any affective stance was part of why I tried (and succeeded, at least locally) to push Neolemurian a term for numogrammatics-adjacent people/things spaces I was in toward a kinder, more loving, more "cuddly" ethos, whereas before they tended to be very edgy—which I believe created a fair bit of needless suffering. I maintain the thesis that, unlike certain typical esoteric currents (e.g. Satanism, which is affectively oppositional by definition; or Gnosticism, which must take a stance against the material world), Neolemurianism has no affective prerequisites of that kind, and so it makes sense to adopt whichever ethos is least harmful if it's all the same. This all is a major reason I'm convinced I am unlikely to ever simply stop doing numo, even though I haven't been lately. Even if I have zero belief in it, and believe things in contradiction with its mythos, or even if I had ill will for it—well, none of that is relevant here.

The only real affective prerequisite for numogrammaticism is some level of wonder, confusion, curiosity, bafflement, terror, devotion, or awe. Numogrammatics is always an aporia, an open question question = AQ 192 = uttunul; open questions = AQ 306 = temple of lemuria, and the moment you answer the question you abandon numogrammatics. Numogrammatic concepts serve at once as instruments of this awe—their clear numeric definitions make it possible to equivocate on matters of significance and communicate in the absence of any settled meaning—as well as the fruits of awe, the deposit of implexions which we now have at our disposal. All of that vanishes the moment you turn the numogram into a stable object, a steady presence, and so I have quite a bit of disdain for explanations of numogrammatics which purport to know what it means. But the unsettledness of numogrammatics must also not be subjective, or else it collapses into a bunch of different stable objects, and so adherence to the numogrammatic plane of consistency with its specific defined process(es) is also indispensible. Because these numeracies are second nature for me now on a practical level, and given that I have no illusions that I can explain what any of it means and thereby turn it into a belief, it seems very likely that the lemurs will haunt me on some level, conscious or unconscious, for the rest of my life.

What good is numogrammaticism?

Given that numogrammaticism is on some level my lot in this life, it's worth trying to puzzle out its silver lining. I am reminded of a conversation I had with my precious friend three years ago where I despaired as to what the point of doing numogrammatics was in the first place. I said to her, "there's simply no reason to devote energy to making diagrams if they don't do anything but make more diagrams." And I asked, "is that what this is? an enormous time trap? the numogram is just M-C-M' where M is wasted time and C is diagrams?" And what I've said up to now should indicate that, though I continued with numogrammatics, I never found that I was wrong about those suspicions. Numogrammatics really is diagrams which make more diagrams, a method of wasting time (or of creating a waste within the course of time), and has no justifiable human rationale because it does not exist for human purposes. This is what my friend pointed out; she couldn't believe I expected anything else when "it's very upfront as to its pointlessness."

I fully accept that it is the nature of numogrammatics to be a waste of time. However, years after this conversation, I now feel able to respond to her question of "did you expect it to do something for you?" with a tentative "yes." What numogrammatics "does for you" is numogrammaticism, and while numogrammatics is pointless, numogrammaticism as the practice of the practice is not without its benefits. The first and simplest of these, as my dear friend and the best numogrammaticist I have ever met has said, is simply its beauty. Justifying numogrammaticism to someone who has never practiced it is like trying to justify music to someone who has never listened to it. There is simply an astonishing, unfurling beauty to numogrammatics in all its pulsations, variations, movements back and forth. It is an unbounded, living thing, one which comes to reside with you, like a poem which never ends or a song which never ceases. Does the sea have to mean something? Do the stars, or the snow, or the flowers of springtime? Can't there be modes of experience which do not exist to mean anything for us, as though they were accountable to us, but rather, which we ourselves are accountable to, to appreciate and give expression? There is an ethic = AQ 90 = love which must guide us when we engage with something that is other to ourselves, and numogrammatics requires, teaches, and rewards that ethic. Its worth is not only aesthetic but also didactic.

This benefit is the heart of any appreciation of numogrammatics. In an unpublicized essay, I once wrote, "The numogram is nothing but novu lemu, the movement of Lemuria. In turn, numogrammaticism, properly practiced, is nothing but raka novul: the love of her movement." My agreement with that statement has never faltered. But just like music has many utilities beyond its intrinsic beauty which derive from the nature of what music is, so does numogrammaticism. The first such auxiliary utility is as an esoteric practice. While numogrammaticists inherently take a stance of unbelief toward numogrammatics, that stance can resemble occultic practical belief in some cases. Numogrammatics provides a body of ritual for people to incorporate into a practice of sorcery, esotericism, or mysticism. Moreover, numogrammatics comes with the pleasant versatility of its radical agnosticism to what one actually does believe, and as such is capable of implanting in whatever a person's positive commitments are—such as to a certain magical tradition. Of course, one should be careful not to try and make numogrammatics serve those prior convictions: as a court jester, the numogram can be insidious and corrosive. Nevertheless, having a body of patterns and rhythms at one's disposal is no minor benefit for a ritualist.

Another chief benefit of numogrammaticism as it has conventionally been practiced is its apparent scholarly interest. Numogrammatics is a unique kind of thing—an infinite capsize, a blackened continent, love's murmuring—which can readily take on a role in a philosophical system. I have often seen the numogram called an exposition of a certain person's philosophy, such as Lyotard's or Deleuze's or Land's, and while I think this is completely wrong, I can also see the reason why. Any system of thought which can make use of the scintillating lines and shadowed obscurities of the numogram will happily appropriate them for its exposition, just as any esoteric system would. By this appropriation, it would seem as though the numogram had come to profess that system, though in fact, the system had just come to profess numogrammatics. I can easily see applications of the numogram throughout critical theory, such as for Freud, Irigaray, Marx, Derrida, and especially my boys, Benjamin and Spinoza. When I told a new friend about all of this they said it seemed existentialist, and while I'd never thought of that application I also don't doubt it's posible. But again, one should consider the consequences of numogrammaticizing philosophy. I can assure you it is not really possible to philosophize numogrammatics.

The third auxiliary application of numogrammatics, and probably the least corrosive, is in art. When numogrammatics is used as guidelines for artistic production, such as in poetry or music or visual art or web design or theatre or worldbuilding, no meaning is demanded of it and so it has nothing to dissolve. This is perfectly okay, because numogrammatics is not actually fed on dissolution. It is not an idol which needs to be given sacrifices: the lemurs demand neither worship nor sustenance, and only consume what attempts to consume them or worship them, which is much the same. The niche genre of the numogrammatic gematricular cut-up is one of my favourite forms of art, and shines with a kind of obscure splendour which I cannot convey to someone who has not sought out the means to appreciate it. It is very much an aquired taste—but how very sweet to have acquired it!

I believe my affection for numogrammaticism-as-art, in preference to its occult and theoretical applications, is because it touches on what has been the great joy the numogram has brought to me. Numogrammatics is an incredibly useful venue for dealing with loss. It presupposes nothing, no ability to make sense of anything, no ability to come to any conclusion, nothing kept in hand, nothing left. Numogrammatics situates itself in "Lemuria," a continent which it readily admits does not, has not, and will never exist. Its entities, the "lemurs," are ghosts and exiles, wanderers from Lemuria who can never return, not even in memory, because there has never been anything to return to, just a zero, a blank. Their product, "Neolemuria," and its producers, "Neolemurians," attempt to find in numogrammatics something which is truly faithful to the nothingness of its namesake, a place where words fail and yet are still spoken, echoes of a voice without an origin. "Her speech is nothing. / Yet the unshaped use of it doth move / the hearers to collection."

Shortly after the quoted conversation with my friend, she died under some of the most tragic and infuriating circumstances I can possibly imagine. Her death created what is still the greatest open wound of my life. I could not make sense of it. I did not want to make sense of it. I thought I had to die in order to adequately grapple with it, yet I was not dead. I had not read the Book of Job at the time, but if I had, I would have deeply identified with him. Like Job, I needed an aporia, an open question that could not honestly be closed, which God might reprove me for but would not ultimately answer. Continuing a practice of numogrammaticism gave me what I desperately needed. I was glutted with anger, grief, and love, and I threw those feelings into the numogram. And unlike academic or esoteric beliefs, the numogram did not corrode my feelings, but refined them. Anger, grief, and especially love acquired a kind of purity beyond explanation, beyond words, expressible only in currents and movement and paths that swirl together. I had thought only dying could adequately express what was inexpressible in her death, but Lemuria, that waste of time, proved to be an unuttera greater than death.

As I have written on this site before, I have been seized by a sense of death for almost all of my conscious life—not only actual, biological death, but also the death of coherence, the death of a meaningful life. I can't say why exactly, but there was something wrong with me by default, a fundamental absence which I could not seem to bridge by my own power like other people seemed to do. I felt, and still feel, like a collection of Sappho, too fragmented to be pieced together, and only appreciable in shards. Insane, doomed, hopeless, useless, a horrid and ruinous shiver of despair and imminent death ran through me. But numogrammaticism is always an art of fragments, taking each shard and finding in it a knot of unspeakable continua, one bead of a chaplet we cannot see. It was the first art I ever found which seemed to work with me in my brokenness and in my limitation, and as such, expressed a love for me which exceeded what I deserved. Albeit, silently.

Because numogrammatics is love. It can only ever be love. "Love" is AQ 90, a pair of nullities, Lemuria (0) and Neolemuria (9), between which all numogrammatics lies. "Love" is also 3645: both the gate in which all lemurs reside and the gate which leads up to it, as well as that central pair at the heart of love's spiral, the smallest difference from which arises the greatest effect. How can I explain these things, meaningless coincidences drawn out of the letters of a word, void of any valid or licit sense and yet of the greatest poignancy? If I could explain in terms which would make sense to you, I could explain numogrammatics, which I cannot ever do. But numogrammaticism is what first bound that open question to my heart, that question which first taught me that love is strong as death. As my brilliant friend has also said, "Numogrammaticism" = AQ 333 = "Hate death. Love love." I am so happy to write those words in that way!

This is the first great use of numogrammaticism. And the second is like unto it. I am very cautious about expressing my experience of religion in numogrammatic terms, not seeking to corrupt the one by the other, nor desiring to lobotomize the other by the one. But the tenuous coexistence of the two has been crucial for me for a couple years now. I used to call myself a "Lemurian monotheist," a term with a certain ironic twist to it because most Neolemurians are anything but. What does it mean to be a Lemurian monotheist? Well, like all numogrammatic questions, this is not a question I can easily answer. It cannot mean imposing a "monotheistic numeracy" (as though there could ever really be such a thing) on the numogram, or the numogram is no longer at issue. Nor can it mean imposing numogrammatics on monotheism, as the former has absolutely nothing of substance to say. Numogrammatics provides no cataphatic knowledge of God. Nor does it provide apophatic knowledge, because it simply does not address God in the first place, whether to say what he is or what he isn't. Lemuria is "without form and void," a "welter and waste". Even if all being addresses itself to God, Lemuria is without being.

But it is precisely this quality which has informed my religion, because instead of a concept, it turned God into an encounter. In the task of numogrammaticism, a "Lemurian monotheist" does not imagine God; nor does she reason about him; nor does she apprehend his presence, as in the signifying games that Derrida describes. For her, it is truly possible to say, "Knowledge is too wondrous for me: high above, I cannot attain it" Psalm 139:6. And yet, by dwelling in this utter lack of address, there comes the possibility—though not the certainty!—of a genuine encounter with that which is like nothing else, which we cannot pretend to comprehend. It is because Lemuria has nothing to do with God that it is an adequate place to meet on equal terms, a blank slate, a creation which has not happened yet. It assures us of nothing: not that the creation will happen; not that the meeting will happen; not that either party, having met the other, will not abandon them; and not that either one is as they seem. But in these lack of guarantees is a chance for a truly amorous encounter, a relationship and not a concept, one which is not settled from the start. Perfect, mutual freedom.

And love. Truly amorous love, which is always on some level inexplicable, irrational, and insane. Not a merely narcissistic love of God, which loves the perfections of God's creatures because they express his own perfections. Rather, a love of the shards, of thorn and thistle and limitation and imperfection, which loves what would seem to be unlovable in us, and redeems us in spite of all logic. To love this way is vulnerable. We do not see in this case the sovereignty of Jean Calvin, who finds it impossible to imagine that Christ would die for a person only to lose them in the end, and so must have predestined all things from the start to exclude from redemption those who do not turn to him. Instead, what we see is a meekness which is genuinely lovable, which inspires love worthily and well. Only a God of this kind of love would dare venture into the waste to dwell with us, and inspire us to dwell with him. Lemurian monotheism can be nothing else, than this:

May he kiss me, quench me
with the kisses of his mouth—
for your loving is better than wine.
As for your scent of good oils:
poured oil is your name,
therefore the daughters love you.
Draw me after you, let us run—
the king has brought me to his chambers.
Let us delight and rejoice in you,
let us extol your loving above wine;
new wine, rightly do they love you! Song of Songs 1:2–4

We must not know who here addresses whom.