Dark Matter: Jacob Frank and Georges Bataille Jacob Frank remains one of the most unsettling figures in the history of religious thought — not simply because of his antinomian theatrics or his deliberate profanations, but because his teachings articulate a vision of matter that resists both classical gnosticism and rationalist secular materialism. While the gnostic imagination traditionally casts the material world as a prison to be escaped, Frank inverts the schema: matter b

Trigger Warning       This article examines the lives, writings, and legacies of Jacob Frank and the Marquis de Sade, including their engagements with sexual transgression, religious antinomianism, coercive practices, and violence. It discusses explicit themes such as sexual exploitation, ritualized power dynamics, and philosophical justifications of cruelty within historical contexts.     The analysis is scholarly, but the material may be disturbing or overwhelming for some

Between Messiah and Monster: A Brief Biography of Jacob Frank   Jacob Frank — born Jakub Lejbowicz in Podolia in 1726, then a province of Poland and now part of Ukraine — was the son of Leib Buchbinder and Rachel Hirschl. Through his father he inherited a link to the scandal‑ridden Sabbateans, the heterodox Jewish movement that continued to uphold the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi, the seventeenth‑century Ottoman rabbi, Kabbalist, and apostate whose doctrine of redemption

Spinoza’s Hatchet and the Ethics of Objecthood      By Richard Mather       “For the only perfection and the final purpose [...] of an instrument is to duly fulfil the duties that are assigned to them. For instance, when a carpenter finds himself best served by his hatchet in the construction of a piece of work, then has his hatchet attained its end and perfection; but if he were to think, ‘This hatchet has now served me so well that I will let it rest and not require any mor

Opulent Absurdities:    The Aristocrat as Pataphysician       Lord Ardenforde opens a jewellery box to reveal  a platinum brooch, rhodium watch, immortal diamond choker;  and on the quiltwork, a tiger-eye necklace pendant.  Exclamations clamour as seven yellow balloons ascend  to the Taj Mahal painting that hangs from the ceiling beams.  Soap-skinned Valentine looks on astonished,  an obsequious grin dripping from his amazing hollow face.  Plush telephones purr polite

When viewed under the lens of Alfred Jarry’s 'pataphysics — the so-called science of imaginary solutions that “symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments” — the humble conjunction ‘and’ occupies a liminal space in poetic titles. Easily dismissed as a mere linguistic connector, ‘and’ here acts as a non-identical operator that defies conventional logic. Long acknowledged as a forerunner of the radical avant‑garde — Dad

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Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life (Part One) New monograph on Academia.edu...

Review of Richard Mather's poem "Melville and the White Whale" Overview "Melville and the White Whale" is a richly evocative, poetic...

What is language? Where does it come from and what does it want (from us)?

OVERVIEW: ● The pantheist ontology of Baruch Spinoza (b.1632 – d.1677) is an attempt to deny the accountability of political evil. ●...

Part 1: Being and heaviness People who suffer from depression often complain of a feeling of heaviness; not just in the emotional or...

In Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus are both sons of Zeus. Apollo is the god of reason, light and order, while Dionysus is the god of...

Flat poetics is derived from a recent development in metaphysical philosophy called object-oriented philosophy, also known as...