Chapel Perilous: The Death Of The Real
Enter Hyperreality
Part of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice series. Originally released privately on January 13, 2021. Updated and revised for public release on June 5, 2024, with previously omitted content restored for completeness, edits to improve readability, and enhanced graphics.
In early 2021—amidst the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic—we found ourselves reflecting on the profound shifts in society and financial markets, as well as the increasingly blurred lines between what is real and what is not. Now, in 2024—as we navigate the post-pandemic world and witness the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and large-language model (LLM) tools like ChatGPT—the ideas we contemplated in 2021 have only grown more relevant. The boundaries between reality and illusion have all but dissolved, leaving us to question the very nature of reality itself.
Simulations & Simulacrum
Our struggle to make sense of the past year rekindled our interest in the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard, whose ideas were popularized by the film The Matrix. Fans of the movie may recall that Neo hid contraband virtual reality drug diskettes inside his hollowed-out copy of Baudrillard’s treatise Simulacra and Simulation:
Baudrillard warned that society was becoming so reliant on models and maps to represent reality that it had lost all contact with the real world that preceded those maps. As we develop ever more sophisticated systems to codify and divorce ourselves from reality—“screen time”, social media, Virtual Reality, TV, algorithms, and artificial intelligence—we increasingly perceive the representations themselves as real, and in turn, the less the real world pertains to the reality that we perceive. This results in “the death of the real” or “hyperreality”: a self-referential simulation of reality that is infinitely mutable, like the virtual world in The Matrix.
The Death Of The Real
This is an absolutely crucial insight: fractally—at virtually every level of society, but particularly in the financial sphere—means have been inverted with ends, cause and effect have been upended, and what is true has been rendered indistinguishable from what is false or fake. We have constructed a self-referential hyperreality without any connection or anchor to the real world, one in which symbols merely reflect other symbols and not an “ultimate” reality itself. We live in an age of semiotics, not substance: it’s “turtles all the way down”.
We find it increasingly hard to ignore Baudrillard while observing financial markets—or, more disconcertingly—society at large. We can’t help but be reminded of a news story that we read several years ago about a woman who jumped a fence at the zoo and into the polar bear’s habitat during feeding time. Suffice it to say that the scene did not play out like this:
We’re assuredly not making light of the tragic situation: we truly feel awful for the poor woman. But we distinctly recall wondering at the time if she had watched one too many Coca Cola Christmas commercials featuring adorably anthropomorphized polar bears—in other words, if she had spent so much time living in a virtual hyperreality that she had entirely lost touch with the real world.
This type of behavior has become all too common: people so invested in the continuation of their social media personas that they cozy up to buffalo in order to snap a “selfie” picture, and quickly pay the price for their 15 nanoseconds of micro-Warholian fame; individuals swept away to their deaths while trying to cross raging river floods, sightseers falling off cliffs in the pursuit of the perfect photo op, and so on.
If people’s sense of self-preservation has become so hopelessly perverted that they are unconcerned about something as concretely real and dangerous as sidling up to polar bears or buffalo or raging rivers, why would they lose sleep over something as abstract and nebulous as buying a bankrupt bubble stock via an app on their phone, or overpaying for a SaaS (“software as a service”) stock trading at 100x estimated revenues twenty years into the future?
Lockdown Life: A Study In Hypereality
The 2020 COVID pandemic lockdowns intensified society’s atomization and de-spiritualization and left us utterly dependent on the internet as an abstract medium for determining our reality.
We sit on high-tech Peloton exercise bikes, pedaling furiously while staring at screens, competing against virtual avatars from across the globe who are engaged in the same activity. Our sustenance comes not from the earth, but from laboratories—artificially-synthesized plant-based meats (Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods) and meal replacement drinks post-ironically called Soylent. The name “Soylent” is derived from the artificial food made from euthanized people in the dystopian film Soylent Green, creating a hyperreal twist where reality imitates fiction—although the real-life product (hopefully) does not share the same gruesome ingredients as its fictional namesake.
We pause to speculate on the stock market or cryptocurrencies or NFTs using trendy apps like Robinhood and WeBull, our stimulus checks transformed into digital currencies of dubious nature. Meanwhile, our children attend school through iPads, learning from teachers reduced to pixelated faces on Zoom. As the day winds down, we immerse ourselves in Netflix series, our attention divided between the TV and the endless scroll of our social media feeds.
This hyperreal existence, mediated through screens and algorithms, has become the norm—feeling more tangible than the physical world itself. The lockdowns have not only altered our routines but have redefined our very perceptions of reality, merging the virtual with the real in a seamless—if unsettling—blend.
From Picket Fences to Pandemic Hyperreality
The juxtaposition of two New Yorker magazine covers—one from December 1957 and the other from December 2020— offers a striking visual representation of the profound shifts in American society over the past six decades. This stark contrast between the two images serves as a jarring illustration of the severe monetary rot that has festered and the hyperreality that has set in, a process that reached a crescendo during last year’s pandemic:
The 1957 cover (left) encapsulates the values that once defined the quintessential American Dream. The idyllic scene depicts a joyful nuclear family celebrating the holidays together and embodies the warmth and togetherness of the Christmas spirit. The family's well-kept attire and the pristine condition of their stately house and surrounding grounds reflect the pride they take in their home and in themsleves. The iconic white picket fence frames the expansive property, a symbol of the middle class “good life”.
In sharp contrast, the 2020 cover presents a bleak and unsettling portrayal of the life of a solitary woman during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Gone are the vibrant colors and bucolic setting of the 1957 cover, replaced by a drab and lifeless indoor environment of grays and browns, completely devoid of any connection to nature or the outside world.
The once-cherished nuclear family has been replaced by a pair of cats. The charming and characterful single-family home of the 1950s has been exchanged for a cramped and squalid generic modern apartment the size of a broom closet which—given the level of monetary debasement in the intervening years—likely now costs as much in annualized rent as the 1957 house cost to purchase outright; the cost of the magazine itself has risen ~35x (!) over this period.
But most importantly, whereas the 1957 cover evokes genuine familial happiness, the 2020 cover captures the essence of the hyperreality of our modern lives. The woman at the center of the image puts on the perfect façade of performative happiness for her virtual reality Zoom Happy Hour with a friend. From the waist up, she exudes an air of sophistication and contentment, with her stylish blouse, impeccable makeup, and elegant martini glass. But this carefully curated image is just that—an illusion, a desperate attempt to conceal the harsh reality of her life behind the screen.
As we zoom out (pun intended) from the carefully contrived image that she staged for the sake of the webcam, we see a woman on the brink of a schizophrenic breakdown, her life unraveling before our eyes. She self-medicates by drinking alcohol at home alone and popping psychiatric pills. The harsh, artificial light of the computer screen is the primal portal through which she experiences a hollow facsimile of life; she has no human interaction outside of her artificial presence on the internet.
Out of sight of the webcam, her unshaven legs, shorts, and flip flops betray the truth of her existence—a far cry from the polished image she presents to the world. She’s distractedly scrolling through her Instagram timeline on her phone under the table while simultaneously talking into the webcam.
She has no room to walk about her cramped quarters and is surrounded by filth and disarray; she placed an IKEA room divider/blind behind her to conceal the squalor from the watchful gaze of the webcam. Her kitchen—once a place of nourishment—is stocked with booze rather than ingredients for cooking food. She obtains the necessities of survival by means of the internet—Amazon boxes and UberEats Chinese restaurant delivery boxes are strewn thoughout the apartment.
Chapel Perilous: The Hyperreal State of World Financial Markets
The 2020 New Yorker cover not only perfectly captures the hyperreality of life during the COVID pandemic lockdowns, but it also serves as the most apt metaphor imaginable for the schizophrenic, hyperreal state of world financial markets. Just as the woman in the illustration presents a carefully curated image to the world while her reality crumbles around her, the financial markets too project an illusion of strength and growth while the underlying economic reality tells a radically different story.
We’ve arrived at Chapel Perilous, as Robert Anton Wilson would call it—the point where our existing maps and models no longer provide any meaningful guidance for navigating the territory we find ourselves in. The symbols and representations of value in the financial world have become untethered from the reality they were meant to represent, creating a self-referential simulation that has taken on a life of its own.
Next, we'll explore this Financial Matrix in greater detail.
Chapel Perilous is a stage in the magickal quest in which your maps turn out to be totally inadequate for the territory, and you’re completely lost. And at that point you get an ally who helps you find your way back to something you can understand.
You really need to make that New Yorker side-by-side be the primary photo on this essay. It's a great juxtaposition.