Die to the illusion

by Not Sure

24 August 2025

You may be familiar with Simulacra and Simulation if you were into The Matrix trilogy. Does anyone consider The Matrix Resurrections from 2021 to be part of the series? When the film’s writers and directors, “The Wachowski Brothers” became “The Wachowski Sisters” after they both ‘transitioned’, that was the time to put a fork in the franchise. It was well and truly done. The Wachowski’s had become simulacra. Simulacra are copies that depict things that either had no original, or that no longer have an original.

According to Jean Baudrillard, the French postmodern, post-structuralist philosopher, “The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.” The word has been around for hundreds of years and the concept at least since Plato’s time. It was used to describe a representation of something, a statue or a painting. In the art world, this was depicted by surrealist painter René Magritte in his 1929 painting, The Treachery of Images also known as This Is Not a Pipe, Ceci n'est pas une pipe, because of course, the painting is not a pipe. This is what Magritte said about the painting, “The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So, if I had written on my picture ‘This is a pipe’, I'd have been lying!”

Lana and Lilly Wachowski are not sisters, nor are they women. They are simulacrums, the truth which conceals that there is none; at least there is no truth in the matrix.

I didn’t study philosophy. The word means ‘love of wisdom’ and seeking wisdom and loving it is a fine pursuit. Perhaps for some people, there is an early yearning to study knowledge, meaning, language, and existence in a systematic and organized way. I did notice at university that it was one of those fields of study suggested to young students who lacked a clear idea of what they wanted to become and achieve, not unlike sociology or business administration. I was one of those unmoored youth, adrift on the open sea of possibility, and so for a semester I said to myself “Try philosophy.” However, before I could enjoy a sweeping survey course of history’s greatest philosophers, I learned that I must take a course called Logic 101, and so I enrolled in that. I persevered for the semester, but I’m not sure I learned much. The stated goal is to equip students with a framework for sound, rigorous reasoning, and this can be applied across a large field of study, such as chemistry, mathematics, music composition or English literature. For me, it was a harrowing experience to be confronted by my fear of anything that looked like math, anything at all that had a formula. I’ve been called a good cook, but I won’t even follow recipes, either feeling I don’t need one, or attempting to go by the directions only to think, “This would taste better if I added…”

When I learned that Logic 101 would be followed by Logic 201, I began to look around in another direction. So alas, I don’t know much about philosophy.

You may ask what Alan Watt thought of philosophy. I wondered about that too and started some conversations along the lines of “Do you agree with what [Scottish philosopher] David Hume said that passions and not reason shape human behavior?” A couple of these queries later, Alan said, “I don’t think much of the philosophies of men.” Kind of a conversation stopper.

According to Baudrillard, “Hyperreality is a representation, a sign, without an original referent.” He said that our human experience was a simulation of reality and there is truth in that assertion, and I’m sure if I was conversant with his theories I would find other statements with which I agree. Where Marshall McCluhan said, “the medium is the message”, Baudrillard believed that both the message and the medium had imploded; since in hyperreality one can no longer distinguish between the media and the reality they represent, one can no longer determine the definition and action of the medium.

I do not know what organization asked Jean Baudrillard to go to the Middle East and report on the First Gulf War. He replied that he would stay home and watch it on CNN as it wasn’t real until it was depicted on CNN (or perhaps the French equivalent.) In 1991, he published a book entitled The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu). He acknowledged that events and violence took place, but whether they took place as they were represented to have happened, or whether what happened could be called war was not clear.

One lecturer I heard discussing the careful crafting of language in the presentation of that war said, “Think about it. How clever. The U.S. used the ‘Patriot’ missile to combat the Iraqi ‘scud’ missile. Just the sound evokes incredible imagery.”

Baudrillard has written that if anything can be said to be real in hyperreality it is war. Maybe I will discuss this with my friend Judy. She has told me that ever since she was a child she has been horrified and deeply disturbed by war and could never understand why they happened. It was this revulsion that spurred her journey to seek answers and truth.

Nick Heys has just completed the third chapter of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Between Two Ages. I recommend that you join those live streams each Friday if you are interested in reading along and learning more about this book which Alan Watt often referred to. In the first chapter entitled, “The Onset of the Technetronic Age”, Brzezinski concurred with Julian Huxley’s statement of what happens in cities, “Overcrowding in animals leads to distorted neurotic and downright pathological behavior.” He also writes that “the individual may use any number of psychological devices to avoid the discomfort of information overload…”

Of particular interest in relation to hyperreality, Brzezinski writes that rapid advances in technology may not give the individual a greater sense of freedom or self-worth. “Instead of accepting himself as a spontaneous given, man in the most advanced societies may become more concerned with conscious self-analysis according to external, explicit criteria…The “internal man” – spontaneously accepting his own spontaneity – will more and more be challenged by the “external man” – consciously seeking his self-conscious image…”

Within the matrix system, people talk and talk and talk. You can listen forever, but what changes? In the first Cutting Through volume, “The Androgynous (Hermaphroditic) Agenda”, Alan Watt wrote, “To find truth obviously entails smashing the illusions we have come to love and hate at the same time.” The change demanded begins with YOU. Later in the book, he wrote, “To live in reality, YOU MUST BE A PARTICIPANT.”

Towards the end of this first volume, Alan wrote that “Gurus, the modern Pied Pipers, are created for us to follow.” The trend I have observed is the continuous fractalization of the stage on which the Pied Pipers play. ‘Patriot’ radio becomes ‘truth’ and ‘alternative’ or ‘alt-right’. Hosts migrated from short wave and AM to the internet. The five years of war that was Operation Covid, brought more rapid fractalization to the ‘truth community.’ Yes, I do mean fractalization, not fracturing. Patriot, truth, alternative, libertarian, Christian conservative, medical freedom, dissident, Constitutionalist, anarcho-capitalist -- fractalizing. The reduced scale of the whole, over and over and over again.

I posted the latest song by Carl Dickens, “Holding Pattern”, on Substack and YouTube and pointed out that it’s fun to listen for Alan-isms within his lyrics. No Alan-ism in this line, but it perfectly describes the fractal nature of ‘truth talking’ online and its contribution, by design or inadvertently, to our sense of being exhausted by information overload. “I'll overbear you and bore you with all of this world's bad news.” Carl Dickens’ writing is so good not because of his clever turn of phrase, but because he captures the essence of the thing.

Baudrillard’s simulacra are copies depicting that which had no original or no longer have an original. The simulation is “the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system”, the matrix. He wrote that “reality is that which can be simulated, copied, xeroxed.” In Cutting Through volume one, Alan Watt wrote about forming people, shaping them by IN-forming. “When IN-DOCTRINATION is complete you have been MASTERED…YOU ARE NOW A MASTER-COPY, not original but ABORIGINAL.” Perhaps the first step to reclaiming reality is to make of ourselves something which cannot be copied.

Alan Watt wrote (all emphasis his, of course, and always), “To conquer an evil, we must first disperse into the individual, we must cast off RE-LIGIONS (THE TIES THAT BIND) and STOP BEING AFRAID. The MATERIAL WORLD WAS CONQUERED EONS AGO BY ANTI-CREATORS, those who could not create but who could re-shape into SYSTEMS made in THEIR OWN DEVIANT IMAGE. THEY HAVE BEEN LIARS AND MURDERERS FROM THE BEGINNING. To find truth we must die to the ILLUSION around and familiar to us; we must one by one, allow ourselves to appreciate the true miracles of life and consciousness which is OUR birthright. This truth and the ability to achieve it is within everyone, the tiny flame the CONTROLLERS wish to extinguish. To be truly “born again” we must first look within…”

I was listening to a philosopher lecture on Baudrillard. Young, hip; his ears pierced in what I’ve learned is called earlobe gauging or flesh tunnels, he seemed devoted to and aligned with the theories of the postmodern, post-structuralist Baudrillard. He mocked the idea that people can regain reality by detaching from technology, touching dirt, feeling sun, or having a deep conversation with a friend. We are simulacra in a simulation. Deal with it.

I will continue to hold onto my original self and maybe someday I will stop studying war, I’ll cease to “overbear you and bore you with all of this world’s bad news”. I will sit with Judy under an apple tree, and we will laugh and laugh and laugh until the last star burns out, or the last apple is eaten.

Let this be an 'afterword' or an 'addendum'.

A dear cousin (a normie) visited me a few years ago, and she wanted to hear something from Alan Watt. I started to play my favorite blurb, “Sing Your Song and Steal Some Time”, from 28 February 2007. She listened for a bit and grew a little restless. I could tell from her body language that she had heard enough but didn't want to be impolite. I said, "Well, that's Alan" and then I stopped the podcast. She said, "So, he was a philosopher." And I replied, "Yes, I guess he was."

Additional listening/viewing:

Cutting Through the Matrix – to purchase Alan Watt’s Cutting Through books referenced above

https://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/

Heys Reviews - Between Two Ages by Zbigniew Brzezinski (1970) - Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaLWDLhFZ7o

Get Your Children Out with Gigaohm

https://stream.gigaohm.bio/w/4Q69RRnwv9hMTygPMGA6Q5

Carl Dickens - Holding Pattern (music video)

https://cuttingthroughthematrix.substack.com/p/carl-dickens-holding-pattern-music

"Real History" with Melissa - Ep. 75 "Carl: Pith and Vinegar" - 7/18/24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDILBSS6wR8

"Real History" with Melissa - Ep. 19 - Judy in Disguise with Glasses - May 25, 2023

https://www.bitchute.com/video/mWl3u4PPu660