This document discusses the resurgence of interest in occultism and Satanism in the information age. It explores how information and Lucifer, the bringer of light, are linked through concepts like rebellion, knowledge, and chaos. Luciferianism values balance of light and dark, while Satanism emphasizes individual power. Information is defined in various ways, such as adding to representation, determining choice, and excluding alternatives. The document discusses how information theory, cybernetics, and concepts like entropy and Maxwell's demon relate to Promethean and Luciferian ideas. It introduces Discordianism as a parody religion that values chaos over order and emphasizes balance of Eristic and Aneristic principles.

1. The Luciferian Nature of Information and
the Informational Nature of Lucifer:
A Discordian Understanding of the Cryptic Resurgence of
Satanic Principles in the Information Age
Vassilis Galanos
Science, Technology and Innovation Studies Subject Group
Vassilis.Galanos@ed.ac.uk

2. Motivation Behind the Project
[…] we invite paper proposals that address the recent resurgence in
interest in the occult. […] we want to explore this New Occultism and
how it can be seen as a source of power and resistance in the current
sociopolitical climate. We invite investigations into both the causes and
effects of an occult renaissance. Why now? […]
[https://thepostmodernoccult.weebly.com/]
Request: Please switch off your binary devices, including God/Devil,
White/Black, Man/Woman, Entropy/Information, Darkness/Light, and
most importantly Binary/Nonbinary. “Everything is everything” (Laurin
Hill, but replace “is” with “becomes”).

3. Discordian Disclaimer
• I do not claim any novelty for the findings of this presentation.
• If there is some novelty, this lies on the highlighting of certain
common features of an age-old archetype being infiltrated (a) in
the so-called New Age of spirituality, and (b) in the
contemporary Science of Complexity (incl. thermodynamics,
cybernetics, information and chaos theory, see Ilya Prigogine &
Isabelle Stengers (1984). Order Out of Chaos. Bantam. pp. 101-
210). According to STS scholar Andrew Pickering, one can see a
mutual shaping of the “sixties” and cybernetics-like sciences
[(2010). The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. University
of Chicago Press].
• However, if the argument holds, I can suggest that any person
working as a librarian, cataloguer, archivist, taxonomist, and so
on, deserves the label of a Satanist (especially if they do not
admit it).

4. The Information Age and Mature Information
Societies
• Daniel Bell’s Post-Industrial/Information Society (1973-1979), Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave
(1980).
• “When the tools in the usual sense became machines their relationship to human
beings was reversed. Prior to the Industrial Revolution the human being was
surrounded by tools, afterwards the machine was surrounded by human beings.
Previously the tool was the variable and the human being the constant, subsequently
the human being became the variable and the machine the constant.” [Vilem Flusser
(1983). Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Reaktion. pp. 23-24]
• “It becomes more and more apparent that […] the human being in effect is the
function of the robot, and by the same token the robot the robot as a function of the
human being. The robot only does what the human being wants, but the human being
can only want what the robot can do. A new method of manufacturing – i.e. of
functioning – is coming into being: The human being is a functionary of robots that
function as a function of him.” [Vilem Flusser (1999). The Shape of Things: A Philosophy
of Design. Reaktion. p. 47-48]
• Luciano Floridi’s Mature Information Societ-ies based on education, understanding, and
innovation (Onlife condition, digital divides, alignment of expectations, dependency on
ICTs…) (2016).

5. The Nature of Lucifer (a)
• “Old English Lucifer "Satan," also "morning star, Venus in the morning sky before
sunrise," […], from Latin Lucifer "morning star," noun use of adjective, literally "light-
bringing," from lux (genitive lucis) "light" (from PIE root *leuk- "light, brightness") +
ferre "to carry, bear")” [https://www.etymonline.com/word/Lucifer]
• Accuser, sycophant, (κατήγορος, from κατηγορία, Greek for category, originally meaning
differentiation by either/both distinction and/or accusation)
• “from Hebrew satan "adversary, one who plots against another," from satan "to show
enmity to, oppose, plot against," from root s-t-n "one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as
an adversary.“ In Septuagint (Greek) usually translated as diabolos "slanderer," literally
"one who throws (something) across" the path of another (see devil (n.)), though
epiboulos "plotter" is used once.” https://www.etymonline.com/word/satan]
• Diabolical, διά-βάλλω, to throw in-between, to split and categorise.
• Cf. Taylor Hackford’s The Devil’s Advocate (1997) film where the Devil is the owner of a
major lawyer firm and his name is John Milton with allusion to poet Milton’s Paradise Lost
presenting Lucifer as the most tragic character.
• Traditionally then, I suggest that science is dia-bolic (throws in between). Ethics as
parable is para-bolic (throw something next to something else as an example).
Aesthetics/art is sym-bolic, generating symbols and representations. Contemporary
blurrification of the three highlights the simultaneous coexistence of all three categories
and the very fallacy of the categories per se.

6. Luciferianism and Satanism
LaVeyan Satanism (1966) and The Ordo Luciferi (2005)
“Many do see Satan and Lucifer as being different aspects of the same
being, the carnal, rebellious and material Satan vs. the enlightened and
spiritual Lucifer. […] Luciferians put more emphasis on the balance of
light and dark. […] Satanism and Luciferianism are both highly
individualized religions. There is no single set of beliefs, rules or dogmas
for either group.” [Catherine Beyer (2017). How Luciferians Differ from
Satanists: A Comparison of Similarities and Differences. [online]].
“Whatever alleged "truth" is proven by results to be but an empty fiction
[…] Blessed are the mighty-minded, for they shall ride the whirlwinds -
Cursed are they who teach lies for truth and truth for lies, for they are
an abomination!” [Anton Szandor LaVey (1969). The Satanic Bible. Avon]

7. The Nature of Lucifer (b)
"Our leader, known as
Prometheus the fire-bringer or
Lucifer the light-bringer or
Quetzalcoatl the morning star
or the snake in the garden of
Osiris's bad brother, Set, or
Shaitan the tempter — well, to
be brief, he repented."
Hagbard raised an eyebrow.
"Does that intrigue you
sufficiently to silence your
skepticism long enough for me
to finish a sentence?" [Robert
Anton Wilson & Robert Shea
(1975). The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
p. 402]
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
1For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.
[Isaiah 14:12-17 New King James Version (NKJV)]

8. Revolutionary Syncretism
• The Fallen Angel, the rebellion: Lucifer as enlightened, illuminated, as a rebel and
also Lucifer as enlightening, bringer of knowledge, causing the original sin of
consumption from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

9. Information Revolution as Political Revolution
• Langdon Winner: Do Artifacts Have Politics? (1985). Technologies
carry sociopolitical values while we can use technologies to
demonstrate such values.
• Manuel Castells: Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in
the Internet Age. (2012). Occupy Wall Street, Indignadas, Arab
uprising. Revolutions are “digitally born.” They get diffused and
are maintained, circulated and expanded through the usage of
Web 2.0 tools, YouTube videos, vlogs, political blogs, avatar
images, Tweets and livestreaming media. Postmodern virtual
weaponry and means of defense include mobile phones, SMS’s,
hashtags, TOR and HotSpot Shield. Google trends statistics, or
Facebook “likes” verify instantly the existence of movements.
• Are technopolitical informational revolutions
Luciferian/Promethean? What is information, anyway?

10. The Nature of Information (a)
• “Information may be defined in the most general sense as that which adds to a
representation. This leaves open the possibility that information might be true or false.
When a representation alters, we define the new information as true if the change
increases the extent of correspondence between the representation and the original.
The information is said to be false if the change diminishes the extent of this
correspondence.” [Donald M. MacKay (1951). The Nomenclature of Information
Theory. In: Claus Pias. Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences 1946-1953. Diaphanes. p. 514]
• “Information in the […] sense of that which determines choice may be termed selective
information.” [ibid. p. 521]
• “But modern theory has turned all such questions upside down. Information, in the
technical sense, is that which excludes certain alternatives. […] In the jargon of the
engineers, the system is “error activated.” The difference between some present state
and some “preferred” state activates the corrective response. The technical term
“information” may be succinctly defined as any difference which makes a difference
in some later event.” [Gregory Bateson (1987[1972]). Steps to an Ecology of Mind.
Jason Aronson. p. 271]

11. The Nature of Information (b)
• Information as originality: “The measure of the quantity of information
then boils down to the measure of unforseeability, that is, to a problem
in probability theory, for what is improbable is unforeseeable, what is
certain is foreseeable, within the limits, naturally, of the receptor’s use of
his knowledge to determine conduct.” [Abraham Moles (1966).
Information Theory and Esthetic Perception. University of Illinois Press. pp.
19-20]
• Information as semantics: “σ is an instance of information, understood
as semantic content, if and only if: (1) σ consists of n data, for n ≥ 1; (2)
the data are well formed [rightly put together according to the rules
(syntax) of the system]; (3) the well-formed data are meaningful
[complying with the semantics of the chosen system].” [Luciano Floridi
(2010). Information: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p.
20-21]
• Entropy: “Entropy is a measure of the amount of ‘mixedupness’ in
processes and systems bearing energy of information. […] A highly
structured, perfectly organized message contains a lower degree of
entropy or randomness” [ibid, p. 47]
• The more informative/improbable/structured, the less
entropic/probable/unstructured.
• Nonbinary ratio! Too much information leads to negative entropy (ie,
entropy) and entropic situations might be found informational.

12. Ignis Mutat Res: From Promethean
Luciferianism to Thermodynamics
“Prometheus has preserved his older symbolic identities. He continues to appear as
the rebellious titan, the divine trickster, the tragic transgressor of Olympian law, the
founder and martyr of technology, the ally (and tempter) of man, to whom he
imparted the dangerous secret of fire. More subtly, the revived Prometheus makes his
presence felt in the diverse implications of the symbolism of fire – fire as the agent of
change (we recall the old motto of the alchemists, "Ignis mutat res"), means to
knowledge (from science to gnosis to enlightenment to illumination), and metaphor
for passion and desire. […] I have in mind Coleridge's highly suggestive definition of
Prometheus as the Redeemer and the Devil jumbled into one.” [Matei Calinescu
(1980). Review of Ihab Issan, The Right Promethean Fire: Imagination, Science, and
Cultural Change. University of Illinois Press. Contemporary Literature (21)4. p. 633]
“Ignis Mutat Res. Ageless wisdom has always linked chemistry to the ‘science of fire.’
Fire became part of experimental science during the eighteenth century, starting a
conceptual transformation that forced science to reconsider what it had previously
rejected in the name of a mechanistic world view, topics such as irreversibility and
complexity. Fire transforms matter; fire leads to chemical reactions, to processes such
as melting and evaporation. Fire makes fuel burn and release heat” [Ilya Prigogine &
Isabelle Stengers (1984). Order Out of Chaos. Bantam. p. 103]

13. Maxwell’s Demon
Harvey S. Leff & Andrew F. Rex (1990). Maxwell's
Demon: Entropy, Information, Computing. Princeton
University Press. p. 10
“Eventually, he sorts out all particles into slower
(A) and faster (B), thus providing an exception to
the second law: mixedupness has decreased without
any supply of energy. It was soon realized that
Maxwell’s demon is an information device, which
monitors and computes the trajectories of the
particles” [Luciano Floridi (2010). Information: A Very
Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 64]
A thought experiment suggesting that the second
law of Thermodynamics (entropy) can be
violated.

14. Maxwell’s Letter to Peter Tait, ca. 1876
• 1. Who gave them this name? Thomson. [Lord Kelvin]
2. What were they by nature? Very small BUT lively beings incapable of doing
work but able to open and shut valves which move without friction or inertia.
3. What was their chief end? To show that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
has only a statistical certainty.
4. Is the production of an inequality of temperature their only occupation?
No, for less intelligent demons can produce a difference while stopping all
those going the other way. This reduces the demon to a valve. As such a value
him. Call him no more a demon but a valve like that of the hydraulic ram,
suppose.
• [Cargill Gilston Knott (1911). "Quote from undated letter from Maxwell to Tait". Life and Scientific
Work of Peter Guthrie Tait. Cambridge University Press. pp. 213–215. See also, William Thomson
(1879). The sorting demon of Maxwell. In R. Soc. Proc (Vol. 9, pp. 113-114).]

15. So what?
Or:
And then?

16. Discordianism as an Indication of the
Informational Lucifer in the Information Age
Then came the Worship of Eris, Goddess of Discord:
An elaborate joke guised as a religion but also a religion guised as an elaborate joke
“Chaos is the true reality, and apparent order (the Aneristic Principle) and apparent disorder (the
Eristic Principle) are mere mental constructs, which humans develop to assist them in coping with
reality.” Carole M. Cusack (2011). Discordian Magic: Paganism, The Chaos Paradigm and the Power
of the Imagination. International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 2(1), pp. 125-145.
Instead of Original Sin (a work of the woman, a work of the devil which led to collective guilt),
belief in the Original Snub (a work of the Goddess which led to the Trojan War).
“through a variety of media including underground publishing, science fiction fandom, role-playing
game clubs and the Internet, Discordianism has evolved into a worldwide phenomenon. This paper
argues that although Discordianism originated as an absurdist joke and is often dismissed as a ‘parody
religion’, over time it has developed into a meaningful world-view for practitioners” [Essi Mäkelä &
Johanna J.M. Petsche (2013). Serious Parody: Discordianism as Liquid Religion, Culture and Religion,
(14)4, pp. 411-423]

17. Eris and Aneris as Political Information and Political
Entropy as Luciferian Knowledge as Promethean
Fire…
“The Eristic is the opposite of the Aneristic, […] and, therefore,
identical with it. Remember the Hodge-Podge. Writers like De
Sade, Max Stirner and Nietzsche are Eristic; so are the gorillas.
They represent total supremacy of the individual, total negation
of the group. It isn't necessarily the war-of-all-against-all, as
Aneristic philosophers imagine, but it can, under stress,
degenerate into that. More often, it's quite pacifistic, like our hairy
friends in the trees back there. The Erisian position is modified; it
recognizes that Aneristic forces are part of the world drama, too,
and can never be totally abolished. We merely stress the Eristic as
a balance, because human society has been tilted grotesquely
toward the Aneristic side all through the Piscean age. We
Discordians are the activists in the Erisian movement; we do
things. The pure Erisians work in more mysterious ways, in
accordance with the Taoist principle of wu-wei - doing nothing
effectively.” [[Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea (1975). The
Illuminatus! Trilogy. p. 193]

18. The Illuminatus! Trilogy as Luciferian Point of
Thermodynamic Passage
“the whole key to liberation is magic. Anarchism remains tied to politics, and remains a
form of death like all other politics, until it breaks free from the defined 'reality' of
capitalist society and creates its own reality. A pig for President. Acid in the water
supply. Fucking in the streets. Making the totally impossible become the eternally
possible. Reality is thermoplastic, not thermosetting, you know: I mean you can
reprogram it much more than people realize. The hex hoax — original sin, logical
positivism, those restriction and constriction myths — all that's based on a
thermosetting reality. Christ, man, there are limits, of course — nobody is nutty
enough to deny that — but the limits are nowhere near as rigid as we've been taught to
believe. It's much closer to the truth to say there are no practical limits at all and reality
is whatever people decide to make it. But we've been on one restriction kick after
another for a couple thousand years now, the world's longest head-trip, and it takes real
negative entropy to shake up the foundations. This isn't shit; I've got a degree in
mathematics, man.” [Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea (1975). The Illuminatus!
Trilogy. p. 68]
(Not to mention the reference to Shannon & Wiener’s seminal article about
information and communication theory in page 135!)

19. How Principia Discordia Transforms Satanic
Principles into Complexity Theory Principles
Principia Discordia, the first scripture of Discordianism first published
in 1963 identifies five “stages of Chaos” consisting both the history
of every system/structure/entity and the religion’s cosmology. These
are: chaos, discord, confusion, bureaucracy, aftermath, leading
eventually to chaos again. [Malaclypse the Younger (1963). Principia
Discordia, or, How I Found Goddess and What I did When I Found Her.
Self-published. pp. 44-45]
Order Out of Chaos, the seminal book by Prigogine & Stengers,
concluding their journey through and contribution to
thermodynamics, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics,
summarise the iteration of a given observer’s point of view (the only
one available) as such: observer, dynamics, unstable dynamic systems,
randomness, irreversibility, dissipative structures, leading eventually
to the understanding of “the time-oriented activity of the observer”
Ilya Prigogine & Isabelle Stengers (1979[1984]). Order Out of Chaos.
Bantam. p. 300].
Notice the similarity in the book covers!

20. A non/postmodern recap
• “That's the nature of logical thought. All propositions are true in some sense,
false in some sense and meaningless in some sense.” (ibid, p. 136)
• “Information may be defined in the most general sense as that which adds to a
representation. This leaves open the possibility that information might be true or
false. When a representation alters, we define the new information as true if
the change increases the extent of correspondence between the representation
and the original. The information is said to be false if the change diminishes the
extent of this correspondence.” [Donald M. MacKay (1951). The
Nomenclature of Information Theory. In: Claus Pias. Cybernetics: The Macy
Conferences 1946-1953. Diaphanes. p. 514]
• “Whatever alleged "truth" is proven by results to be but an empty fiction […]
Blessed are the mighty-minded, for they shall ride the whirlwinds - Cursed are
they who teach lies for truth and truth for lies, for they are an abomination!”
[Anton Szandor LaVey (1969). The Satanic Bible. Avon]

21. Conclusions: A Luciferian Information Ethics,
or, the Seven Anti-Deadly Snubs
• Given the greatly informational nature of our societies
and the very social nature of the ways we generate,
process, store, qualify, and distort information, the
recent resurgence of the occult is explained by the very
informational nature of Lucifer’s archetype.
• Lust (from Playboy to online porn but also the
detabooing of sexual intercourse), Gluttony (infobesity,
information availability together with the inability to
process it), Greed (high technical advancements
followed by inequalities of property), Sloth (social media
as distraction, but also spiritual idleness or Holy Slack),
Wrath (right wing and con theory Information Wars but
also info-political revolutions), Envy (information about
goods combined with awareness of one’s lack),
Pride/Vanity (egocentric social media but also ecocentric
appreciation of the self)

22. Open Questions: What can Information Ethics
learn from Luciferianism and Discordianism?
• “Moral life is a highly information-intensive game, so any technology that
radically modifies the ‘life of information’ is bound to have profound
moral implications for any moral player”
• “A moral player can “avail herself of some information (information as a
resource) to generate some other information (information as a product)
and, in so doing, affect her informational environment (information as
target)” [Luciano Floridi (2010). Information: A Very Short Introduction.
Oxford University Press. p. 104]
• Are Fake News the definition of Post-Truth? Is Post-Truth Fake News?
And so on…

23. Thank you!
Questions?