Friends—I address you as a friend if you have an authentic question—I am posting a free preview of the introduction to my forthcoming book, Esoterika. (June 16). This book is astringent. I have paid in advance—as we often do—for its astringency. It is also written with a great wish for your happiness. -M- x

cover art by John Newsom

"Esoterika," 2026

Pencil on paper

60 x 44 inches

Every generation believes it lives on a precipice. That is near-universal. Historically, our era differs little from most in its apocalyptic expectancy. But a different and, in my view, more pernicious spectre haunts our age.

It is the nearly global attitude that we are living an unreal existence: blinded by artifice, strangers to ourselves, and acclimated to ersatz reality.

Our alienation, broadly gnostic—echoing the late-ancient sects who rejected the material world as the simulation of a false deity—plots our most popular movies, books, television shows, and video games; this media resonates with international audiences across disparate cultures. Simulation theory haunts us. The Matrix is our Beatles.

If there is one thing that everyone can seem to agree on: we are not ourselves. This sensation is correct.

The pangs of doubt we feel toward ourselves and our surroundings are responses to the automaticity of our existence. We traverse life with a menu of, say, twenty responses, and claim selfhood. That is not real existence. Neither we nor others around us are functioning as beings supposedly made in the image of a creator or as the likely older Hermetic dictum goes: as above, so below.

In Western culture, our unease is compounded by loss of civility, technological displacement, and directionless prosperity, which are producing a generation of ennui, rage, and despair. To that, I have no macro solutions. But I do have formulas that expose the narrowness of our being—our false being—and that, frankly, take a goddamn hammer to what keeps us there. Along with that hammer come a lot of ideals and high wishes for your happiness.

The hour is late. It is time for unwanted guests to leave.