ISSN: 1705-6411

Volume 1, Number 2 (July 2004)

The Gnostic Baudrillard: A Philosophy of Terrorism Seeking Pure Appearance

Dr. Jonathan Smith

(RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia).

I. Introduction

The most difficult thing is to think Evil, to hypothesize Evil. This has been done only by
heretics: Manicheans and Cathars, both groups envisioning an antagonistic coexistence of
two equal and eternal cosmic principles, Good and Evil, at once inseparable and
irreconcilable. Within this vision, duality is primary. It is the original form – as difficult
to conceive as the hypothesis of Evil.1

Jean Baudrillard has seduced many scholars into print, but most avoid his
metaphysics of terrorism and his post-Marxist Gnostic Nihilism. In short, his Manichean
theme makes many scholars uneasy. Levin for instance, reckons: “Baudrillard’s
insistence on a formulation based on such archaic metaphysical principles as Evil has met
with much moral displeasure, particularly among promoters of radical cultural politics”.2

Even so, some commentators have dared to approach the forbidden Baudrillard.
In some astute early scholarship, Santamaria wrote: “one can situate Baudrillard’s work
within the long tradition of Gnostic Manicheanism”.3 Yet, Santamaria missed
Baudrillard’s Pyrrhonian practice of that Gnostic tradition. Conversely, Foss noted
Baudrillard’s inheritance of Hellenistic Skepticism and compared him with Pyrrho, but
missed Baudrillard’s Manichean use of that skeptical tradition. Morris also missed the
Manichean Baudrillard, but suggested him nevertheless by marking the man as a
magician rooted in a peculiar type of skepticism.4 Wernick, Genosko, Botting, and
Cholodenko5 all noted the Manichean Baudrillard, but neglected the Pyrrhonian one, thus
missing the skeptical link into his philosophy of terrorism. Now, in the aftermath of
September 11, the story of how Baudrillard is sketching out the first metaphysics of
skepticism in modern Western philosophy can finally be told.

II. Jets into Skyscrapers

Once upon a time, when crashing jets into skyscrapers was an unknown
singularity, Jean Baudrillard declared: “I am a terrorist and nihilist in theory as the others
are with their weapons”.6 Earlier, he had interpreted those skyscrapers as a fatal sign of
monopoly in a capitalist space seduced by simulation (i.e. facts preceded and superceded
by models of them): “Why has the World Trade Centre in New York got two
towers?…The fact that there are two identical towers signifies the end of all competition,
the end of every original reference”.7

Later on, Baudrillard gave his terrorism a wider context by lecturing on “The
Global, the Universal and the Singular” during the Baudrillard: West of the Dateline
conference (Auckland, March 20-22, 2001). At the time, few knew that this fashionable
French theorist was also a Manichean metaphysician with a philosophy of terrorism
capable of illuminating the likes of September 11. Yet, while Baudrillard analyzed
singularity as the bane of globalization, those jets-into-skyscrapers were already a
calibrated simulation in bin Laden’s mind, ripe for reproduction in reality. A spectacular
catastrophe was looming, precipitated by bin Laden and anticipated by the Gnostic
Baudrillard. So, soon after the twin towers fell, Baudrillard had analyzed the event via
his Manichean belief that Good and Evil are intermingled in this penultimate cosmos.
The “crucial point” about September 11, he argued in Le Monde (November 3, 2001), is
its power to show that “Good and Evil advance together, as part of the same movement”,
with Manichean illusion marking those jets-into-skyscrapers.8 “According to
Manicheanism”, he explained earlier, “the reality of the world is a total illusion”,
following an original seduction, because an evil demon created it that way to subdue
God.9

Here, the Three Epochs doctrine of Mani (3rd century CE) is the key to
comprehending Baudrillard’s metaphysics of terrorism. “Mani’s developed
doctrine…undertook to expound beginning, middle and end of the total drama of being”,
explains Jonas in The Gnostic Religion. Referring to Good (Light) and Darkness (Evil),
Jonas notes that: “the foundation of Mani’s teaching is the infinity of the primal
principles; the middle part concerns their intermingling; and the end, the separation of the
Light from the Darkness”10 Here, creation occurs during the Second Epoch, with Evil in
control of the process.11 This is why Baudrillard refers to “the Evil Genius of matter”.12

This evil genius is also known by Gnostics as the Demiurge who, explains Eco:
“gives life to an erroneous, instable world, into which a portion of divinity itself falls as if
into prison or exile”.13 Here, creation as illusion flows from original seduction, as
Baudrillard underlines in at least three interviews.14 In this metaphysical matrix, “the
Gnostic recognizes himself as a spark of divinity, provisionally cast into exile as a result
of a cosmic plot”, continues Eco: “If he manages to return to God, man will not only be
reunited with his own beginnings and origin, but will also help to regenerate that very
origin and to free it from the original error”.15

The Gnostic goal of this cosmic drama is purification – i.e. distilling Good from
Evil, Light from Darkness, God from Demon, Spirit from Matter.16 And so, Baudrillard
argues that we would love to “expunge man from the world in order to see it in its
original purity”.17 “In a word, we dream of our disappearance and of seeing the world in
its inhuman purity (which is precisely not the state of nature)”.18 To reach that goal,
Baudrillard seeks pure appearance or “the ephemeral moment in which things take the
time to appear before taking on meaning or value”.19 This emerges from “the game of
appearances”, with Baudrillard insisting that “the game has its rule and its possibly
rigorous ritual”.20 One such ritual is terrorism, he argues, because it “opposes to every
event said to be real the purest form of the spectacular”.21 “There has to be
extermination”, Baudrillard insists, if we wish to reach “the level of pure appearance”
via, for instance, “rituals and ceremonies”.22. In short, “pure appearance…orders a stake
other than the real”.23 And so, the Manichean Baudrillard rides the Gnostic drive to get
out of matter and “not to be there but to see, like God” – a desire he calls “the most
radical metaphysical desire, the deepest spiritual joy”.24 In all of this, he concentrates
on the penultimate stage of Mani’s purification process, underlining “the inseparability of
good and evil, and hence the impossibility of mobilizing the one without the other”.25
So, when it comes to September 11, Baudrillard offers us this Manichean metaphysics of
terrorism:

Terrorism is immoral. The World Trade Centre event, that symbolic challenge, is
immoral, and it is a response to a globalization which is itself immoral. So, let us be
immoral; and if we want to have some understanding of all this, let us go and take a little
look beyond Good and Evil. When, for once, we have an event that defies not just
morality, but any form of interpretation, let us try to approach it with an understanding of
Evil. This is precisely where the crucial point lies – in the total misunderstanding on the
part of Western philosophy, on the part of the Enlightenment, of the relation between
Good and Evil. We believe naively that the progress of Good, its advance in all fields (the
sciences, technology, democracy, human rights), corresponds to a defeat of Evil. No one
seems to have understood that Good and Evil advance together, as part of the same
movement. The triumph of the one does not eclipse the other – far from it. In
metaphysical terms, Evil is regarded as an accidental mishap, but this axiom, from which
all the Manichean forms of the struggle of Good against Evil derive, is illusory. Good
does not conquer Evil, nor indeed does the reverse happen: they are at once both
irreducible to each other, and inextricably interrelated.26

Terrorism and its contemporary context are thus marked by moral ambiguity,
according to the Gnostic Baudrillard. Even when the righteous go to war, they too risk
being creators-and-destroyers: “a good resplendent with all the power of Evil”, wherein
“the Good shines with the energy of Evil”.27 This is Baudrillard as the contemporary
voice of the Cathari (pure ones) – a medieval sect inspired by Mani’s form of Gnosticism.
The French Manicheans are also called Albigiensis (after Albi, a Manichean city in
medieval France) or simply the Cathars. Baudrillard cites that sect while underlining the
key Gnostic concept of illusion: “A principle of illusion – the concept of the world as the
work of the devil and, at the same time, that of perfection achieved here on earth – are the
two fundamental concepts of the Cathars”.28 Procreation, say the Manicheans, is “the
most formidable device in Satan’s strategy” because it traps particles of Light in Evil
matter.29 Thus, “some opposite demon of indifference, inertia and apathy” appeared unto
Baudrillard after he admitted that: “my conceptual imagination came, at bottom, from my
impotence and hereditary sterility”.30
 An awareness of evil matter also shapes Baudrillard’s suggestion that the old
Gnostics were terrorists insofar as “they based their theologies on the very negation of the
real”.31 “Religion in its former heretical phase”, he explains, “was always a negation – at
times a violent one – of the real world, and this is what gave it strength”.32 And strength
of spirit was indeed needed by the French Manicheans who preceded Baudrillard.
Hundreds were burnt alive for heresy during the Albigensian Crusades in the south of
France (1208-1255). At the time, the metaphysical terrorism of the Cathari was met by
actual terrorism sanctioned by the Church. For instance, 15,000 men, women and
children were slain in Beziers when that Albigensian stronghold fell in 1209. Faced with
the difficulty of telling Cathari from Catholics, the soldiers were told by the Papal
Legate: “Kill them all – God will recognize His own”.33

The French Manicheans left a living legacy despite such brutal decimation. In
short, the Gnostics went underground, fleeing into the peasant countryside to continue
their faith in secret.34 As the Cathari were being slaughtered in the south, some of their
Gnostic lore got smuggled into the Catholic north. For example, even Reims Cathedral
(under construction during the Albigensian Crusades), contains a carved stone panel (two
men falling from a lightning-struck tower) apparently taken from tarot images used in
Cathari teaching.35

In an interview with Caroline Bayard and Graham Knight, Baudrillard admits he

is “an Albigiensis, yes a Manichean – certainly Manichean in The Transparency of Evil”,
with that position arising from “a prophetic moralism…inherited from my ancestors, who
were peasants”.36 It is therefore rather appropriate that Baudrillard is the one “many
people think of as the high priest of postmodernism”.37 Baudrillard, however, is
uncomfortable with that title, telling Gane: “this reference to priesthood is out of place, I
think”. Furthermore: “one should ask whether postmodernism, the postmodern, has a
meaning. It doesn’t as far as I am concerned. It’s an expression, a word which people use
but which explains nothing”.38 Even so, Baudrillard has linked Nihilism or radical
skepticism with postmodernism in [the] light of terrorism.39 This suggests he can be
regarded as the high priest of postmodernism in a hitherto unexplored sense. If
postmodern philosophy is best described as a contemporary form of Skepticism, then
Baudrillard is arguably the “high priest” or most inspired exponent of such thinking. He
can be regarded as inspired because of the audacious way he blends Gnosticism and
Skepticism into a form of Gnostic Nihilism.40 That daring blend drives Baudrillard’s
“terrorist” philosophy, yet it sets him apart in the largely secular postmodern field. We
can call that mix PyrrhoMania because of the way Baudrillard blends the Skepticism of
Greek philosopher Pyrrho (360-270 BCE) with the Gnostic metaphysics of Persian
prophet Mani (215-277 CE). An overview of how Baudrillard heard about Mani and
Pyrrho can help us understand his Gnostic Nihilism.

III. Mani’s Shadow, Pyrrho’s Echo

 The shadow of Mani lingers in Western thought, filtering down the centuries
despite his cruel execution. Zoroastrian priests or Magi had Mani impaled as a heretic,
probably because he deepened their dualism of Good and Evil with a Gnostic dualism of
Spirit (Good) and Matter (Evil).41 Even so, Mani’s new religion spread, flourishing
during the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. St. Augustine (354-430 CE) embraced
Mani’s ideas for a while, before attacking them in his Confessions and other works.42
Later, Mani’s religion spread further West thanks to Bogomil, an Orthodox priest from
Macedonia. His popular form of Manicheanism entered several European nations in the
ninth century, lasting until the seventeenth century in some parts.43 A second wave of
Manicheanism washed into Europe during the twelfth century, courtesy of crusaders and
pilgrims returning from the Middle East.44

That second wave is still being surfed today, thanks partly to French letters
written on the beach of Western culture. In short, Baudrillard has channeled what Albert
Camus (1913-1960) called: “the record of Gnostic effronteries and the persistence of
Manichean currents”.45 Indeed, testing those currents seems quite a French thing.
Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), whom Baudrillard often
cites, used Gnostic logic in their work, most notably in Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty.46
Earlier the skeptic Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) had helped revive Manicheanism by noting
its merits, vis-à-vis the theodicy problem, in his Dictionnaire historique et critique
(1697). And later, Simone Weil (1909-1943) wrote: “the Manichean tradition is one of
those in which you may be quite certain of finding some truth if you study it with
sufficient piety and attention”.47

However, before Mani sought truth via metaphysics, Pyrrho doubted dogma and
sought serenity via appearances.48 Here, it is interesting that Pyrrho developed his
philosophy after meeting Magi in Persia.49 Pyrrho’s Skepticism did, in fact, become
useful for spiritual purposes due to its emphasis on suspension of judgment (epoche) and
the tranquility (ataraxia) that can follow.50 For example, some Gnostics after Pyrrho used
a metaphysics of skepticism to prepare for God-given, meta-rational wisdom (gnosis).51
Baudrillard has apparently followed suit, producing PyrrhoMania to evoke a gnosis of
pure appearance via epoche and ataraxia. In short, the Gnostic Baudrillard draws upon
Mani and Pyrrho to develop faith via mystery.52 And the Pyrrhonian revival in Europe
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries prepared the way for him.53 That revival
undermined the logic of violent persecution by introducing skeptical argumentation into
French letters.54

The revival thus gave the Albigensian heresy a chance to live again in the likes of
Baudrillard’s ancestors. The French Pyrrhonian revival also bequeathed to Baudrillard an
arsenal of logical weapons for the liquidation of dogmatic knowledge and the anticipation
of gnosis instead. Mani’s shadow, it seems, is called forth in Baudrillard by the echo of
Pyrrho. The Pyrrhonian method, recorded by Sextus Empiricus (2nd century CE) and
Diogenes Laertius (3rd century CE), influenced the likes of Michel Montaigne (1533-
1592) and Camus, both of whom Baudrillard read.55 That method involves what
Montaigne called: “a pure, entire, and absolute suspension of judgment”.56 The method,
Camus wrote, features: “the feeling that all true knowledge is impossible, solely
appearances can be enumerated”.57 Baudrillard, however, entertains what Camus
resisted: “a skeptical metaphysics”.58 Furthermore, Baudrillard’s Albigensian faith
contrasts with Montaigne’s condemnation of “heresy…and irreligious opinions, invented
and brought up by false sects”.59 Then again, Montaigne also wrote On the Liberty of
Conscience and “taught for the first time, or almost for the first time, in France, the
innocence of error and the evil of persecution”.60 The irony in all of this was not lost on
Camus: “Gnostic effronteries…have contributed more to the construction of orthodox
dogma than all the prayers”.61 Such references indicate that the Pyrrhonian legacy in
French letters includes an awareness of the Cathari tradition. Perhaps this persuaded
Baudrillard to develop Gnostic Nihilism. He acknowledges his debt to both traditions,
claiming that nihilist logic liberates us into “a more exciting world…a world where the
name of the game remains secret”.62 Here we have Baudrillard’s version of what Eco
calls a typical Gnostic calculus: skepticism + secrecy = liberation.63 In short, the high
priest of postmodernism is a “terrorist and nihilist in theory” in order to glean a secret
gnosis from such radical skepticism. This judgment is based on reading his texts and
meeting the man.

IV. Gnostic Texts From a Manichean Man

As the heir of persecuted heretics, Baudrillard can be wary of scholars who look
into his Gnosticism. For instance, when I asked him about his Manichean theme, he
called it “very important”, but then quickly changed the subject.64 Later, when I
mentioned my Gnostic Baudrillard research, he turned to Nicholas Zurbrugg and said:
“This is a dangerous man!” Then, after questioning the Gnostic/Manichean linkage,
Baudrillard said to me, “you do it”, and declined to be interviewed on the matter (March
22 2001, Hyatt Hotel, Auckland). Here, Baudrillard’s responses are unsurprising, given
his ambivalence concerning commentators. Gane, for instance, quotes Baudrillard as
confessing that: “the anxiety of any kind of commentary, even a favourable one, comes
from the obscure sense of the skeletons in the cupboard”. Gane also notes: “there are still
mysteries about him which have never been addressed”. Even so, Gane plays down the
Manichean element in Baudrillard’s work, characterizing it as an occasional strategy.65

Contrary to Gane, I maintain that Manichean Gnosticism marks Baudrillard’s

mature thought (at least his post-Marxist thinking after 1975). It has been a constant
theme in his work ever since L’echange symbolique et la mort , where, for example, he
notes Mani’s “very powerful vision” in light of the Freudian duality of Eros (sex) and
Thanatos (death):

The irreducible duality of the two pulsions, Eros and Thanatos, reawakens the ancient
Manichean version of the world, the endless antagonism of the twin principles of good
and evil. This very powerful vision comes from the ancient cults where the basic intuition
of a specificity of evil and death was still strong. This was unbearable to the Church, who
will take centuries to exterminate it and impose the pre-eminent principle of the Good
(God), reducing evil and death to a negative principle, dialectically subordinate to the
other (the Devil). But there is always the nightmare of Lucifer’s autonomy, the Archangel
of Evil (in all their forms, as popular heresies and superstitions that always have a
tendency to take the existence of a principle of evil literally and hence to form cults
around it, even including black magic and Jansenist theory, not to mention the Cathars),
which will haunt the Church day and night. It opposes the dialectic as an institutional
theory and as a deterrent to a radical, dualistic and Manichean concept of death.66

This Manichean material is significant because it marks Baudrillard’s passage from

Marxist to Gnostic thinking. In short, his post-Marxist thought is dualistic rather than
dialectical. And the difference is crucial. In the former, irreducible opposites exist as
eternal contradictions in what the Gnostic Baudrillard pun-fully calls “a duel and
agonistic relation” that resists synthesis.67 Here, Manichean duality is not a binary
opposition (Good/Evil) because Evil is not dialectically subordinate to Good (or vice
versa). Neither is triumphant. Instead, Good and Evil are eternal antagonists in
Manichean Gnosticism. “In every human action”, explains Baudrillard, “there are always
two divinities doing battle; neither is defeated and the game has no end”.68
Consequently, he rejects Marx’s idea (adapted from Hegel) that the history of reality is
dialectical: an ongoing movement of thesis-antithesis-synthesis that will eventually
resolve all contradiction. Marx is mistaken, argues the Gnostic Baudrillard: “the world is
not dialectical, it is sworn to extremes, not to equilibrium, sworn to radical antagonism,
not to reconciliation or synthesis. This is also the principle of Evil”.69 This Manichean
logic is evident in all of Baudrillard’s major texts since L’echange symbolique et la mort
and is even apparent in his very early work. In L’Ange de Stuc, a poem dating from the
1950s, Baudrillard stresses the metaphysical precession of evil and apparently laments
Mani as “this upright one” who perished “on this Persian stake”.70 Furthermore, in Les
Romans d’Italo Calvino (1962), Baudrillard notes this about Calvino’s The Cloven
Viscount: “the good half is revealed to be as injurious as the damned soul: evil exists in
duality”.71 Santamaria thinks Baudrillard’s Manichean logic even contaminated his
Marxian social semiotics in Le systeme des objets, La societe de consommation, Pour
une critique de l’economie du Sign and Le miroir de la production.72 Thereafter,
Baudrillard developed his Gnostic theme in texts such as De la seduction, Les strategies
fatales and The Evil Demon of Images. First presented as a lecture and follow-up
interview for the University of Sydney, The Evil Demon of Images has been called “a
little known text of Baudrillard’s, not quite part of his official oeuvre”.73 The Gnostic
Baudrillard may not be the “official” one, but the blend of simulation and seduction in
The Evil Demon of Images encapsulates his key premise: “for me the reality of the world
has been seduced, and this is really what is so fundamentally Manichean in my work”.74
The book, in fact, is an early example of what Eco calls the Gnostic spirit in
contemporary theory75. In the interview section, Baudrillard discusses his Manichean
hypothesis in light of Rene Descartes’ (1596-1650) famous thought experiment in
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641): “some malicious demon of the utmost power and
cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me”.76
 Given the persistence of Manichean currents in Western thought, Descartes may
have designed his demon hypothesis to refute the Cathari heresy. If so, then Baudrillard’s
reply to him has a special poignancy:

In the Cartesian project there is at least the inauguration of a rational principle. It is from
this rational principle that the whole question of doubt arises. This doubt comes from the
subject - as subject of knowledge, as subject of discourse...For me the question is totally
different. When I evoke the principle of evil, of an evil demon etc., my aim is more
closely related to a certain kind of Manicheanism. It is therefore anterior to Descartes,
and fundamentally it is irrational. There are in fact two principles at stake: on the one
hand there is the (Descartes’) rational principle or principle of rationality – the
fundamental attempt, through doubt or anything else, to rationalize the world – and on the
other hand there is the inverse principle, which was, for example, adopted by the
“heretics” all the way throughout the history of Christianity. This is the principle of evil
itself. What the heretics posited was that the very creation of the world, hence the reality
of the world, was the result of the existence of the evil demon. The function of God, then,
was really to try to repudiate this evil phantom – that was the real reason why God had to
exist at all. So in this situation it is no longer a question of doubt or non-doubt, of
whether one should exercise this doubt or whether this doubt could lead us to confirm or
deny the existence of the world. Rather, it is once again the principle of seduction that
needs to be invoked in this situation: according to Manicheanism the reality of the world
is a total illusion; it is something which has been tainted from the very beginning; it is
something which has been seduced by a sort of irreal principle since time
immemorial…Nevertheless, one has to recognize the reality of the illusion; and one must
play upon this illusion itself and the power that it exerts. This is where the Manichean
element in my work comes in…This is the key to the whole position: the idea is that of a
most fundamental and radical antagonism, of no possibility existing at all of reconciling
the “illusion” of the world with the “reality” of the world… For me the reality of the
world has been seduced, and this is really what is so fundamentally Manichean in my
work. Like the Manicheans, I do not believe in the possibility of “real-ising” the world
through any rational or materialist principle – hence the great difference between my
work and the process of invoking radical doubt as in Descartes’.77

Here we see Baudrillard’s PyrrhoMania in full cry. Does this text, in the context
of his post-Marxist work, outline the first metaphysics of skepticism in modern Western
philosophy? Baudrillard argues that we cannot get certain knowledge of the world by
reconciling our rationality with reality. Why not? Well, because a demon has seduced
reason and reality while creating them both, making them irreconcilable and thus
rendering us incapable of knowing the truth about reality. Instead, we experience illusion
or a play of reality between our flawed rationality and the mystery of the world due to the
mediation of consciousness. Here, reality mediated by thought and language arises from
original seduction, evoking a “giddiness of simulation” that is “truly diabolical”.78 In
other words: original simulation or a metaphysics of mediation premised on a demon
creating our world, language and logic. After all, for Gnostics, the earth is “a screen upon
which the Demiurge of the mind projects his deceptive system”.79 Baudrillard’s idea of
original simulation has been largely ignored, however, with most scholars preferring his
well-known three orders of simulacra as their Baudrillardean orthodoxy. Lane, for
instance, re-presents that orthodoxy in the following fashion:

Baudrillard argues that there are three levels of simulation, where the first level is an
obvious copy of reality and the second level is a copy so good that it blurs the boundaries
between reality and representation. The third level is one which produces a reality of its
own without being based upon any particular bit of the real world. The best example is
probably “virtual reality”, which is a world generated by computer languages or code.
Virtual reality is thus a world generated by mathematical models which are abstract
entities. It is this third level of simulation, where the model comes before the constructed
world, that Baudrillard calls the hyperreal.80

Gane has extended that orthodoxy by offering a fourth order based on utter
uncertainty.81 However, this emphasis on the “orders” ignores Baudrillard’s ongoing use
of Manichean metaphysics to underpin (and undermine) simulation. From simulation, yet
against simulation, he evokes the Pyrrhonian criterion of appearance in light of the
Gnostic postulate of a demon creator who seduces our minds. Indeed, in Paroxysm:
Interviews with Philippe Petit, Baudrillard puts those very cards on the table before
admitting his penchant for Gnosticism:

There’s a moment when you can grasp the object or the world in terms of appearance, not
in terms of the production of a world already fashioned in the image of thought… And
when you think, it’s possible that in an almost occult way there’s a kind of principle of
evil active behind that thinking, a demonic dimension… I wouldn’t have minded being
Manichean, heretical and Gnostic. Why not? But I’ve never ventured to draw up a list of
secret references.82

Baudrillard has carried his Gnostic Nihilism into the twenty-first century, with “Dual
Principle, Single Principle, Antagonistic Principle” in Impossible Exchange being a good
example. Even so, the paradox of PyrrhoMania must be untangled further to clarify his
claim: “I am a terrorist and nihilist in theory as the others are with their weapons”.

V. Logical Terror: Hypothesis and Reversibility

At first, the theoretical terrorism of Baudrillard’s Gnostic Nihilism seems an

unthinkable cocktail of ideas, even an undrinkable one. Has Baudrillard had too much to
think? After all, how can a philosopher combine Pyrrho’s skeptical rationalism with
Mani’s religious metaphysics? Surely the latter would be destroyed by the critical logic
of the former. Not necessarily, argues Baudrillard. Here, everything rests on where one
starts and, logically speaking, one can start anywhere, as Barnes has demonstrated in his
analysis of Pyrrhonian Skepticism. In short: anything is possible in philosophy because
everything depends on an argument’s first principle, starting point or hypothesis,
regardless of one’s epistemic criterion.83 For his own philosophy, Baudrillard uses
Mani’s vision to demonize Pyrrho’s logic – positing original seduction as his first
principle. Here, Baudrillard reminds us that: “according to Manicheanism the reality of
the world is a total illusion; it is something which has been tainted from the very
beginning; it is something which has been seduced by a sort of irreal principle since time
immemorial”.84

Baudrillard describes this Manichean postulate as “an enthralling hypothesis”.85

With this, he interrogates the genesis of our doubts about truth and reality. Baudrillard
suggests Pyrrho’s skeptical logic sprang from a metaphysical first cause of demonic
temper. He even argues that the Infinite Logical Regress beneath first principles (stressed
by Pyrrho) arose from original seduction. Pyrrho’s device has been called “the most
celebrated of all skeptical manoeuvres”.86 It therefore warrants exposition in light of
Baudrillard’s Manichean appropriation of it. Barnes cites Sextus’ account of the regress:

In the way deriving from infinite regress we say that what is brought forward as a warrant
for the object proposed needs another warrant, which itself needs another, and so on ad
infinitum; so that we have no point from which to begin to establish anything, and
suspension of judgment follows.87

Pyrrho’s device is gnosticized by Baudrillard. He suggests that the Demon is in the

Infinite Regress itself, with its genesis secreted away in the very infinity that bedevils our
logic.88 In other words, Baudrillard uses skeptical logic to fire his Manichean
metaphysics, as did some ancient Gnostics before him.89 The provocative logic of
original seduction may not be open to empirical verification, but it has a certain internal
consistency. After all, if a creator demon wanted to confound or seduce our logic from
the very beginning, then an Infinite Logical Regress would be a damn good way to do
that.

Of course, that is a somewhat circular argument. Even so, we can ask: surely all
arguments must eventually circle back to their assumptions for “final” logical
justification, salvaged on the brink of infinite logical regress? Baudrillard is hardly alone
in that. Thus, he feels philosophically free to suggest that an evil demon of skepticism
may have created our world, language and logic, including our capacity to doubt that idea
and all other thoughts, proofs or truths. Here, we may reject Baudrillard’s Manichean
hypothesis on moral grounds, but we cannot reject it on logical grounds. In short,
disproving his hypothesis is apparently impossible. It remains a possibility.

Logical, but laughable, reply some critics. For instance, Eco parodies the Evil
Demon of Infinite Regress by lampooning the “muddle-headed Demiurge who tried to
say that ‘that’s that’ and on the contrary elicited an uninterrupted chain of infinite
deferrals where ‘that’ is not ‘that’”.90 Baudrillard, however, can deflect such critique by
arguing that parody also arises from original seduction, with “the evil demon of
language” inspiring “the predestination of language to become nonsense from the instant
it is caught in its own devices”. “Theory is, at any rate, destined to be diverted, deviated
and manipulated”, he insists, concluding that: “for every thought, one must expect a
strange tomorrow”.91

Here, Baudrillard notes the classic Gnostic theme of destiny.92 Evoking “the
predestination of language to become nonsense” allows him to use Manichean
Gnosticism for spiritual or aesthetic purposes without insisting it must be true. In short,
Baudrillard drinks deeply from Mani’s cup, but follows Pyrrho’s advice: “we must not
assume that what convinces us is actually true”.93 From there, he dares to construct what
is arguably the first metaphysics of skepticism in modern Western philosophy. To set that
up, he posits logical reversibility as the sharpest corollary of the diabolical Infinite
Regress:

The principle of reversibility, which is also the one of magic and seduction, requires that
all that has been produced must be destroyed, and that which appears must disappear… It
could almost be the sign of an original reversibility of things. One could maintain that
before having been produced the world was seduced, that it exists, as all things and
ourselves, only by virtue of having been seduced. Strange precession, which hangs over
all reality to this day: the world has been refuted and led astray from the beginning... This
original deviation is truly diabolical. The giddiness of simulation, the satanic ravishing of
the eccentricity of the beginning and the end opposes itself to the utopia of the Last
Judgement, complemented by the one of the original baptism. Our entire moral
anthropology, spanning from Christianity to Rousseau, original sin to original innocence,
is false. Original sin must be replaced, not by final salvation, nor innocence, but by
original seduction… The reader will have realized how Manichean this theory is. To
evoke seduction is to further our destiny as an object. To touch upon the object. To rouse
the principle of Evil. Seduction is, therefore, ineluctable, and appearance always
victorious. Of course we are witnessing a proliferation of systems of meaning and
interpretation which seek to clear the path for a rational operation of the world... At the
same time it is evident that all these systems are prevented from producing anything
based on truth or objectivity. Deep down everything is already there, in this evil reversal
– the impossibility for all systems to be founded on truth, to break open the secret and
reveal whatever it may be. The discourse of truth is quite simply impossible. It eludes
itself. Everything eludes itself, everything scoffs at its own truth, seduction renders
everything elusive. The fury to unveil the truth, to get at the naked truth, the one which
haunts all discourses of interpretation, the obscene rage to uncover the secret, is
proportionate to the impossibility of ever achieving this. The more one nears truth, the
more it retreats towards the omega point, and the greater becomes the rage to get at it.
But this rage, this fury, only bears witness to the eternity of seduction and to the
impossibility of mastering it.94
 The Pyrrhonian Baudrillard is surprisingly dogmatic in this proclamation of his
Manichean metaphysics. He tries to rationalize that contradiction by suggesting original
reversibility has stamped logical reversibility into all discourse via the Way of Infinite
Regress and the related Way of Hypothesis. Here, Sextus and Diogenes provide
Baudrillard with the formulae from which logical reversibility can be deduced: “We have
the way from hypothesis when the dogmatists, being thrown back ad infinitum, begin
from something which they do not establish but claim to assume simply and without
proof in virtue of a concession”, notes Sextus95. Diogenes identifies the key corollary of
this classic skeptical point: “The mode resulting from hypothesis arises when people
suppose that you must take the most elementary of things as of themselves entitled to
credence, instead of postulating them: which is useless, because some one else will adopt
the contrary hypothesis”.96 In other words: if first principles (and their contraries) are
equally groundless (Infinite Regress), then those principles are also logically equivalent
(i.e. the Regress flaws them all) and thus logically exchangeable or reversible. Here, first
principles for particular things are logically baseless assumptions that function as
cognitive simulation models.97 These models can produce internally consistent (even
useful) discourse, but they remain vulnerable to reversibility thanks to the Infinite
Logical Regress.

In short, when it comes to first principles, Diogenes was apparently correct:

“some one else will adopt the contrary hypothesis” (or is logically able to do so). For
example, Baudrillard in Simulations reckons explanations of bombings in Italy are
exchangeable (i.e. reversible) because they arise from equivalent simulation models (i.e.
none can be finally proved):

Is any given bombing in Italy the work of leftist extremists, or of extreme right-wing
provocation, or staged by centrists to bring every terrorist extreme into disrepute and to
shore up its own failing power, or again, is it a police-inspired scenario in order to appeal
to public security? All this is equally true, and the search for proof, indeed the objectivity
of the fact does not check this vertigo of interpretation. We are in a logic of simulation
which has nothing to do with a logic of facts and an order of reasons. Simulation is
characterized by a precession of the model, of all models around the merest fact – the
models come first, and their orbital (like the bomb) circulation constitutes the genuine
magnetic field of events. Facts no longer have any trajectory of their own, they arise at
the intersection of the models; a single fact may even be engendered by all the models at
once. This anticipation, this precession, this short-circuit, this confusion of the fact with
its model… is what each time allows for all the possible interpretations, even the most
contradictory – all are true, in the sense that their truth is exchangeable, in the image of
the models from which they proceed.98

This is a classic piece of Pyrrhonian reasoning. Equivalence and reversibility are

used here to underline the model-driven nature of interpretation of bombing, exposing
their uncertainty as simulations. Even so, Baudrillard equips his skeptical ship with an
ontological anchor, albeit an indeterminate one. He notes “the objectivity of the fact”, but
insists that a bombing still gets drawn into the “vertigo of interpretation”. In short, he is
arguing that the truth of an event is never theory-neutral – it depends on interpretation
and we interpret using assumption-driven models. Furthermore, “all the possible
interpretations” of “any given bombing in Italy” are “equally true – even the most
contradictory”. Why? Because: “their truth is exchangeable in the image of the models
from which they proceed”. This boils down to saying that all model-driven stories about
something (e.g. a bombing) are interchangeable because “the image of the models” is
logical equivalence (i.e. all the models are flawed by the Infinite Regress). Here, one
bombing story is as logically “good” as another, provided each story avoids internal
contradiction.

The Gnostic Baudrillard calls this logical anomaly “the evil demon of
commutation”.99 Of course, like every other first principle, Baudrillard’s idea of original
seduction (and original reversibility) is itself subject to an infinite logical regress (and
reversibility). This suggests his philosophy is cruelled by contradiction and prone to self-
refutation, as Norris charges.100 If that is so, must Baudrillard be outcast in his logical
rags from the House of Philosophy? Not quite. After all, his PyrrhoMania is premised on
eternal contradiction (Good and Evil) and can thus retain internal consistency via its own
dualistic/non-dialectical logic. “What we have here”, explains Santamaria: “is an
intemperate and perhaps even perverse rationalism: the whole work is developed within
the presupposition of dualism”.101 In other words: if contradiction is cosmic, then the
Manichean Baudrillard can turn self-refutation into a Gnostic virtue. Indeed, he argues
that: “the only genuine function of the intellect is to embrace contradictions, to exercise
irony, to take the opposite tack, to exploit rifts and reversibility – even to fly in the face
of the lawful and the factual”.102 Here, Baudrillard may be taking his cue from Camus:
“contradiction is perhaps the most subtle of all spiritual forces”.103 And so, we come to
the telos of his philosophy of terrorism: pure appearance or “the ephemeral moment in
which things take the time to appear before taking on meaning or value”.104

VI. Pure Appearance via Symbolic Exchange

Pure appearance is one of the least understood of Baudrillard’s ideas. Kellner, for
instance, reckons: “it is never clear in Baudrillard’s writing what a ‘pure event’ would
be”. Kellner cannot be clear because he thinks Baudrillard deals in binary oppositions and
can be dismissed as “the Walt Disney of contemporary metaphysics”.105 Kellner misses
Baudrillard’s use of dualistic discourse to approach pure appearance via symbolic
exchange (i.e. using signs ecstatically to challenge signified reality and thereby go
beyond it). Ecstasy anticipates “the magic of a ‘liberation’ of an original force”, explains
Baudrillard, comparing such poetics with “Artaud’s often shocking affinity with magic
and exorcism, and even, in Heliogabale, with orgiastic mysticism”.106 In short, the non-
dialectical practice of symbolic exchange involves duels with, yet beyond, signs during
thinking, ritual or ceremony.

Such duels involve “an act of exchange and a social relation which puts an end to
the real” or the real as constructed by binary signs. Here, “the effect of the real is only
ever the structural effect of the disjunction between two terms”, explains Baudrillard,
“and our famous reality principle, with its normative and repressive implications, is only
a generalization of this disjunctive code to all levels”.107 As a counter-punch against
this code, rituals of symbolic exchange use a dualistic matrix to move adepts beyond a
reality ruled by dialectical binary signs.

These rituals of symbolic exchange are apparently a way to move from matter to
spirit via a secret gnosis of pure appearance. Here, “the magic rituals of the seduction of
the world” feature “Manichean or revolutionary denials of the real world”, explains the
Gnostic Baudrillard.108 Such rituals, he adds, are aimed at “a mastery of pure
appearances” and involve “cruel, rigorous forms of the sign in its pure functioning”. In
these rituals, both “the real” and “the logic of meaning” are challenged in a “demiurgic”
fashion via “thousands of pure signs” and “the connection of signs in ceremony”.109

In short, Baudrillard regards symbolic exchange as an “Anti-Materialist Theory of

Language”. “There is no materialist reference in the symbolic operation”, he explains,
“not even an ‘unconscious’ one; rather there is the operation of an anti-matter”.110 This
manifestly Gnostic discourse features a double spiral of signs and symbols. Baudrillard
explains this by summarizing his move from Marxism to Manicheanism:

The movement is one that counters an order of simulation; it is a system of distinctive

oppositions regulating a meaning, and a movement striving to restore a symbolic order
assimilated to a superior authenticity of exchanges. This double spiral moves from Le
Systeme des Objets to the Fatal Strategies: a spiral swerving towards a sphere of the sign,
the simulacrum and simulation, a spiral of the reversibility of all signs in the shadow of
seduction and death. The two paradigms are diversified in the course of this spiral
without altering their antagonistic position. On the one hand: political economy,
production, the code, the system, simulation. On the other hand: potlatch, expenditure,
sacrifice, death, the feminine, seduction, and, in the end, the fatal.111

Here, Baudrillard draws upon the anthropology of Marcel Mauss, (1872-1950), especially
his analysis of tribal potlatch. In the latter, excessively generous gifts are exchanged and
then destroyed in mutual challenges marked by what Genosko calls “the principles of
rivalry and antagonism”. Furthermore, Baudrillard’s potlatch is a kind of “postmodern
ceremony” that highlights “Mauss’s understanding of the gift as a spiritual
mechanism”.112 So, in the double spiral, a Manichean model drives Baudrillard’s
potlatch: the signs and symbols are in an antagonistic nexus of challenge, duel and
seduction.

“The entire strategy of seduction”, Baudrillard explains, “is to bring things to a

state of pure appearance, to make them radiate and wear themselves out in the game of
appearances (but the game has its rule and its possibly rigorous ritual)”.113 One such
rule is terrorism, with Baudrillard inscribing it as: “a ritual, or that which, of all possible
events, opposes to the political and historical model or order the purest symbolic form of
challenge”.114 Baudrillard’s philosophy of terrorism is therefore linked to his
Manichean view that theory is a challenge to reality and God. Here, “theory is… both
simulation and challenge”.115 And here, challenge = seduction, with seduction being a
sort of simulation that plays with illusion and thereby seeks to “put the real, quite simply,
on the spot”.116 Thus:

God...the law, the truth, the unconscious, the real. All these things only exist in the brief
instant when one challenges them to exist; they exist only by virtue of this challenge to
which we call them, precisely through seduction, which opens the sublime abyss before
them – the abyss into which they will plunge ceaselessly in a last glimmer of reality”.117

In short: seduction is simulation as magic. And Baudrillard sometimes admits

this.118 The older Gnostics also used magic to speed “the soul’s way out of the
world”.119 Is such sorcery Baudrillard’s “skeleton in the cupboard”? After all, noted
Morris, Baudrillard suggests “the referent may be the future of a sign, not its ‘proof’, not
its past, not its cause”. In short, he tells “a magic story: the object is conjured, not caught
or revealed”.120 Wernick agrees: “premised on the understanding that simulacra precede
the real”, Baudrillard’s project “is well-nigh magical”.121

Seduction as magical simulation, theory as challenge, or theory as “an event in the

universe it describes” is also regarded by Baudrillard as an “exorcism” of reality.122
Here, “seduction always seeks to overturn and exorcize a power” while “simulation is the
exorcism of the terror of illusion”.123 And so, Baudrillard’s double spiral is apparently
an attempt to out-seduce diabolical reality, with the man gnosticizing Pyrrho’s criterion
of appearances and deploying an ecstatic form of simulation (i.e. seduction) to challenge
reality (and God) into pure appearance via symbolic exchange. “Seduction”, insists
Baudrillard, “lies in the transformation of things into pure appearances”.124

“What interests me”, he explains, “is the possibility of a pure event, an event that
can no longer be manipulated, interpreted, or deciphered”.125 With the Paris protests of
May 1968 in mind, Baudrillard argues that pure appearance is “far beyond any rational
finality” because it involves “a kind of pure object or event” – i.e. an event that “remains
indecipherable” and is therefore “impossible to rationalize”.126 This desire to discern
things without simulation or interpretation is apparently a quest for gnosis or what Eco
calls “a meta-rational, intuitive knowledge”.127 Thus, when it comes to September 11,
the Gnostic Baudrillard reckons we should resist being “buried beneath a welter of
words” and instead focus on: “preserving intact the unforgettable incandescence of the
images”, thereby retaining those jets-into-skyscrapers as “the absolute event, the mother
of all events, the pure event”. For Baudrillard, “the terrorist attack corresponded to a
precedence of the event over all interpretative models”. As such, September 11 is “an
irreducible singularity” – beyond simulation – and this is why “no ideology, no cause –
not even the Islamic cause – can account for the energy which fuels terror”.128
 Here, Baudrillard expands on an earlier analysis of terrorism within In the
Shadow of the Silent Majorities. In that text, terrorism is marked as “our Theatre of
Cruelty, the only one that remains to us, perhaps equal in every respect to that of
Artaud…and extraordinary in that it brings together the spectacular and the challenge at
their highest point”. Terrorism is thus valorized as a kind of Gnostic ritual that “opposes
to every event said to be real the purest form of the spectacular”. And once televised, we
see terrorism’s “strange mixture of the symbolic and the spectacular, of challenge and
simulation”, with that quality being “the only original form of our time and subversive
because insoluble”.129

All this suggests that pure appearance involves receiving a gnosis via simulation,
yet fatal to simulation. “Whatever reaches the level of pure appearance – a person, an
event, an act – enters the realm of the fatal. It cannot be deciphered or interpreted”, insists
Baudrillard. “The subject has nothing to say about it”, he adds, because “events emerge
from any and every place, but from an absolute beyond, with that true strangeness which
alone is fascinating”.130

Here, the “absolute beyond” sought in symbolic exchange is apparently achieved

via “the ephemeral moment in which things take the time to appear before taking on
meaning or value”. If that is possible, such moments may be rather God-like. Indeed, that
is apparently what the Gnostic Baudrillard seeks as the ultimate telos of pure appearance.
For instance, he suggests that such moments involve eluding diabolical existence by
becoming like God:

What is the most radical metaphysical desire, the deepest spiritual joy? Not to be there,
but to see. Like God. For God, precisely, does not exist, and this enables him to watch
the world in his absence. We too would love, above all, to expunge man from the world
in order to see it in its original purity. We glimpse, in this, an inhuman possibility, which
would restore the pluperfect form of the world, without the illusion of the mind or even
that of the senses. An exact and inhuman hyperreality, where we could at last delight in
our absence and the dizzying joys of disincarnation. If I can see the world after the point
of my disappearance, that means I am immortal.131

This clearly Manichean discourse suggests that pure appearance is the paradoxical
Gnostic project of accessing a divine secret from before original seduction, yet via it,
while awaiting the Third Epoch restoration promised by Mani: the re-separation of Good
and Evil. Here, “the dizzying joys of disincarnation” that “defy the gravity of existence”
and “restore the pluperfect form of the world” may be sought via “the will of God” or
“crime”.132 Both options involve the classic Gnostic rejection of world, morality and
law as diabolical.133 And so, the Gnostic Baudrillard glorifies terrorism as a challenging
repudiation of reality. In other words, this Manichean man is a kind of metaphysical
poker player who raises the ontological stakes to out-bid the demon and exorcize it from
reality. Thus, in seeking pure appearance, he uses “stakes and challenges, summoning
and bluffing” to open up “symbolic circuits of unmediated and immoderate bidding
which concern the seduction of the order of things”.134 Punting on a secret is also
apparent in an exchange between Baudrillard and Lotringer in Forget Baudrillard. At one
point in that interview Lotringer says: “there is a high price to pay in terms of emptiness
and disenchantment” for “all the seduction, and the sadness, of nihilism”. And
Baudrillard replies:

It is true that logic only leads to disenchantment. We can't avoid going a long way with
negativity, with nihilism and all. But then don't you think a more exciting world opens
up? Not a more reassuring world, but certainly more thrilling, a world where the name of
the game remains secret. A world ruled by reversibility and indetermination.135

Here, we must remember that a key characteristic of Gnosticism is “the syndrome of the
secret”136 or what Barthes calls “the age-old struggle between a secret and an
utterance”.137 “There is something secret in appearances, precisely because they do not
readily lend themselves to interpretation”, insists the Gnostic Baudrillard, adding that: “I
am merely seeking to regain a space for the secret, seduction being simply that which lets
appearance circulate and move as a secret”.138

Even so, the Gnostic romance of pure appearance cannot entirely elude the rigors
of Pyrrhonian logic. For instance, it seems “the ephemeral moment in which things take
the time to appear before taking on meaning or value” cannot be discerned as such
without referring to some model and thus simulating the moment in a circular fashion.
With gnosis so prone to simulation, Baudrillard went mad once after a logical giddiness
“ended up taking hold of me”.139 Seeking gnosis, yet sucked into simulation, he speaks
of suffering some kind of breakdown:

I stopped working on simulation. I felt I was going totally nuts. Finally, by various paths,
all this came to have extremely direct consequences on my life. It seemed logical that
something would happen, an event of this kind – but I began to wonder what theory had
to do with all this. There is in theories something which does away with the feeling of
being ‘unstuck’. But what theory brings back on the other hand, to re-accentuate it,
pervert it - in the full sense of the word – I’d rather not know about.140

Baudrillard also came to realize that his gamble on pure appearance is cruelled by
its corollary: the requirement of becoming a pure object.141 He admits this metaphysical
failure in a poignant passage:

Is there any point in waging on the geniality of the Object, or is this “fatal strategy” only
a blind bid of the subject, a negation of the real, a plunge into artificial ecstasy? How
could the subject dream of leaping over its own shadow, and of sinking into the perfect
silence and destiny of stones, beasts, masks and stars? It cannot rid itself of language, of
desire, or of its own image, because the object only exists in that it is designated and
desired by the subject.142

In short, if seduction is simulation too, then: “there is no longer any symbolic referent to
the challenge of signs”.143 And so, Baudrillard’s philosophy of terrorism seeking pure
appearance ends up being just another simulation, albeit an ecstatic one. And of course
this study is a further simulation: a Gnostic Nihilist map preceding a re-reading of
Baudrillard’s post-Marxist territory as terrorist. Even so, it is a useful map for exploring
his Manichean critique of contemporary image-based epistemology.

Ocular technologies, according to this critique, promise us more truth, even

knowledge of Evil, but fall prey to simulation via an aesthetic imperative. Violence, for
instance, has been increasingly visualized – even beautified – in recent years via slow
motion, zoom and simulation techniques.144 And we consume it, like spectators in some
digital Coliseum, while our cultural Caesars calibrate ever more hyper-real simulations of
slaughter. The film Gladiator (2000) is an obvious example, but Hannibal “the cannibal”
Lector in Silence of the Lambs (1991) is a more telling instance of what Baudrillard calls
the “programmatic resurrection of all that was once accursed”.145 Is such consumption
consent? Baudrillard thinks so, arguing that our consumption and consent are fuelled by a
desire to destroy power, especially American hegemonic power. “Countless disaster
movies bear witness to this fantasy”, he insists, with September 11 consumed as “this
Manhattan disaster movie”.146

In short, he reckons bin Laden and his agents gave us what we want via those
images of jets-into-skyscrapers. “At a pinch, we can say that they did it, but we wished
for it…without this deep-seated complicity, the event would not have had the resonance it
has, and in their symbolic strategy the terrorists doubtless know that they can count on
this unavowable complicity”.147 We are complicit, Baudrillard suggests, because ocular
simulation (i.e. facts preceded by images of them) has seduced us into a new scenario:
aesthetics now dominates our ethics and epistemology.148 So, after the spectacular
catastrophe of September 11, we must ask: will terrorism become beautiful too? And if
so, can we live happily ever after?149

Jonathan Thomas Smith: teaches Philosophy, Cultural Studies and Communication

Studies at RMIT University where he received his PhD in 2000 for a thesis on
Baudrillard called Seduction Ethics. Before entering Academia in 1993, he worked as a
journalist, including time in Northern Ireland (1981-1983), Lebanon (1983), Uganda
(1987), Ethiopia (1988) and Sudan (1991).

Endnotes:
1 Jean Baudrillard. Impossible Exchange. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso,
2001:90.

2 Charles Levin. Jean Baudrillard: A Study In Cultural Metaphysics. New York: Prentice
Hall, 1996:270.

3 Ulysses Santamaria. “Jean Baudrillard: Critique of a Critique”. Translated by Jeremy

Macdonald in Critique of Anthropology, Volume 4, Numbers 13-14, 1979:192-193.

4 See Paul Foss. “Despero Ergo Sum” in Frankovits, A. (Ed.), Seduced and Abandoned:
The Baudrillard Scene, Glebe: Stonemoss Services, 1984: 12, 15., and Meagan Morris.
“Room 101 or a Few Worst Things in the World” in Frankovits, 1984:92-96.

5 See Andrew Wernick. “Post-Marx: Theological Themes in Baudrillard's America”, In

Philippa Berry and Andrew Wernick (Eds.), Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and
Religion. London: Routledge, 1992:63; Gary Genosko. Baudrillard and Signs:
Signification Ablaze. London: Routledge, 1994:31; Andrew Wernick. “Jean Baudrillard:
Seducing God”, in Phillip Blond (Ed.) Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and
Theology. London: Routledge, 1998: 357-358; Alan Cholodenko. “The Logic of
Delirium, or the Fatal Strategies of Antonin Artaud and Jean Baudrillard”, In Edward
Scheer (Ed.), 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud. Sydney: Power Publications and
Artspace, 2000:155-156; and Fred Botting, “Bataille, Baudrillard and Postmodern
Gothic”, in Southern Review, Volume 27, Number 4, December 1994:495-499.

6 Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser, Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994:163.

7 Jean Baudrillard. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Translated by Iain Hamilton Grant.
London: Sage Publications, 1993:69.

8 Jean Baudrillard. The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers. Translated
by Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2002:13.

9 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss and
Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:44.

10 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings
of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:209.

11 J.R. Aherne. “Manichaeism” in Paul Kevin Meagher (Ed.), Encyclopedic Dictionary

of Religion (Volume F-N). Washington: Corpus Publication, 1979:2231.

12 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:98.
13 Umberto Eco. ”Interpretation and history”. In Stefan Collini (Ed.), Interpretation and
Overinterpretation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992:36.

14Mike Gane (Ed). Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews. London: Routledge, 1993:139-
140, 176-177, 184.

15 Umberto Eco. ”Interpretation and history”. In Stefan Collini (Ed.), Interpretation and
Overinterpretation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992:36.

16 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings
of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:233-234.

17 Jean Baudrillard. The Perfect Crime. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso,
1996: 38.

18 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:26.

19 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:88.

20 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and Caroline

Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:62.

21 Jean Baudrillard. In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities. Translated by Paul Foss,
John Johnston, and Paul Patton, Semiotext(e), New York, 1983:114.

22 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:88-89.

23 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and Caroline

Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:70.

24 Jean Baudrillard. The Perfect Crime. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso,
1996:38.

25 Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena.

Translated by James Benedict. London: Verso, 1993:105.

26 Jean Baudrillard. The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers.
Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2002:13.

27 Jean Baudrillard. Fatal Strategies. Translated by Philip Beitchman and W.G.J.

Niesluchowski and Edited by Jim Fleming. New York: Semiotext(e), 1990:10, 52.
28 Jean Baudrillard. The Perfect Crime. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso,
1996:82.

29 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings
of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:228.

30 Jean Baudrillard. Cool Memories II. Translated by Chris Turner. Durham, North
Carolina: Duke University Press, 1996:8.

31 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:44.

32 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:124.

33 Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. The Inquisition. London: Penguin, 2000:12.

34 Ibid.:13.

35 Barbara G. Walker. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1983:977, 984.

36 Caroline Bayard and Graham Knight, “Vivisecting the 90s: An Interview with Jean
Baudrillard”, http://www.ctheory.com/a24-vivisecting_90s.html

37 Mike Gane (Ed). Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews. London: Routledge, 1993:21.

38 Ibid.

39 Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser, Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994:160-164.

40 See for example: Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by

Bernard and Caroline Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e),
1988:57-75.

41 R.C. Zaehner. The Teachings of the Magi. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1956:54.

42 Augustine. The Confessions. Translated by F.J. Sheed. London: Sheed & Ward,
1949:35-41, 64-69, 103-107.

43 G. Eldarov. “Bogomils”. In Paul Kevin Meagher (Ed.), Encyclopedic Dictionary of

Religion (Volume A-E), Washington: Corpus Publication, 1979:481-482.

44 C.J. Lynch. “Cathari”. In Ibid.:660-661.

45 Albert Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. London: Penguin,
2000:102.

46 See Antonin Artaud. The Theatre and Its Double. Translated by Mary Caroline
Richards. New York: Grove, 1958:102-104; Georges Bataille. Theory of Religion.
Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Zone, 1989:69-97.

47 Simone Weil. Letter to a Priest. Translated by Arthur Wills. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1953:41.

48 Diogenes Laertius. “Pyrrho” In Henderson J. (Ed.), Lives of Eminent Philosophers

(Volume II), Translated by R.D.Hicks. The Loeb Classical Library, Number 185.
Harvard University Press, 2000: 515-519.

49 Ibid.:475.

50 Richard. H. Popkin. The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1979: xv-xvi.

51 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings
of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:272.

52 Jean Baudrillard. Seduction. Translated by Brian Singer. New York: St Martin's Press,
1990:142.

53 Richard. H. Popkin. The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1979:xvi-xviii.

54 William Lecky. History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in
Europe (Volume II). London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1882:57-64.

55 Jean Baudrillard. The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena.

Translated by James Benedict. London: Verso, 1993:189-190 fn. 22.

56 Michael Montaigne. “An Apology of Raymond Sebond”. In The Essayes of Michael

Lord of Montaigne (Volume II). Translated by John Florio. London: Oxford University
Press, 1906:232.

57 Albert Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. London: Penguin,
2000:18.

58 Ibid.:54.

59 Michael Montaigne. “An Apology of Raymond Sebond”. In The Essayes of Michael

Lord of Montaigne (Volume II). Translated by John Florio. London: Oxford University
Press, 1906:233-234.
60 William Lecky. History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in
Europe (Volume II). London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1882:58.

61 Albert Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. London: Penguin,
2000:102-103.

62 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:71.

63 Umberto Eco. ”Interpretation and history”. In Stefan Collini (Ed.), Interpretation and
Overinterpretation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992:30-32, 38.

64 Conversation of March 20, 2001 at George Fraser Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand.

65 Mike Gane. Jean Baudrillard: In Radical Uncertainty. London: Pluto Press, 2000:24,
28, 32.

66 Jean Baudrillard. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Translated by Iain Hamilton Grant.
London: Sage Publications, 1993:149.

67 Jean Baudrillard. Seduction. Translated by Brian Singer. New York: St Martin's Press,
1990:105.

68 Jean Baudrillard. Impossible Exchange. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso,

2001:100.

69 Jean Baudrillard. Fatal Strategies. Translated by Philip Beitchman and W.G.J.

Niesluchowski and Edited by Jim Fleming. New York: Semiotext(e), 1990:7.

70 Jean Baudrillard. “Stucco Angel” Translated by Sophie Thomas. In Gary Genosko

(Ed.), The Uncollected Baudrillard. London: Sage, 2001:6, 78.

71 Jean Baudrillard. “The Novels of Italo Calvino” in Ibid.:13.

72 Ulysses Santamaria. “Jean Baudrillard: Critique of a Critique”. Translated by Jeremy

Macdonald in Critique of Anthropology (Volume 4, Numbers 13-14), 1979:192-195.

73 Rex Butler. Jean Baudrillard: The Defence of the Real. London: Sage, 1999:141.

74 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:46.

75 Umberto Eco. ”Interpretation and history”. In Stefan Collini (Ed.), Interpretation and
Overinterpretation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992:38-39.
76 Rene Descartes. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by John Cottingham and
With An Introduction by Bernard Williams. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press,
1986:15.

77 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:44-46.

78 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and Caroline

Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. Semiotext(e), 1988:72.

79 Stephen Hoeller. The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead. Wheaton: The
Theosophical Publishing House, 1982:15.

80 Richard Lane. Jean Baudrillard. London: Routledge, 2000:30.

81 Mike Gane. Jean Baudrillard: In Radical Uncertainty. London: Pluto Press, 2000:57-
64.

82 Jean Baudrillard. Paroxysm: Interviews with Philippe Petit. Translated by Chris

Turner. London: Verso, 1998:36-37, 46.

83 Jonathan Barnes. “Some Ways of Skepticism”. In Stephen Everson (Ed.),

Epistemology. Cambridge University Press, 1990:211-212, 215-219.

84 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:44.

85 Jean Baudrillard. The Perfect Crime. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso,
1996:51.

86 Jonathan Barnes. “Some Ways of Skepticism”. In Stephen Everson (Ed.),

Epistemology. Cambridge University Press, 1990:209.

87 Ibid.:205.

88 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and Caroline

Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:73-74.

89 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings
of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:272.

90 Umberto Eco. ”Interpretation and history”. In Stefan Collini (Ed.), Interpretation and
Overinterpretation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992:39.

91 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and Caroline

Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988: 84, 99-100.
92 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings
of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:250-253.

93 Diogenes Laertius. “Pyrrho” In Henderson J. (Ed.), Lives of Eminent Philosophers

(Volume II), Translated by R.D.Hicks. The Loeb Classical Library, Number 185.
Harvard University Press, 2000:505.

94 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and Caroline

Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:71-74.

95 Jonathan Barnes. “Some Ways of Skepticism”. In Stephen Everson (Ed.),

Epistemology. Cambridge University Press, 1990:205.

96 Diogenes Laertius. “Pyrrho” In Henderson J. (Ed.), Lives of Eminent Philosophers

(Volume II), Translated by R.D.Hicks. The Loeb Classical Library, Number 185.
Harvard University Press, 2000:501.

97 Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena.

Translated by James Benedict. London: Verso, 1993:105.

98 Jean Baudrillard. Simulations. Translated by Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip
Beitchman. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983:31-32.

99 Ibid.:35.

100 Christopher Norris. “‘Lost in the Funhouse: Baudrillard and the Politics of
Postmodernism”. In Boyne, R. and Rattansi, A. (Eds.) Postmodernism and Society.
London: McMillan, 1990:141-142.

101 Ulysses Santamaria. “Jean Baudrillard: Critique of a Critique”. Translated by Jeremy

Macdonald in Critique of Anthropology (Volume 4, Numbers 13-14), 1979:193.

102 Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena.

Translated by James Benedict. London: Verso, 1993:39.

103 Albert Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. London:
Penguin, 2000:63.

104 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:88.

105 Douglas Kellner. Jean Baudrillard : From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond.
Stanford University Press, 1989:174, 179.
106 Jean Baudrillard. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Translated by Iain Hamilton Grant.
London: Sage Publications, 1993:235.

107 Ibid.:133.

108 Jean Baudrillard. Fatal Strategies. Translated by Philip Beitchman and W.G.J.
Niesluchowski and Edited by Jim Fleming. New York: Semiotext(e), 1990:104.

109 Ibid.:104, 170.

110 Jean Baudrillard. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Translated by Iain Hamilton Grant.
London: Sage Publications, 1993:233, 236.

111 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and

Caroline Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:79.

112 Gary Genosko. Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze. London: Routledge,
1994:11.

113 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and

Caroline Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:62.

114 Jean Baudrillard. In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities. Translated by Paul Foss,
John Johnston, and Paul Patton, Semiotext(e), New York, 1983:114.

115 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:133.

116 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:44-46.

117 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and

Caroline Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:69.

118 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:13-21, 43-47.

119 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the
Beginnings of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:45.

120 Meagan Morris. “Room 101 or a Few Worst Things in the World” in Frankovits, A.
(Ed.), Seduced and Abandoned: The Baudrillard Scene, Glebe: Stonemoss Services,
1984:96, 101.
121 Andrew Wernick. “Post-Marx: Theological Themes in Baudrillard's America. In
Philippa Berry and Andrew Wernick (Eds.), Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and
Religion. London: Routledge, 1992:68.

122 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and

Caroline Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:99-
100.

123 Jean Baudrillard. Seduction. Translated by Brian Singer. New York: St Martin's
Press, 1990:87; Mike Gane (Ed). Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews. London:
Routledge, 1993:184.

124 Jean Baudrillard. Seduction. Translated by Brian Singer. New York: St Martin's
Press, 1990:117.

125 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:70.

126 Ibid.:113-115.

127 Umberto Eco. ”Interpretation and history”. In Stefan Collini (Ed.), Interpretation and
Overinterpretation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992:35.

128 Jean Baudrillard. The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers.
Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2002:4, 34, 9-10.

129 Jean Baudrillard. In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities. Translated by Paul Foss,
John Johnston, and Paul Patton, Semiotext(e), New York, 1983:114-115.

130 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:89.

131 Jean Baudrillard. The Perfect Crime. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso,
1996:38.

132 Ibid.

133 Hans Jonas. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the
Beginnings of Christianity (2nd Ed). Boston: Beacon Press, 1963:270-274.

134 Jean Baudrillard. Seduction. Translated by Brian Singer. New York: St Martin's
Press, 1990:142-143.

135 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:71.
136 Umberto Eco. ”Interpretation and history”. In Stefan Collini (Ed.), Interpretation and
Overinterpretation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992:38.

137 Roland Barthes. “The Brain of Einstein”. In Mythologies. London: Paladin, 1973:76.

138 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and

Caroline Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:63-64.

139 Jean Baudrillard. “Forget Baudrillard” in Forget Foucault. Translated by Phil

Beitchman, Lee Hildreth, and Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1987:81.

140 Ibid.: 81-82.

141 Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard and

Caroline Schutze and edited by Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988:80-90.

142 Ibid.:90.

143 Ibid.:80.

144 J. L. Hulteng. The Messenger's Motives : Ethical Problems of the News Media.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1985:167-168.

145 Jean Baudrillard. Seduction. Translated by Brian Singer. New York: St Martin's
Press, 1990:1.

146 Jean Baudrillard. The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers.
Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2002:7, 29.

147 Jean Baudrillard. The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers.
Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2002:5-6.

148 Jean Baudrillard. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton, Paul Foss
and Philippe Tanguy. Sydney: Power Publications, 1987:19-25.

149 In memory of Nicholas Zurbrugg (1947 – 2001) and with thanks to Gary Genosko.

©Jonathan Smith (2004)

©International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (2004)

http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol1%5F2/smith.htm