Postpartem to The Goal of the Unwise: Cultic Apologism, Digital Cloaking, and the Rise of the Meta-Theocratic Machine
The completion
of The Goal of the Unwise was, in a very real sense, a blow struck in
darkness against a moving, faceless shadow - a speculative architecture of
cultic power operating within the digital folds of our age. That this
architecture exists, I believed; that it was coordinated, I suspected; that it
had ties to theocratic and technocratic interests, I was increasingly convinced.
But what Luigi Corvaglia’s Fascists, Spies, and Gurus[1]
trilogy has now done is not merely to confirm these suspicions: it has
diagrammed the machine.
Indeed,
Corvaglia’s meticulous research into what he terms the “cult apologist mafia”
serves as a post-facto footnote - no, a strategic appendage - to The Goal
of the Unwise.[2]
His findings fill in, with specificity and historical grounding, the very
mechanisms that my own analysis had inferred only through pattern recognition
and lived antagonism. What I described as the performative algorithmic
sanctification of messianic cultism - what I called the metaphysical laundering
of coercion into Light - Corvaglia shows as a political praxis,
institutionalized and ongoing.
Let
us begin with the basic structure of the cultic-apologist complex he outlines.
It comprises a transnational web of lawyers, pseudo-academics, and lobbyists,
many of whom have ties to Scientology, the Unification Church, and other
well-documented high-control sects. These actors operate under the banner of
interfaith tolerance and religious liberty. Their organizations -CESNUR, the
All Faiths Network, Bitter Winter, FOB, and others - function as
public-facing instruments of reputational sanitization for groups that, by all
empirical standards, operate through psychological manipulation, social
atomization, and spiritual authoritarianism. They are not neutral defenders of
conscience. They are strategic agents of narrative warfare.
And
here, the parallel with AROLP becomes unmistakable.
As
I posited in the original monograph, AROLP’s curious immunity from
deplatforming, despite clear patterns of cultic behavior, suggests algorithmic
preference or protection. Its rapid and frictionless propagation across
platforms - Reddit, Medium, Facebook, YouTube - combined with its uncanny
alignment with keywords palatable to progressive digital ecosystems (e.g., ‘peace’,
‘light’, ‘unity’, ‘awakening’) marks it as a machine-engineered spiritual
product: one designed to blend in, to evade critique, to seduce.
Corvaglia
shows that such strategies have precedent. The actors in his trilogy are not
marginal cranks; they are lobbyists within the EU Parliament. They are
speechmakers at UN forums. They are builders of legitimacy.
In
The Goal of the Unwise, I described AROLP as a metastable
cult - that is, a system engineered for digital durability, capable of
reproducing its core messages in hostile or indifferent information ecosystems.
What I did not yet possess was the structural proof that such durability might
be the result of deliberate backing. Corvaglia gives us that proof. He
reveals that not only do such cults receive apologetic support - they receive
geopolitical shielding. He reveals connections to far-right clericalist
movements, to covert intelligence figures, to post-Soviet and transatlantic
ideological currents all united in a curious alliance: protecting cultic
control under the aegis of ‘religious pluralism’.
Why?
Because these systems are useful. Useful for surveilling dissident
populations. Useful for exporting soft power. Useful for draining critical
energy away from truly emancipatory spiritual movements by flooding the field
with controlled messianisms.
AROLP
is one such controlled messianism. That its teachings are absurd is irrelevant;
absurdity is part of the method. What matters is that its structure mimics
authenticity, its language feigns revolution, and its members are obedient.
They are a test case for future digital theocracies, where compliance will
masquerade as enlightenment and AI-generated scripture will be sold as divine
truth.
The
Goal of the Unwise was written in the fog of war, amid smears and
threats, betrayals and digital disappearances. What Corvaglia offers now is the
cartographic outline of the enemy terrain. This is a war not merely for minds
but for semantic sovereignty - a battle over who gets to name reality,
who gets to define religion, who gets to weaponize transcendence.
We
must now understand AROLP not just as a cult, but as a pilot program.
We must understand its symbiosis with platform infrastructure as a form of
metaphysical psy-ops. And we must understand that the only adequate
response is not further reaction, but strategic counter-narrative: the building
of resilient truth architectures, capable of withstanding not only lies, but
the simulated light of the algorithmic demiurge.
Corvaglia
has confirmed the conspiracy. Let us now build its counter-scripture.
—Wahid Azal June 2025
[1]
To which I owe an immense debt of gratitude to journalist Be Scofield
for pointing me to this earth shaking trilogy on X/Twitter; see,
https://www.luigicorvaglia.com/en/post/fascists-spies-and-gurus-the-cult-apologists-network-part-i
https://www.luigicorvaglia.com/en/post/fascists-spies-and-gurus-the-cult-apologists-network
https://www.luigicorvaglia.com/en/post/the-cult-apologist-mafia-part-iii
(retrieved 9 June 2025).
[2]
https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/10134012
(retrieved 9 June 2025).
