Challenging Necro-Technology

How Does Digital Magic Money Shape Our World?

Feb 16, 2025

Sometimes we do not need long articles and convincing arguments; instead, we need to think for ourselves beyond horizons that lead to the reoccurrence of the same. Unlike last week’s article Death Worlds and Market Deities, today is not a day to ply you with arguments but rather to provoke us to collectively think, question and reflect for ourselves. The emergence of Neoliberalism from Capitalism seems like the complete story, yet there is so much hidden and unquestioned within the narrative of the rise of what we today call the economy—a topic that is too little discussed. Much of this has become so unquestioned that what we expose today will cause you to question much of what is accepted as common sense. Bringing these questions to the forefront is precisely the point; if we cannot successfully explore them, we will remain unable to think economically.

Modern Money Is Magic

Magic is the power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.

Last week in Death Worlds and Market Deities, we showed how the market had been turned into a religion—with a supernatural Market Deity created by Neoliberal Doctrine—forming a doctrine of Modern Market Animism. To understand the role that money plays, we must grasp how modern European economies emerged as a collection of technologies developed around the esotericisation of money. Esotericisation is the process of making something esoteric, ensuring that it is understood only by a select few with specialised knowledge. This process obscures money from common understanding, distancing it from its original tangible value in everyday perception. This is why economists are sometimes derogatorily called “The Sect.”

The esotericisation of money is the historical process by which money is steadily decoupled from its former reality as a market commodity and progressively transformed into a valueless token used to signify wealth. I am saying that money has changed in three major steps over hundreds of years:

From actual commodity money with intrinsic value (e.g., gold and silver);
To promissory notes recording a representation of value stored somewhere that the owner could redeem;
To fiat money—a valueless token with a numeric value that cannot be redeemed but functions to fluidly indicate the values of commodities in the market:
- Paper Money is fiat money printed on paper that can be held privately without mediation.
- Digital Money is fiat money created in private bank computers, in private accounts and networks, and which must be held within the banking system’s private networks. This is the point from which money enters the realm of the occult.
- Central Bank Money is fiat money created by central banks, held on networks approved, distributed and controlled by them. In these accounts there is no privacy from the state or the central bank. In other words, this token remains owned and controlled by the central bank and the state and serves as an indication of value allocated to you.

(Now, the expert will be criticising the fact that I have actually omitted intermediate steps—and to you, the expert, I ask, “Why the hell aren’t you the one writing this?”)

red and blue light streaks — Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

This process has transformed money in both form and function. It has changed how money is used and its very nature. Money has been transformed into a mysterious technology of modern magic, esotericised to conceal market manipulation. I know that some people will see this as a bold claim indeed, but for now, I ask you to simply think about that which we consider too little. This esotericised money now wields an unparalleled influence over your life. Is it not of prime importance that we understand this? Do you think these are harmless technologies?

Is Banking a Conjurer’s Trick?

Before the advent of European banking technologies, money was a physical commodity—gold or silver—held in private ownership. However, over a few hundred years of innovation, money transformed into something entirely different: a symbolic token worth nothing except as an agreement to hold ourselves in debt. This is where the magic begins. You agree to hold yourself in debt because you are educated to be enthralled by pure magic. In return, money has become a technology for structurally endebting and controlling entire peoples, communities and nations through the use of valueless token money that requires our collective agreement to place ourselves in debt. In fact, the valueless token now called money begins its life with an agreement among banks to borrow nonexistent tokens into existence amongst themselves. Then you agree to borrow from the bank that esoteric money—which does not itself exist—and you agree to rent this legal economic fiction, at interest. It is this that I term magic.

The process happened so gradually that it seems to the observer that very little has changed, when in fact it has. But how the hell did this happen?

Today, central banks are institutions that, through fractional reserve banking, create money out of thin air. Yet that is not quite the truth of how they work, for central banks possess the magical power to lend other banks money that they do not possess and that does not exist. They lend—or rather, rent—this nonexistent token money to banks, with the permission that these banks must rent multiples of this central bank token money to people, businesses, communities and governments, thereby creating networks of debt under the pretence that it is money. This is how fractional reserve banking works.

Surrounding this fictitious charade with rigorous institutional and regulatory frameworks does not change the reality: we are all in debt to nothing but an agreement to maintain a magical fiction.

Tell me of all the benefits that accrue to such a system, and I ask: why must the ability to manufacture magic money lie in the hands of banks and not common people? We must also ask, “Are there not other ways of doing this that do not result in these vast networks of debt?” And what will happen as central bank currencies become the new normal?

The transformation of money—from a commodity of value owned by its holder into a worthless fantasy token manufactured for the immense benefit of banks, now granted the ability to create networks of debt—forces any argument that justifies this modern magic to first justify this fundamental act of deception and robbery. I invite you to consider: what economic, political and social advantages accrue to banks from this system? What economic, political and social disadvantages accrue to us? Bankers are conjurers! The money is magic!

This esotericisation of money has allowed the manipulation of debt as money to wield unbelievable power and reshape societies and people in ways unimaginable before money was transformed into modern digital magic. The fact that banking techniques evolved from the historical crime of usury—legalised to unleash ballooning credit—and that this act allowed the colonisation of money by creditors, ultimately transforming money into a magical technology of mass debt, forces us to ask: in whose interest does this all operate?

But What Is Usury?

Take no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live.
— Leviticus 25:36, King James Bible

Historically, under Christian Canon Law in Europe, usury was understood as the rental of money—a practice that was strictly forbidden. The rationale was that money belonged to a class of property whose use necessarily implied a transfer of ownership—much like consuming an apple or other perishable goods, where the original owner loses possession once the item is used. In this legal framework, money could not be rented because its use “consumes” it, whereas items such as cars or houses, which retain their identity despite being used, can be legitimately rented. Although the distinction may appear subtle, it is fundamental: the very nature of an apple as a consumable good precludes its rental, and by similar logic, money cannot be rented.

While European Canon Law set one standard, Islamic Law developed a rigorous approach to protecting market fairness by curbing usurious practices. The most significant portions of Islamic Shariah are dedicated to the rigorous regulation of commercial transactions and marketplaces to prevent usurious practices and to prohibit exploiting goods in ways that contradict their inherent nature. This legal framework seeks to prevent the accrual of unjust advantages by those manipulating transactions to insert structural injustices into the marketplace. As a result, Islamic Law remains a legal framework that fundamentally opposes modern banking practices.

Modern banking shifted the discussion from usury and injustice to efficiency and inequity, because embedding structural injustices into the legal framework manufactures inequity. In order to deflect from the structural injustice, it must design a framework that protects the embedded injustice from which it profits. As long as we focus upon inequity rather than justice, we will never interrogate the roots of our problem. Banking will have us believe that usury is trade.

Those who devour usury will not stand except as one driven to madness by the Devil’s touch. That is because they say, “Trade is only like usury.” But Allah has permitted trade and forbidden usury.
— Qur’an 2:278–279, Yusuf Ali’s translation

The perversion of the marketplace by usurious practices masquerading as trade progressively transforms the marketplace into what now allows:

Biotech companies to rent seeds—treating them contrary to their nature in order to embed structural injustices into the legal framework.
Sale of machinery as rental—Companies to sell machinery while renting out essential functions of the machinery as software—perverting the nature of ownership and weaponising your property against you.
Work as a Rentable Identity – The gig economy to redefine employment as a rented access to jobs, where workers own neither their labour nor their role, but must constantly pay to be allowed to work.
Social Interaction as Extractive Capital – Social media platforms to monetise human relationships, turning private interactions into extractable data and selling the very fabric of human connection as an asset
Surveillance as a Service – Tech firms to embed permanent surveillance into all digital transactions, disguising the erosion of privacy as a security feature.This allows for the perversion of your ownership rights and the weaponisation of your property against you by creating legal fictions.

Consequently, for banking to become and remain legal, it must always redefine usury and effectively remove its prohibition from legal frameworks. It must also manipulate the nature of commodities to embed unjust structural advantages into the legal system, from which those with access to esoteric knowledge may benefit. Yes, banking expands our economies and drives trade, but it does so by spreading debt, and in this sense it is not a biotechnology—a technology of life—but a necro-technology, a technology against life.

O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and give up all that remains due to you of usury, if you are believers. And if you do not, then be warned of a war from Allah and His Messenger; but if you repent, you shall have your principal, and you shall not be dealt with unjustly.
— Qur’an 2:278–279, Marmaduke Pikthall’s translation

brown and black sheep on brown and black stones — Photo by Chelms Varthoumlien on Unsplash

The Necro-Technological

The question is whether this necro-technology has anything to do with what we are seeing in Gaza, Congo and Sudan. Does it have anything to do with climate collapse? Does it have anything to do with inflation and the perpetual theft of the purchasing power of our token money? Does it have anything to do with the phenomenon of the 1%? Does it have anything to do with your debts? It is because of a usurious economy that we have an economic system in which debt can grow exponentially while resources remain finite. The fundamental problem is mathematical—you cannot square this circle.

Isn’t It Enough To Know Where We Don’t Want To Be?

We do not always have to ask questions to find solutions; sometimes we must ask questions to identify what the solutions cannot be. Why did magical technologies like this become the unquestioned infrastructure of our world? How and why did this happen, and by what means does it continue? Must we have a clear alternative before we can acknowledge the inherent injustices of such a system?

According to the IMF’s Global Debt Monitor, global debt amounted to USD 250 trillion for a population of 8.1 billion in 2023. This means that the rate of debt per person was roughly USD 30,860. I wonder how much of this is yours?

Consider this short article an invitation to think. And beware of common sense; interrogate how it becomes common. That journey of interrogation is always revealing.

And if you’ve been following global events this week, which is another kind of crazy, then please remember Orwell’s 1984 and doublethink. The paradoxical slogan of the party was,

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
— 1984, George Orwell

Overgrowing demands knowing, thinking and reimagining.

until debt tear us apart brick wall vandal — Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash

Dystopia Unmasked

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