Seven Prophecies of the Future -- Part 7. Idol [Reza Negarestani; Jason Mohaghegh]

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Self-transcribed from the recording's audio/video with Whisper ASR, then drawn from the frozen curation of the CCRU oral archive. The identifiers below fingerprint the exact source transcript files.

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Adjudicated APPROVED 2026-07-11 (basis: owner ruling 2026-07-11: institutional recordings released except fee-charging course content; lane recent-institutional -> recent-institutional-released). Series: standalone. Source: audio original (.mp3).

Timestamped map

These jump targets come from timestamps preserved in the source transcript, so they work as navigational anchors rather than editorially invented section labels. Timings are approximate — they mark where a passage begins, not exact word timing.

• 00:00:00

  Welcome to the final episode of the Future Studies Program Series, Seven Prophets of the Future. Before we welcome Jason Babak-Muhagik and Reza Negaristani, our guests of this episode, I'd like to make a few remarks as we approach the end of our Seven Prophets of the Future series. Huge thanks to the Future Studies…

• 00:17:04

  Regardless, we need to, what I want to focus today is about the nature of monotheism at its core. I mentioned about this kind of philosophical, proto-philosophical concerns that has gone to the corner. To the core of monotheism, and particularly Abrahamic monotheism. And I want to narrow down my focus to Abrahamic…

• 00:35:22

  But it does not... but it is still abided by certain kinds of traditions and imageries that seem to be idolatrous from the side of Salafism, namely ISIS, right? So, whereas Wahhabism tries in Saudi Arabia to level, you know, basically the grave of Prophet Muhammad's daughter or other sorts of shrines by natural…

• 00:48:59

  So also its author, who I said the reclusive poet Mahmoud Al-Buraykh Khan was himself someone who rarely ever published his own poetic works. He preferred a life of obscurity. And so the few remaining pieces from this Iraqi literary genius come to us as smuggled documents that friends of his stole from his house…

• 01:01:03

  From the ambit of monotheistic cult. From the ambit of civilization, looking back. Back on what might have happened. Yes. Things might have happened differently. And I hope that they have had taken a different turn. But I would say that that sort of economy that is in usually sort of tribal or semi-political…

• 01:14:15

  Moreover, the capsule gives rise to the sensation of a third spatial category here, that of those sensory deprivation tanks where subjects were made to rest horizontally in small pools of water and experience the total void of lightproof and soundproof environments. But these isolation pods or flotation centers were…

• 01:29:00

  generally see it as a world of fiction. I wouldn't fret about its theoretical implications, so to speak. I want to say that, look, I absolutely do not want people to misjudge or misunderstand this as an insightful philosophical work, because it is not. Nevertheless, every work of literature needs to have some of these…

• 01:44:27

  And thank you so much Reza and Jason. Love you, love you. Thank you both of you. I'm glad that I was invited here.