Why a Religion?

Hîsyêô is more than a system of words; it is a proposal for a culture.

To build a culture that can survive the collapse of the nation-state and foster true anarchistic liberty, we cannot rely solely on political theory or economic models. We need a shared metaphysics—a religion.

This is not a call for dogma or supernatural submission. It is a synthesis of historical, psychological, and sociological insights that suggest humanity needs a "binding force" to coordinate effectively without hierarchy.

We were inspired by five key thinkers who saw religion not as a relic of the past, but as a necessary vehicle for the future.

1. The Life-Affirming Mythos (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

Nietzsche's famous proclamation was not a celebration, but a warning. The collapse of old theistic structures left a void that the "Nation-State" and "Capital" rushed to fill. To escape the nihilism of the modern age, we cannot merely destroy old values; we must create new ones.

Nietzsche admired the pre-Socratic Greeks not for their "truth," but for their Tragic Age—a time when religion was a celebration of life, beauty, and strength, rather than a denial of the world. Hîsyêô culture embraces this "Greek Revival." Our gods are archetypes of human capability (Creativity, Justice, Love, Industry) instead of distant judges. They are a mythos we choose, designed to affirm life rather than escape it.

2. The Open Conspiracy (H. G. Wells)

If Nietzsche provides the spirit, H. G. Wells provides the method. In The Open Conspiracy, Wells argued for a "world religion" grounded in science and common sense—a functional network of people working to bypass the nation-state.

"The political world of the Open Conspiracy must weaken, efface, incorporate and supersede existing governments."

Hîsyêô is an attempt at this Open Conspiracy. It is a "religion" in the sense that it demands a shared loyalty to the species and the planet, overriding loyalty to flags or borders. It is a spiritual framework for a functional world commonwealth, where the "priests" are simply those who facilitate communication and understanding.

3. The Pragmatic Necessity (William James)

Why call it religion? Why not just "ethics"? Because, as William James argued in The Varieties of Religious Experience, the religious impulse is a fundamental psychological reality.

James taught us Pragmatism: truth is what works. A purely rationalist approach often fails to motivate the human heart. Religious experience—the feeling of being part of something larger—unlocks reserves of energy and altruism that cold logic cannot touch. By ritualizing our values (through the Great Weave and the Liberator Gods), we make them durable. We utilize the "will to believe" to create a reality that promotes human flourishing.

4. Breaking the Continuum (Walter Benjamin)

The nation-state relies on the idea of "Progress"—a linear march of history that justifies the casualties of the past for the sake of the future. Walter Benjamin, in his Theses on the Philosophy of History, rejected this. He conceptualized Messianic Time—not as a future date, but as a revolutionary "now-time" (Jetztzeit) that blasts open the continuum of history.

"There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism."

Anarchism requires this "blasting open." We need a religion that refuses to forget the victims of the state (the "pile of debris" growing skyward). The Great Weave serves this purpose: it is a repository of memory where every soul is preserved, refusing to let the past be swallowed by the narrative of the victors. It is a spiritual stance that declares: We start over, now.

5. Attention as the Supreme Right (Simone Weil)

Finally, to anchor anarchism in "pure human rights," we turn to Simone Weil. She argued that rights are meaningless without obligations, and that the supreme obligation is "Attention"—the ability to look at a suffering other and ask, "What are you going through?"

Weil believed that true religion is the faculty of attention directed toward the Good. For Hîsyêô, this translates into a culture where the "sacred" is found in the autonomy and dignity of the neighbor.

"The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle."

Our "religion" guides us out of the nation-state by shifting the focus from power over others (the State) to attention toward others (the Spirit). It replaces the coercion of the law with the obligation of the soul.

Conclusion

We do not need a religion of blind faith. We need a religion of radical intent.

• Like Nietzsche, we create our own gods to affirm our values.
• Like Wells, we organize openly to supersede the state.
• Like James, we harness the psychological power of belief.
• Like Benjamin, we break the chain of historical oppression.
• Like Weil, we ground our freedom in the sacred duty of attention.

This is why Hîsyêô has a religion. It is the software for a new world hardware.