Jason Jorjani

In September 2017, Jorjani was suspended from his teaching position at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in response to a covert video recorded by Patrik Hermansson, a Swedish antifascist activist,[14] who presented himself to Jorjani under the false identity "Erik Hellberg".[15] in which Jorjani predicted a future where concentration camps would return to Europe[16] and Adolf Hitler would appear on European currency by 2050:[14][17] Hermansson met with Jorjani at an Irish bar in midtown Manhattan in June, where the two talked about a future in which Europe embraces fascism. "It's going to end with the expulsion of the majority of migrants including citizens, who are of Muslim descent, generally" Jorjani said. "That's how it's going to end. It's going to end with concentration camps and expulsion and war. At the cost of a few hundred million people."[14]

Jorjani claimed that his remarks were spliced into pieces from a two-hour conversation and rearranged out of context, and that the prediction was a warning of a dystopian future, not an endorsement.[16][18][19]

In February 2017, NJIT officials told Jorjani they would not renew his annual teaching contract. In July 2018, Jorjani filed for a $25M lawsuit against NJIT, alleging that campus officials violated Jornani's constitutional right to freedom of speech and association and that campus leaders and colleagues subsequently defamed Jorjani in campus-wide emails and in the student newspaper. Denise Anderson, a spokeswoman for the school, denied the allegations and said, "Dr. Jorjani's claims of wrongdoing by the university or its representatives are untrue, and we intend to vigorously defend against any such claims."[20]

In March 2019, U.S. District Judge William Martini ruled that Jorjani does not have a case for defamation, stating: "The general allegation is implausible because the facts alleged do not support an inference that defendants knew the recording was edited to misconstrue plaintiff's actual views."[21]

In January 2017,[13] Jorjani co-founded[7] AltRight Corporation and AltRight.com with Richard Spencer before resigning less than a year later in August 2017, for the stated reasons that he wanted to commit to the Iranian Renaissance,[23] a 501(c)(3) cultural organization.[19][24] Jorjani ultimately took a negative view of the AltRight Corporation, referring to it as a "miscarriage" and "total failure".[17]

Among the things that Jorjani would tell Benjamin Teitelbaum, one thing that he placed a lot of emphasis on was his contact with a man in London (who Jorjani refused to name), who was involved variously in Neo-Nazism, Satanism, and Occultism, had a network connected to wealthy Iranians and possibly members of the British government, who was emailing Jorjani over the particular interest he had in his book Prometheus and Atlas. Shortly, thereafter this same man began giving Jorjani advice in the direction of ultimately overthrowing the Iranian government alongside those in Turkey, Venezuela, and China by using the services of a private intelligence firm by the name of Jellyfish, founded by veterans of the private security firm Blackwater. Among the other goals of Jellyfish discusses with Jorjani included the plan of creating what they called "micro-cities" which would function as very large and sophisticated refugee camps that would have been built in North Africa to deal with the refugee crisis.[25]

Within this set up the person of contact for Jorjani specifically was a man by the name of Michael Bagley, who was a former aide for the Democratic senator Patty Murray, and based on the advice of the unnamed Londoner Jorjani and Richard Spnecer would go out to meet with Bagley for the first time in September 2016. During their meeting Bagley claimed to Jorjani that Jellyfish maintained a secret radio station in Croatia which was within range of Iran and could be used to broadcast anti-government messages. Furthermore, in order for the plan to work, Donald Trump had to win the election in order for the anti-Iranian activities to get financial sponsorship, after which Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner were integral to this. Particularly, in the case of Bannon, since he was known to be a reader of Arktos Media, a publication which the unnamed man in london advised Jorjani beome it´s Editor-in-Chief, and since Jorjani was supposed to be a man of direct contact with, alongside Jellyfish. At some point Jorjani would meet the unnamed man in london, when he himself was there for a visit with exiled Iranian nationalist groups, sometime shortly after the election of Trump in 2016.[26] On the 2nd of January 2017, Jorjani received an email from Bagley saying that the US Government funding would be received by the 1st of February, after Trump´s inauguration.[27] On the 8th of March, 2017, Jorjani would write an email to Bagley in which he stated he wanted to get rid of Richard Spencer as the leader of the AltRight Corporation.[28] At some point Bagley stopped answering Jorjani´s emails, but he received a document from the unnamed londoner describing how Jellyfish intended to infiltrate the Venezuelan oil.[29] In between January 2nd and March 8th, as part of the plan Jellyfish claimed to Jorjani that they made contacts with the right people within the Trump Administration, which is reflected in an article put out by the pro-Putin Israeli commentator Avigdor Eskin, who claimed in article published by RIA Novosti on the 2nd of February that Jellyfish had made contact with Michael Flynn.[30] Ultimately, nothing is understood to have been achieved in Jorjani´s relationship with Jellyfish, since Michael Bagley was arrested by the FBI and Steve Bannon reportedly had never heard of him. [31]

Furthermore, according to Teitelbaum the unnamed Londoner who he speaks of is connected to the Sufi traditionalist Martin Lings and he has many ties to wealthy middle easterners including the former Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and the Iranian nationalist Darius Guppy, who is known for illegaly raising money and is himself a friend of Boris Johnson.[32]

On October 9th, 2023 in the context of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war Jorjani sent out a tweet stating that he had made contact with Avigdor Lieberman back in 2018 persuading him against intervening Iran and supporting groups such as the MEK because it would be "counter-productive in terms of clearly defining the pro-Israeli, and even pro-Zionist character of our movement".[33]

In "The Prometheist Manifesto", Jorjani criticised the modern concept of God as a "jealous and tyrannically wrathful God-Father, archetypally identical to Zeus".[35] Instead, Jorjani supported the idea of the myth of Prometheus as the creator of Man and likened the fire that he stole from Olympus as a symbol of the power of technology and science to free humanity from scarcity and ignorance.

In the section of the manifesto entitled "Techno-Scientific Apocalypse", Jorjani supports Martin Heidegger's views on technological science and argues that Heidegger's views on the topic are Futuristic, similar to that of the ideas of the 20th Century Italian Futurists. Firstly, Jorjani talks of Heidegger's view that technology is not a practical application of what is known, but rather ontologically prior to science. As a result, he concludes that the universe does not predate human technology as all knowledge about the universe can only be attained through the use of technology. Secondly comes the view that humans have a unique relationship with technological science, which he refers to as Technoscience. This relationship makes both the existence of technology dependent on humanity, and vice versa. Thirdly, is the idea that "Technoscience" has the power to overcome nature. This is not restricted to just ‘human nature’ but also our perception of nature. Jorjani argues that Heidegger anticipated both biotechnology and virtual reality. Next, he claims that Heidegger's interpretation of "technoscience" means that Technoscience not only has a function, thereby making it teleological, but also moves towards a singularity and a destined end of history. After this point, human existence, Jorjani believes, will be completely transformed. Finally, Jorjani comments on this singularity and connects it to Heidegger's idea that only a god can save humanity from the danger of human instrumentality. Jorjani believes that this god is Prometheus. The same deity that drove technological progress.[36]

From here, Jorjani begins to talk on the end of humanity, arguing that Genetics, Robotics, Information, and Nanotechnology (or GRIN) threatens the very existence of human nature. Genetic engineering for example could significantly extend the human lifespan, eliminate disease and potentially even be able to increase mathematical and spatial reasoning. He also believes that advancements in Robotics will eventually cause robots to outperform humans in all fields of work outside of the arts, thereby meaning that humans will no longer need to work. On nanotechnology, Jorjani argues that it could easily have a significant impact on economics and industry as it would open up new ways to increase production of practically any commodity. Alongside this, he states that assuming other cures to cancer have not been found, nanotechnology could be used to destroy tumours that would otherwise have been inoperable. He thus sees the advancement of GRIN as a necessary step in transforming the human race into a society of "supermen". However, Jorjani is also critical of other aspects of GRIN, believing that it would result in the end of sexual dimorphism.[37]

Despite his criticisms of the Technological Singularity, Jorjani also regards it as a possible revolutionary force as well as an evolutionary one. Jorjani argued that various groups such as military-industrialists, corporatists, and "masterminds of intelligence operations and psychological warfare" may have thought of the changes that will come to the world with the technological singularity and as a result may decide to abandon Earth and then ending the civilisations of Earth in order to prevent the occurrence of the singularity. In doing so, Jorjani believes that they will create a depopulated neo-feudal world to rule over after the prevention of the singularity.

Jorjani claimed that these people consider themselves the only ones who can endure such singularity-level technological breakthroughs and thus wish to prevent others from accessing them. Eventually, these groups will be able to form self-sufficient civilization while everyone left on Earth ends up regressing to feudalism and pre-industrial culture. Jorjani believes that such a process must be completely opposed and that in doing so, humanity has to face the end of humanity, history and reality. The subsequently created society would be one of people with a Prometheist outlook and ethos, alongside the ability and will to make a Posthuman community, as opposed to a self-appointed elite.

At the same time, Jorjani also believed that the achievement of such a singularity would bring the very strong possibility of a Totalitarian political system. He argued that technologies like genetic engineering, nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence would pose a threat to humanity as it would require a very large amount of control over the population to ensure security, privacy and liberty. Jorjani also criticises the ideas of Ayn Rand by saying that the ideas posited by Rand in Atlas Shrugged is fundamentally opposed to Prometheism. Such a Promethean society, Jorjani believes, will result in the deconstruction of psychological and societal norms. As a result, the Promethean will to affirm the Singularity means to call for the overthrow of all established political and economic systems. In Jorjani's view, the most collectivist societies and the most individualist ones value the protection of humans from bodily harm and a right to privacy. However, he also argues that this will likely come to an end with the development of Nano-technology and Artificial Intelligence. For example, Nanobots could be hacked or used by commonplace AIs. Such nanobots could provide surveillance of everything and everyone. Jorjani believes that it would even be possible for them to be turned into instruments of remote assassination. To Jorjani, the only way to deal with such a threat without establishing a totalitarian regime (which Jorjani criticses as something directly opposed to the idea of Prometheanism as well as being incapable of handling a society with such technology) would be to create what he calls a "maximal trust society" in which the population consists solely of those who always wish the best for each other.[38] Such a society would have to strive to be world encompassing, as an "outside" to it could not be allowed to exist in the eyes of the Promethean.

Jorjani believes that not everyone will be able to endure the future and only a few people will be able to become Prometheans in such a society. Such a person would have to be someone who lives with integrity and authenticity, someone with a worldview that is oriented towards an affirmation of the liberty of other people alongside their own personal enrichment, from the subconscious level upwards – is oriented toward a kind of personal enrichment that profoundly affirms the liberty of others and their pursuit of their potential and someone who could present new ideas, creative visions into a world where labour is handled by robotics. He believes that the belief systems of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism are incompatible with the Promethean society. Various political ideologies are seen in the same way, such as liberal Democracy, Capitalism, Nazism, Social Democracy, Communism and Confucianism. Jorjani qualifies this statement by saying that he does not wish to eliminate “undesirables” of any kind. Instead he argues that in the event that a "controlled collapse" is engineered by those in the "breakaway civilization", through the use of civil disobedience, Prometheists will attempt to turn a controlled collapse into an uncontrolled one, as an extinction of humanity is seen by Jorjani to be preferable to the success of a breakaway civilization.

According to Benjamin Teitelbaum, Jorjani presented him a copy of Prometheus and Atlas to give to Steve Bannon as a gift.[39]

Jorjani states that he is not a white nationalist or racist (specifically stating that white nationalism is a "bankrupt ideology and extremely destructive")[17] and identifies himself as a progressive and a feminist.[19] After resigning from AltRight, he stated that the organization was "reduced, basically, to a platform for organizing alt-right rallies attended by some very questionable individuals who I want not very much to do with" and "If I had known that this is where things would wind up, I would never had gotten involved in the first place."[17]

However, speaking at a conference organized by Richard Spencer in Washington, Jorjani referred to the collapse of the Sasanian Persian Empire as the "first and greatest white genocide."[7]

He has predicted that Muslim citizens and immigrants will be deported from Europe by 2050,[40] and stated that such deportations would "follow from continued, ill-advised policies regarding mass migration in Europe."[19]

According to Harrison Fluss and Landon Frim writing in Jacobin, Jorjani has attracted negative attention due to his promotion of various fringe theories popular among white nationalists and conspiracy theorists:

Jorjani's writings, political activities, speeches, and media appearances have drawn charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia. In one instance, he suggested that Yahweh and Allah were actually space aliens who enslaved their believers and tricked them into committing genocide. He has openly characterized certain high-ranking Nazi officials as akin to supermen with psychic powers. While Jorjani has vehemently denied the charges of bigotry leveled against him, his public statements do make you wonder.[41]

Jorjani has identified himself as a Zionist, stating that he has "always believed that there is absolutely no conflict between the legitimate national interests of Iran and Israel. In fact, in the case of each, no other nation on Earth has more of a mutual interest than the other."[42]

Jorjani has written in support of eugenics and has claimed that Iran cannot culturally, technologically, and scientifically advance unless it restores its "pre-Arab and pre-Mongol genetic character":[9]

The Arab-Muslim invasion was bad, but once this was compounded by the genocidal Turkic and Mongol conquests of Iran, a demographic shift took place that deprived Iran of the genetic basis for the production of a Hegel, Nietzsche, or Heidegger. Such men are less than one in a million, even in a genetically pure Aryan population. But their thinking goes on to impact millions in the broader intellectual culture of their nation. Now, I'm not saying that for this reason Iran will never produce thinkers on this level again. With the emerging technologies of embryo selection and genetic engineering, it would be possible, with the right leadership and government planning, to restore the pre-Arab and pre-Mongol genetic character of the majority of the Iranian population within only one or two generations. I'm sorry to have to suggest that this might be necessary in order to Make Iran Great Again.[43]

In the Prometheist Manifesto, Jorjani argues that COVID-19 engineered at the Wuhan Virology Laboratory in China.[44]