Latticework: The Spells of Separation

Latticework: The Spells of Separation

Reverse-engineering the architecture of false binding and isolation.

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Preface: Why We Write This

This is not a theory. This is a forensic spellbook.

There are systems in the world that fracture love, subdue desire, isolate the body, and call it salvation. These systems are old. They stretch from Rome to capital to screen. But they do not work by overt conquest. They work by enchantment: by binding the body in patterned gestures so deep we forget they were ever imposed.

This document names those spells.

Each one can be traced from theological or imperial origin down into somatic effect. From gospel to posture. From policy to pain. They are not metaphors. They are techniques of domination incarnated as culture.

And every one of them can be reversed.

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I. The Spell of Containment

Origin: Roman civic order, later echoed in nation-state and corporate enclosure.

Function: Encloses life in property, schedules, screens, and surveilled zones.

Effect on the Body:

• Vision narrowed to rectangles.

• Shoulders hunched from desk posture.

• Breath shallow from indoor air and tension.

Reverse-Engineered Rituals:

• Peripheral vision restoration (open sky, group movement).

• Touch without transaction.

• Shared rhythm: dancing, walking, breathing together.

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II. The Spell of Substitution

Origin: Theology of sacrifice; economic abstraction.

Function: Replaces lived communion with symbolic equivalence. Substitutes wage for life, like for intimacy, ritual for presence.

Effect on the Body:

• Addictive feedback loops.

• Sudden numbness after reward.

• Discomfort with unscheduled affection.

Counterspell:

• Unmeasured giving: food, time, attention.

• Decommodified ritual.

• Non-performative art, made and given without audience.

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III. The Spell of Disembodiment

Origin: Gnostic dualism, Cartesian mind-body split, academic abstraction.

Function: Elevates thought over flesh; portrays spirit as non-material.

Effect on the Body:

• Sexual dissociation.

• Loss of hunger and satiety signals.

• Sleep dysfunction.

Counterspell:

• Sweat with others.

• Cook and eat together.

• Recover sensation as sacred.

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IV. The Spell of Fearful Purity

Origin: Fascism. Sectarianism. Theodicies of expulsion.

Function: Asserts safety through sameness. Purges the other to restore order.

Effect on the Body:

• Chronic gut tension.

• Hypervigilance.

• Over-identification with a mask.

Undoing:

• Mixed company, real talk.

• Celebrated contradiction.

• Vulnerable laughter.

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V. The Spell of Infinite Productivity

Origin: Benedictine monastic discipline; Industrial capitalism.

Function: Renders time as task. Measures all life by output.

Effect on the Body:

• Fibromyalgia.

• Collapsed core strength.

• Migraines.

Counterspell:

• Idleness.

• Nap as protest.

• Beauty that serves no goal.

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VI. The Spell of Private Shame

Origin: Confession as control. Sin as isolation. Therapeutic individualism.

Function: Internalizes systemic harm as personal failure.

Effect on the Body:

• Tight throat.

• Avoidance of eye contact.

• Inner monologue of self-erasure.

Breaking It:

• Communal naming of harm.

• Storytelling without conclusion.

• Witness without fixing.

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VII. The Spell of Forgetting

Origin: Empire’s memory hole. Every modern curriculum.

Function: Prevents lineage. Makes grief illegible. Destroys the record of revolt.

Effect on the Body:

• Shaky sense of place.

• Inability to name one’s people.

• Low ancestral confidence.

Restoration:

• Speak the names of the dead.

• Read aloud from forbidden books.

• Make new myth with old bones.

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Final Note: This Is Not a List

These spells do not operate one at a time. They form a latticework — a cross-reinforcing system of separation that prevents not only solidarity, but the recognition that solidarity was ever the norm.

To break these spells is not to rebel. It is to remember. To let the body remember what it once knew: how to sing, how to gather, how to need and be needed without shame.

We offer this map to any who walk the same road.
You are not alone in the lattice.
There are others here.
And there is a way out.

Let the archive continue.