What of Ziz? Liberalism and Demonology

Abstract

The introduction frames Personal Demons through the contemporary figure of “Ziz,” a trans rationalist cult leader whose fusion of artificial-intelligence paranoia, syncretic theology, and political violence crystallizes broader transformations in liberal personhood. Drawing on Michael Rogin’s account of political demonology, the book argues that the collapse of neoliberal institutional authority has produced a proliferation of nonsecular cosmologies—conspiracy, psychosis, spiritualism, and moral exceptionalism—that substitute for discredited secular accounts of agency and interiority. The introduction situates transsexuality at the center of this crisis, not as pathology or emblem, but as a site where liberal theories of sexuality, autonomy, and consent break down most visibly. By reading possession narratives—literal and metaphorical—as diagnostic cultural forms, the chapter establishes demonology as a method for understanding contemporary conflicts over reality, embodiment, and political belonging in the aftermath of liberalism’s decline.