William S. Burroughs, Cut-Ups, and Hyperstition
Introduction
William S. Burroughs, one of the most radical experimental writers of the 20th century, transformed literature by treating language itself as a battlefield.
What began in 1959 as an accidental discovery in Paris — the cut-up method, pioneered alongside Brion Gysin — became, for Burroughs, a weapon in a far deeper struggle: a war over language, time, and control.
Later, the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) would interpret Burroughs’ work within its own framework of hyperstition — “fictions that make themselves real.”
Through this lens, Burroughs’ experiments can be seen as part of the ongoing Lemurian Time War, a conflict between dominant reality-programs and insurgent forces resisting control.
[hr]
The Cut-Up Method: Collage as Weapon
Burroughs described his cut-up method simply:
Originally inspired by collage techniques in visual art, Burroughs’ cut-ups were not mere aesthetic tricks."Pages of text are cut and rearranged to form new combinations of word and image…
The best writing seems to be done almost by accident, but writers until the cut-up method was made explicit had no way to produce the accident of spontaneity."
They were tactical interventions: ways of breaking the linear flow of language, forcing it to produce new, unexpected meanings.
Later, Burroughs extended this into the fold-in method, where one page is folded into another so that two texts can be read simultaneously.
This created intentional disruptions in narrative continuity — "flashes forward" and "flashes back" in time — transforming writing into a form of temporal technology.
[hr]
Language as a Virus
Burroughs is famous for saying:
For him, human consciousness was programmed by linguistic structures — "word and image locks" — which determine how we perceive, think, and act."Language is a virus from outer space."
Language, like a virus, hijacks the host: it replicates itself through us, shaping reality while concealing its artificiality.
Cut-ups were designed to disrupt this programming, exposing the hidden control codes embedded within everyday speech.
By scrambling language, Burroughs sought to free the mind from pre-scripted thought patterns.
[hr]
Hyperstition and the Lemurian Time War
The CCRU extended Burroughs’ insights into a wider cosmology of control and resistance.
Their text Lemurian Time War interprets Burroughs’ writings as acts of hyperstition: fictions that don’t just describe reality but create it.
Within this framework, Burroughs’ cut-up method becomes a weapon in an occult conflict against the One God Universe (OGU),"Writing operates not as a passive representation but as an active agent of transformation —
a gateway through which entities can emerge.
By writing a universe, the writer makes such a universe possible."
a dominant "reality program" that binds humanity into a pre-recorded timeline.
His work aimed to break these “word lines” — the scripts that lock us into a single future — and open pathways to alternative realities.
[hr]
Control, Time, and Escape
Central to Burroughs’ worldview was the link between control and time.
The OGU maintains dominance by binding consciousness into linear temporality, scripting reality in advance.
As Burroughs put it:
To escape control, one must escape time itself."Control needs time.
Control needs human time.
Control needs your shit, piss, pain, orgasm, death."
Burroughs saw cut-ups, fold-ins, and nonlinear writing as tools to unbind time, opening cracks in the pre-recorded universe — portals to what he called Space, zones of unbound potential.
[hr]
Conclusion
Burroughs’ experiments began as literary techniques but evolved into something far greater:
a theory of language, consciousness, and reality itself.
Through the CCRU’s lens, his cut-ups become more than avant-garde art — they are technologies for altering reality, weapons in the Lemurian Time War against control.
For Burroughs, writing was never neutral:
In an age where narratives define reality, Burroughs’ methods remain urgent."Cut the word lines…
Make out lines to Space."
His work invites us to question: Whose story are we living in — and how do we cut ourselves free?
