Available for the first time anywhere, Emericus Durden's three essays on skeptical nihilism are collected in one volume.One’s experience of the entire transformation process from beginning to end – taking up the method of skeptical nihilism, seeing the practice through to its completion, afterwards stabilizing oneself in the new perspective beyond every possible form of human society and civilization – yes, one’s ultimate experience is that of triumph, triumph over oneself, triumph over civilization’s charming beliefs and efficient systems, triumph over democracy, capitalism, technology, empirical science, and religion.For all that, the sense of triumph results from winning a painful, protracted war most certainly, a war waged against oneself, not against other people. Indeed, it’s about becoming victorious against oneself, if we can allow ourselves to imagine such a thing. And if we cannot yet imagine it, well, I don’t feel sorry for any of us because we are all in the same boat at first. That is to say, we are all born equal: equally stupid, equally ignorant of the higher realities, equally possessed by the obsessions of civilization – and therefore equally at odds with our true selves.