Rainbow Serpent Cosmology: Gate 0
Rainbow Serpent Cosmology Gate 0: A Black Queer Theory of Number and Mythogenesis is a forthcoming book by Dr. Marques Redd. Conceived as the opening text of a multi-volume cosmological cycle, Gate 0 introduces an original Black queer mythological system organized around sixteen Rainbow Neteru (deities or cosmic forces): Geb, Maahus, Miau, Apuat, Khepera, Khonsu, Ra, Sobek, Ahi, Serq, Uatcha, Tehuti-Maa, Ptah, Hapi, Nu, and Amun. Drawing inspiration from Kemetic funerary literature – including the Amduat, the Book of Gates, and the Book of Caverns – the work transforms the underworld journey into a contemporary visionary literature concerned not only with death, but with artistic creation, spiritual transformation, and the continual remaking of the human.
Rather than presenting mythology as something inherited from the distant past, Gate 0 proposes mythogenesis: the conscious creation of new myths capable of orienting contemporary life. Through liturgical prose, visionary narratives, ritual texts, philosophical reflection, and speculative cosmology, the book develops a Black queer philosophy of number in which each deity embodies a distinct mode of becoming, perception, ethics, and artistic practice. Together, these sixteen Living Logics offer new approaches to creation, ecology, divination, ancestor veneration, ritual performance, gender and sexuality, artistic practice, political organization, and the cultivation of collective futures.
At the heart of the work is the Primordial Androgynous Blackness, an infinite field of undifferentiated creative potential from which all beings, worlds, and possibilities emerge. From this inexhaustible source unfolds a cosmology in which vibration precedes language, pattern precedes matter, and art itself becomes a sacred technology for transforming consciousness. Equal parts sacred text, visionary manifesto, and work of experimental literature, Gate 0 serves as the threshold through which readers begin their own passage into the Rainbow Serpent universe.