TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, by Erik Davis
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TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, by Erik Davis
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How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis—a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword—Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.
TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, by Erik Davis- Amazon Sales Rank: #499082 in Books
- Brand: Davis, Erik/ Thacker, Eugene (FRW)
- Published on: 2015-03-17
- Released on: 2015-03-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.97" h x 1.00" w x 5.99" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 456 pages
Amazon.com Review The gap between the technological mentality and the mystical outlook may not be as great as it seems. Erik Davis looks at modern information technology--and much previous technology--to reveal how much of it has roots in spiritual attitudes. Furthermore, he explores how those who embrace each new technological advance often do so with designs and expectations stemming from religious sensibilities. In doing so, Davis both compares and contrasts the scientific attitude that we can know reality technologically and the Gnostic idea of developing ultimate understanding. Although organized into reasonable chapters, there's a strong stream-of-consciousness component to Davis's writing. His expositions may run, for example, from information theory to the nebulous nature of Gnosticism to the philosophical problem of evil-all in just a few pages. It's as if there are so many connections to make that Davis's prose has to run back and forth across time and space drawing the lines. But the result, rather than being chaotic, is a lively interplay of wide-ranging ideas. His style is equally lively and generally engaging--if sometimes straying into the hip. In the end, he succeeds in showing the spiritual side of what some may see as cold, technological thought. --Elizabeth Lewis
From Publishers Weekly In the new millennium, will we drop our messy bodies and upload our mindsAand soulsAinto tidy android containers? Why not, argues Davis, a Wired contributor whose hip, erudite first book argues for the survival of a kind of gnostic mysticism in the age of information technology, carried over from the specifically Christian movement of late antiquity. Davis marshals an impressive, even exhausting, amount of evidence from Eastern and Western literature, history, philosophy, scripture and popular culture to support his sometimes opaque position on the matter of technology's impact on human spirituality and vice versa. In wave after wave of hybrid vocabulary ("mythinformation," "netaphysician," "cyberdelia," etc.), he offers a dizzying implosion of simulated hypertext, leaping from an authentic Gnostic poem to a '60s rock concert to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook to the latest cultic catastrophe. This deluge of information and theory manages to be quite entertaining ("Already in Homer, Hermes is a multitasking character"), but, ultimately, readers may be unsure whether to applaud Davis's conclusion that the phallic vector of technological development has been supplanted by a womblike matrix. But it's not always the destination that matters, and readers who hang on will find that surfing Davis's datastream makes for an exhilarating ride. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal Davis, who has written for magazines as diverse as Wired, Rolling Stone, and Gnosis, here tackles the mythological and Gnostic implications of our continual push for new information technologies. He does bring together perspectives from a variety of disciplines, allowing some fascinating insights into the congruence between our quest for religious understanding and our technological progress. Unfortunately, Davis's reliance on unnecessary anachronisms (e.g., "the Gnostics imagined [the afterlife] as a kind of multileveled computer game") and his sometimes jarringly colloquial approach undermine the promise of the material. The book also suffers from a certain lack of critical examination and would have been stronger had Davis paid more attention to contextualizing and analyzing his material. Libraries looking for titles on the theological implications of technological progress would be better served by Jennifer Cobb's Cybergrace (LJ 3/15/98).ARachel Singer Gordon, Franklin Park P.L., ILCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful. Stunning Debut Unveils Hermetic Underside To Cyberculture By Alex Burns (alex.burns@disinfo.net) Erik Davis' fine writing has graced the pages of The Nation, Village Voice, Lingua Franca, and 21.C for many years. 'Techgnosis' grew out of an essay that he wrote for the seminal cyber-crit anthology 'Flame Wars', edited by Mark Dery.Unlike other authors, Davis has an incredibly open mind and lets the disenfranchised speak for themselves. There are some stunning sections on Scientology, the Gurdjieff Work, John Dee, the Extropians, and the interface between early 1980s role-playing games like Gary Gygax's 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' and contemporary VR technology. Davis examines many of the integral examples of spirituality featured across many cyber-crit books, but his elegant writing and common sense inject a powerful dynamic into this work not often found elsewhere. He doesn't have the same hysterical tone often found in anti-cult literature for example, but is also balanced and can be subtly critical (confused yet?).There are some strange omissions, notably an excellent piece Davis wrote for 21.C on the Mormons that appears to have been dropped by the publishers at last minute. Despite this, 'Techgnosis' is a strong debut that clearly conveys how the spiritual has transmutated into the technological at the end of the millennium. Fully referenced, Davis' book is a clear indication of the maturation of a defining authorial voice.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful. A magical investiagion of 3000 years of being and technology By mpesce@netcom.com Davis sets his sights high - to explain the philosophical and mystical history of the West against the development of our technologies. While the argument is often made that technologies are value-neutral, Davies proves - conclusively - that our technological fancies rise from our intrinsic spiritual natures (explicit or implicit), even as every new scientific discovery equally spawns a new era of spiritual "research". From the Emerald Tablets of Hermes Trismegistos to the noospheric prognostications of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - who may have predicted the Internet a half century before it became a physical reality - Davies shows that being and doing, in the guise of spirituality and techology, are the twinned halves of the cultural DNA within which we operate.Delightfully, this book is not just a dry retelling of history; Davis has a point of view, which is neither fancifully utopian or pessimistically Orwellian, but instead focuses on the reality of t! he isomorphism between what we believe about the world around us and what we believe about the life within us.This book isn't just a good read, it's a necessary read, a clever antidote to all of the business-as-usual explanations of the age of information, and contextualizes our era against the last 3,000 years of history of the West. Anyone interested in the history of science, the history of religion, and the history and ethics of technology should read this book.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Looking to the future with roots in the past By Vargr I was not expecting a classical Gnostic text when I picked this book up, perhaps that's why I'm not as dissapointed as others who have read it. I was looking for a work in the Gnostic tradition (not Tradition). Davis makes some compelling connections between the old and new seekers after Truth. References cited in this book were also good, and steered me toward other interesting works.
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