Magic


              Religion and technoscience, two complex expressions of culture, reveal themselves to be closely aligned in overlapping mutually interdependent and reflexive ways. Both can be said to deal with discerning the scope of the possible and through their various means, challenge that which is considered impossible. They both are storehouses of symbol and icon, divide and unite cultures, determine the goals, questions, and methodologies of human experience, and are creators and creations of myth. As science historian Michel Serres has stated, “The only pure myth is the idea of a science devoid of all myth.”[1] The human constructions of religion and technoscience are not coterminus but investigating both and in dialogue with each other, avenues for understanding, ethics, and human possibility are opened. As humanity is spoken of as homo faber, we are faced with considering all human experience and culture as being technological and all human outgrowths, whether piously intended and transcendently experienced are ineluctably technological. If Marshall McLuhan is correct in warning “we are all robots when uncritically involved with our technologies”[2] one is led to consider what the analogous warning may be for those who engage religion uncritically. One inroad to an examination of the technoscientific and religious imaginations is phenomena of techno-mysticism, esoteric systems of control, and the history of Hermeticism. These phenomena are the subject of Erik Davis’ Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information.

            The founding figure of Hermeticism was Hermes Trismegistus, a religious figure conjured by the religious imaginations in ancient Hellenistic Egypt. Though fictive in nature, the pseudonymous writings assigned his name had very real impact in their Medieval and Renaissance ‘rediscovery’. By combining the Egyptian god of writing and crafts Thoth and the Greek god Hermes lord of techne (art and craft) and being the mercurial medium of communication; Trismegistus’ mythic figure captures much of the spirit of development that has led to the contemporary Western information age. Trimegistus represents not only to the mechanical achievements and technological esprit of ancient Alexandria, but Davis states is also “one of the leading lights of the Western Mystical tradition, a tradition whose psychospiritual impulses and alchemical images…have haunted Western dreams.”[3]

            McLuhan’s ‘the medium is the message’ reveals that not only the modes of worship but the content of worship is radically transformed through technological development. Heron of Alexandria, known as ‘the Inventor’ or ‘Machine Man’, circa 10 CE constructed temple vending machines which he named “Sacrificial Vessel That Flows Only When Money Is Introduced” and another trinket using pulleys and gear shafts depicted a Bacchanal replete with miniature dancers, flames, and sound effects. Second Life worship gatherings, Blackberry enabled interactive sermons, and YouTube transparency in once private worship spaces are modern examples of the continuing flux of worshipping and its modes and contents.
            The relationship of religion and science can be revealed to be bound by mutual competition, polemicizing, ambiguity, and benefit. The benefits can be seen as coming from the competition of social cultural influence as each seeks its foothold in rising to the challenges both individual and cultural. Davis recalls Avital Ronell’s statement “Science acquires its staying power from a sustained struggle to keep down the demons of the supernatural with whose visions, however, it competes.”
[4] The existential anxieties or spiritual complexities faced by an individual and the interdependent web of social structuring are shaped by the cultural understanding of exactly what the problems faced are. Carl Gustav Jung’s study into the secret realms of the individual’s innerspace are illustrative of the meeting ground of where esotericism and science meet, compete, and propel each other forward. Jung was a student of esoteric sciences, mystery cults, Gnosticism, Islamic mysticism, I Ching, and developed a system which was warmly accepted in mainstream academia and an established place in psychoanalysis. Jung appealed to a perennial philosophy comprised of an archetypal realm which he denoted as the ‘collective unconscious’. Davis suggests that an analogous inspection of psychic phenomenon, the human condition, and the larger macrocosmic sphere could be that of Henry Corbin, the Sufi scholar that posited the mundus imaginalis. Jung’s balance of mainstream scientific credibility and mystical sensibilities which reveal an esoteric view of the concordance of ancient religious traditions changed the landscape of both religion and science by positing a system that addressed the ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ of humanity’s experiences. Theological anthropology and the ‘harder’ sciences of biology, sociology, and evolutionary applications are intimately linked in the dialogue of what is presented as the nature of human suffering, how to alleviate it, and the horizons of possible human freedom from suffering.

            Davis examines a moment of the magical assuming contemporary technoscientific postures and methodologies. Upon the invention of telegraph technologies, mediums, séances were given pragmatic and concrete phenomena which they identified as strengthening their magical worldview. Spiritualists at the time of Morse’s discovery were affirmed in their rejection of supernaturalism and that afterlife was best described as natural law; Morse’s discoveries and the rapping spirits of the Fox Sisters were equally natural and scientific events. As John Dee before them, Spiritualists took rigorous notation and their data collection in séances mirrored the objective language found in scientific labratories. The publication of the 1850’s Spiritual Telegraph captures the spirit of the same sacred science that of the Renaissance Cabalists, though managing with the level of cutting edge concurrent technologies. As much as spiritual religion must always struggle to be relevant, articulate their concrete ethical praxis, and negotiate their faith to the demands of secular knowledges; so too do they accept portions or applications of technologies as apologia to the veracity of their worldview.

            Technoscientific advances and the promises they make or are imagined speculatively to be heralding can reveal spiritual faddishness as what was cutting edge becomes accepted, widespread, normalized, and a new technology arises to repeat the process. One example of this is that of the quickly expanded and deflated interest in Michael Drosnin’s The Bible Code which claimed to find esoteric revelations hidden in the Hebrew scriptures using computer-powered code-breaking programs performing a similar function that of Jewish Temurah and Gematria. The Bible Code in its context, Davis finds, is associated with the interest surround the explication of DNA and the human genome project which was seen as unlocking the true hidden formula of humanity’s condition and predetermined futural outlook. Drosnin and the school of computer enabled holy code hacking had been foreseen in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum which combined intrigue, Rosicrucianism and Kabbalah. The technology and its accompanying magical philosophy that the whole of history and future were hidden away in the scriptures only to be unlocked at the prescribed time by the computer’s eschatological application took many contemporary religionists by storm, its esoteric nature and historical tradition shrouded in occult and Kabbalah lost on many. However, it passed away largely not due to institutionalized religions’ proclamations as heresy but because the technology itself became passé. Through the same computer programs, it was revealed that any word or series of words could be plumbed from scripture and that any text, famously Mark Twain’s writings, would reveal the same ‘revelations’.

            The close relationship between religion and technoscience is deftly handled by the occult and esoteric traditions. Each new succeeding technological discovery can be grafted into a system where the arcane, esoteric, and popular technological advances can be synchronized into comprehensive systems where knowledge within a universe of corresponding macrocosm and microcosm can be absolute and where contradictions can be shelved as being illusory or imperfect understandings. Contemporary religious traditions, using Christianity as an example have shown to have more difficulty navigating the ambiguity of technoscientific progress. This can be related to a modern expression of what Davis sees as the Hephaestus mythos. Hephaestus the master craftsman has the power to create proto-cyborg women and powerful weapons but he himself is partially blinded and his limbs have become withered and crippled. With Hephaestus’ technological extension of his abilities, there is imagined a loss. Davis writes that this portrays what “both Plato and Marshall McLuhan would later insist upon: that technologies that extend our creative powers by amputating our natural ones.”[5] This myth draws a distinction of how many contemporary religious traditions feel threatened by technologies and therefore imply their transcendence and removal from its influence.

            The dynamic, complex and fluid relationship witnessed between religion and technology will continue and most likely become more intimately conflated and pronounced. As humanity continues to ask the questions of its nature and meaning, ethics, and hesitantly posits goals and teleology, the technoscientific will increasingly be involved explicitly in the questions themselves and the answers offered. If the symbol, as described by Paul Tillich has a surplus of meaning, humanity will always have not only a venturing progressive spirit, but one that will never be satisfied with concrete and absolutistic conclusions of the technoscientific. Esoteric, occult, and Hermetic traditions can serve as a guide into the future of how the spiritual strivings of individuals and cultures can positively adapt to, integrate, and give back to technoscientific advances. The esoteric traditions reveal a pattern of strong humanistic ideologies, reverence for nature, and a meta-philosophy which can find ecumenical application through the mystical complimentarity of diverse religious expression. Davis writes, “whatever social, ecological, or spiritual renewal we might hope for in the new century, it will blossom in the context of…technologies.”[6] Any investigation into religion and spirituality will have to ask hard questions of technology and vice versa. Esoteric traditions will continue to be an essential and exemplary inroad into such inquiries.

 

 

 

 


[1] Cited in Bruno Latour We Have Never Been Modern

[2] Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore War and Peace in the Global Village (New York: Bantam. 1968)

[3] Erik Davis Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (New York: Three Rivers    Press. 1998), 17-18.

[4] Avital Ronell The Telephone Book (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1989), 367.

[5] Erik Davis Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (New York: Three Rivers    Press. 1998), 13.

[6] Erik Davis Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (New York: Three Rivers    Press. 1998), 335.

This is Henry.

This is Henry.

As you will soon read, my friend Henry is amazing in more ways than I can count. My birthday is coming up on January 25th — for presents I’d love for you to make a small donation to the orphanage described below, even just $5. Thanks ya’ll!! Love, jj.

“For those of you who don’t know; last year I decided to ride a bicycle from Boston to Guatemala and give my time to anyone who might need an extra hand. I’m always inspired by, and find that I can both learn and teach the most working with youngsters, so volunteering at an orphanage was a natural choice. Regardless of the nominal cultural differences, kids need the same things all over the world. Love, compassion, education, food, shelter, positive role models. Here in the states, it usually goes without saying these necessities will be available, but as I’m sure you all know, it’s not a given in many other places all over the world.

Once I got to Guatemala, I was lucky enough to come across and spend six months at Casa Guatemala, an orphanage on the Rio Dulce near the Caribbean coast. During my time there, I worked as an orientador, which means living with one group of children in their home, helping with anything from homework to patching up flesh wounds, and basically just keeping them all organized so they could keep to their daily routines.

My particular group of kids consisted of 32 adolescent aged boys, half of whom had family to go home to on the weekends, the other half of whom did not. There are also younger boys in the boys home, and adolescent and young ladies in the girls home. For these children without anywhere else to go, the Casa is the only home they have; while the local teachers, workers, and volunteers from all over the world are the only family that they know. That’s why, when I was recently informed that several of the boys and girls who are graduating right now from the orphanage’s school still don’t have funding to go on to the next step, I felt a strong sense of responsibility to do whatever I can. With the proper funding, each child who has graduated sixth grade will go on to a nearby boarding school for four more years of education, complete with room and board. Without funding, the same children will be left without options, without a home, and certainly without any further education.

This message is not meant to be a sad story. In fact; quite the contrary. Most of these children are more resilient than any I’ve met here in the states, and I’m sure I’ve learned more from them than they ever could from me. For instance; one thing that could be seen every day that never ceased to amaze me was that regardless of how little each of these kids had, whenever one would earn enough to buy themselves a treat, like a bag of chips (about twelve cents and just as many chips) they would freely share them with whomever happened to be in the area. Most times, without the other kids even asking! If you’ve been around children before, you’ll know that this is no small feat! With this type of inspiring and selfless generosity in mind, I’m asking everyone I know to donate ten bucks, or more if you’re feeling jovial. I know that not everyone has much of a disposable income right now, but I also think that we could all switch the next few lattes to drip coffee and feel like a philanthropist for doing it. I was recently inspired by Barack Obama’s campaign that reaffirmed how a lot of people can come together, give just a little bit, and come through to make a big difference.

I know most folks are tightening their belts right now, but I also know that none of us will go hungry, and none of our children are going to have to worry about getting a high school education. Let’s think about all the consumerism we take part in in our privileged country and all the money we’ve recently spent on presents that will soon lose their luster. And then figure that education is something sustainable, and self-less, compassionate giving goes from hand to hand inspiring everyone it touches to be a better person.

If you would like to learn more about any of the kids, the orphanage, the yearly prices for school and what they go to, or anything else you can think of, feel free to send me an e-mail at this address [hthoreen at gmail dot com]. I’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to donate, you can go to www.paypal.com and give to hthoreen at gmail dot com (if you don’t have a paypal account they’ll prompt you to make one, no sweat, if you want to go old school I’ll send you a street address), which goes to an account that I set up specifically for the kids. Unlike many “charitable” organizations, no money will get lost on the way to the education of these children. The money will go into an account that I manage here in the states, and will then go directly into the education accounts of each respective child. I’m paying any expenses to myself, and of course, I will be donating as well. Thanks so much for reading this. I know that both myself and everyone at Casa Guatemala appreciates it. Take care, everybody, and happy holidays.

(The pictures, in order, are the Achivi brothers. Jesus cheesin’. Jose flexin’. And Miguel bootin’ the fut. They’re three of the boys without parents who will graduate this year. All three have a ton of potential in their own unique ways, and I passionately hope that they will be nurtured into realizing it).”

Sometimes old friends go off and live unpredictable, inspiring lives.  I knew Erika back in college; now she is the official Mayor of Hooperville and owner of one of the more adorable websites of all time.

You were in my dreams last night again. Like usual we were on a date, but this time it was set in outerspace. Candles were floating around us and our waiter Roberto took our order upsidedown.

I think Roberto had a crush on you because he kept throwing rolls at the back of my head and they would float off into infinity.

We talked a lot about soup and you played footsie with me. Your eyes sparkled like the stars around us and a meteor flew by and messed your hair. You were like the sun and I was like the fourteenth moon of Jupiter.

It was not at all like the wet dream I had where we were swimming, or the hot and sultry dream where we were on safari. It was like nothing I had ever dreamed, or ever dreamed of dreaming.

I remember faintly the sound of you expanding into a vast nebula and I made a joke about Orion.
You looked away then and became a space donkey and Roberto mounted you with a familiarity that startled me.

I don’t believe that dreams mean anything. That is, anything more than any other message
given to me by God. So when I saw the image of your face in my morning breakfast burrito, it didn’t surprise me.

I know that I shouldn’t still be dreaming about you after all this time.
And I know that the restraining order says I really shouldn’t even be writing this to you.
But I feel so strongly about the way the dream ended that I needed to tell you.
You landed on a planet and got implanted with an alien egg that later exploded out of your chest.
And I threw Roberto into a black hole.

I don’t know what all this means. I’m no dream interpreter.
And I don’t know if my need for you is some sort of reverse Stockholm Syndrome.
I’m no criminal pathologist.

But this I do know. I’m gonna dream of you again tonight. Because I love you.
And because I’m going to drop three tabs of acid and stare at your picture for five hours before drinking myself to sleep.

JJ and Ryan

 

http://dreammoods.com/
http://www.sleeps.com/
http://www.nasa.gov/

Weeks ago, on a Sunday, a few friends and I wandered in the forest to spend a day basking in a sulfuric hot springs near Vancouver, CA. As you might imagine, the pleasant smell of the sulfur-laced water was reminiscent of that dream everyone has of wading through a plethoric concentration of rotten eggs, but somehow it was a pleasant experience for me. The natural warmth of mother nature contrasted sensually with her chilled air, and the putrid smells eventually became us because — as is well documented by Cambridge ass-tro-physicists — our own shit don’t stink.

Soon after we arrived a second group joined us consisting of five folks coming from a Renaissance Fair, folks who reminded me of the 80′s video game Golden Axe. They quickly and obnoxiously asserted an uncomfortable social domination over our group, spicing our conversation with shouts of non-politically-correct vulgarity. They got naked (as were most of us), drunk (a cold beer in a hot spring is delightful idea!) and overly-stoned, and then they began literally overly-stoning each other, throwing rocks at each others’ faces and ignoring us, the innocent bystanders. There was one female included in their coterie and it became apparent that an orgy would occur the moment we left. Our presence was a cockblock.

At dusk they brought out a box of 200 glow sticks which lit up the water like a radioactive lightning bug factory. The rock war turned into a glow stick war. “With the rockets green glare, the bongs bursting with THC fortified air, gave proof through the night that empty beer cans were bound to be left there.”

We made our exit as darkness made its entrance, to permit our companions privacy to relieve their blue balls (and the female equivalent) and because there seemed no time limit to their violent ballistic battles. The drunker they got and the darker it got were Oxy clear factors in rapidly declining aim. Oh yeah, and two of their guys were already making out French style.

Most of my group was dissatisfied with the day’s happenings but I was fascinated with this display of raw, timeless human nature. We are all animals, dude. Hear me roar.

By the way, what do you think of “Blue Ovaries” as the name for my autobiography?

All Spice and Periwinkle,
j.j.

Get ready for Jesus’ return!
Make your plans to spend the Son of Man’s glorious return along with
me, Ryan McGivern and the rest of the mindflowers.net team
in Frankenmuth, Michigan Saturday May 21st, 2011.

Call 1-800-Fun-Town today to plan out your weekend now!

May 21st 2011 in Frankenmuth Michigan will feature the World Expo of Beer: a great
two day festival of the world’s finely crafted premier beers. Expect the beautiful setting
of Heritage Park along the serine Cass River to welcome you with the sounds of Polka, hearty laughter, and good friends to reconnect with.

Also expect the return of Jesus, the warm hearted Nazarene, as he comes to shine mercy and grace upon Earth in a rule of justice, equity, and shalom peace.

“Remember to Make Summer 2011 a Summer to Remember!”

General Beer Expo admission cost will be around 1,200$ (adjusted for inflation) but the
sight of Jesus lovingly floating through the sky over Green Acres Golf Course, Fortress Golf Club, and Timbers Golf Club will be priceless!

(The golf near Frankenmuth is exceptional. Once global order and justice is made by the King of Kings, only expect it to get better!)

Join me, Ryan McGivern, JJ, and Lo Liz in Frankenmuth Michigan May 21st, 2011!

World Beer Expo Info 
http://www.frankenmuthfestivals.com/
1 800 FUN FEST (386 3378)

Haus Meeting has some stiff competition with Beirut.
This video makes my mouth and pants water.


Day Of Wrath (Vredens Dag) Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer1943

In Dreyer’s film, we each are confronted with our own ‘day of wrath’. The heavy presence of suspicion, fear, and betrayal are also joined with the piety, righteousness, and faith. It is perhaps the mixing of all these elements that make the film so compelling and heart wrenching. We are left with the interrogating voice: “whom do I condemn?”

The story unfolds in 1623 when the fear of witches was at a fevered pitch and examines how a small dose of fear, even if justified can consume families, communities, and love. Hersof’s Marte, who dabbles in folk medicine, states as she mixes a pumice of herbs from below the gallows, “there is a power in evil.” This power has wider and wilder influence than even she can imagine because of its being clothed in terms of the highest piety. She is caught by representatives of the Church and is tortured into giving a confession of collusion with the Devil.

It is in this torture of Hersof’s Marte, which is depicted in shocking though not explicit terms, that we can find our own selves under indictment. The Church does this with the best intentions, to save her soul, to cleanse the community of a grave danger. How far do we go as people of faith, in our best intentions and highest pieties, to protect our own and seek the salvation of souls?

Absalon, the Church magistrate, father of Martin, and widower who has remarried a beautiful young Anne, visits the condemned in her cell waiting to be burned at the stake and tells her he is praying for her soul. The woman is outraged; “I fear not heaven or hell! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to burn!” There is a horrible disconnect between the Church’s worldview and the condemned. What is seen by the former as a great crime (potions of herbs), the other sees only as an innocuous tradition. What the former sees as the highest goal (saving one’s soul) the other sees as complete nonsense-she merely wants to live. As the burning is about to take place, Hersof’s Marte tells Absalon that because she will burn, so will Anne. This threat is voiced to no one else, but its seed is laid and no later than that very evening is Absalon’s suspicion of his wife stirred. His young wife’s behavior is purely understandable-she is told that her mother was a witch who had the power to influence others. Through her loveless and marriage and newfound love for Martin, her stepson, she is driven to fantasize that she can control others to the point of perhaps even believing it.

The film shows that belief has its own reality. All one needs to have is the firm commitment to a belief and it bears the consequences and reality of its own. In the end, fear and suspicion draped in custom, religion, and best intentions leave a trail of death and brokenness.

I’ve seen amazing things in my life including a horse giving birth to a baby squirrel and an actual stairway to heaven. I’ve even seen inside your soul, which, as opposed to popular opinion, isn’t composed primarily of coal. But never have I ever seen a youtube video as appropriate to post to mindflowers as this, an elephant painting an elephant holding a flower.

Concurrently with watching the video I recommend music from my favorite KEXP radio show, DJ Riz’s Variety Mix.

After you watch an elephant paint I suggest Thai food (spicy level 3 out of 5) , a walk in the woods, a ten dollar donation to your local Humane Society chapter, a few microbrewed beers, some sex and some lucid dreaming. A recipe for your perfect day.

***

a monkey’s floating head
in the void filled with glue
(the monkey’s head, not the void)
grabs some clay with its psychic
prehensile tail and forms it
into as much order as it can manage
since its brain is filled with glue and
the clay hates
its metaphorical guts

 Ryan McGivern

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