Some Thoughts on the Relationship between Technology and Spirituality

by Michel Bauwens

* INTRODUCTION

Something utterly important is happening in our world right now: the
exponential growth of the internet and the Web, as a new global
communications tool linking our human brains together in real time.The net
effect of computer networks is that it changes our relationship with time and
space in a fundamental way, and hence it is not exaggerated to say that we
are going through an important  civilisational shift.


Let's consider simply the effect of such networks on the speed of knowledge
transfer, and hence on the speed of cultural and technological evolution.
Before the invention of the written word, it was not possible to codify
knowledge, and hence to save it through time. 'When an old man dies', says an
African saying, 'a library goes up in flames'. Indeed in pre-literate times
every progress depended on the capacities of our brains to remember, and so
evolution was very slow. With writing, and especially with the mass produced
book, knowledge became independent of its bearer, and knowledge became
independent of Time. Not of Space though, as the transmission of knowledge
still depended on the availability of the physical object, the book. Now,
with computer networks, and especially as we are moving to wireless
communication, knowledge is also being liberated of the constraints of Space.
What actually happens when you install a network in an organisation, and this
is exactly what will now happen on an universal scale through the internet,
is that every innovation, every creative thought, any solution to a problem,
becomes instantly available throughout that organisation. Hence cultural and
scientific evolution will speed up to an unprecedented degree. The time span
needed to double our knowledge which once took hundred of thousands of years,
now takes approximately three years, and this 'doubling' time is shortening
ever more, leading to speculation that there will be a hypothetical point in
future history, (in the not too distant future), called the Singularity,
where knowledge will double in a single moment, leaving mankind utterly
unable to even understand what is happening. Clearly we have created a
Technological Juggernaut which is now clearly 'Out of Control' (cfr. Kevin
Kelly's book of the same title). Indeed, if we combine the Digital Revolution
just mentioned, with the ability to manipulate our genes, and with
developments in the field of nanotechnology, we realise time has come for
thinking through our relationship with technology, which, once our servant,
has now perhaps become our master. As we progress with this essay, we will
first look at some of the social and cultural changes associated with the
notion of the Digital Revolution, and we will look at some basic spiritual
attitudes, and how various debates within and between different schools of
thought, help us look at technology in interesting ways. In this context, we
will both look at technology with 'negative' glasses, seeing technology as a
degenerate practice, and then through 'positive' glasses, seeing technology
as a means of bringing mankind towards a higher 'plane of consciousness', or
let's simply say, towards a higher level of civilisation. We will also look
at emergent spiritual practices on the internet itself. But first, some
comments on the notion of the Digital Revolution.


* THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION, VIRTUALISATION, AND THE EMERGENCE OF CYBERSPACE


In the previous section we discussed how networks change our relationship
with time and space, and hence, the social, political, and economic effects
of networks are of a very fundamental nature. Liberating our social life from
the constraints of space, means big changes in for example politics, which
have always been based on territory; it means big changes in the organisation
of human settlements, which again have been based on the needs to be close to
the flow of material products and the centralised structures of power. Hence,
the growth of all kinds of 'tele'- activities: tele-education, tele-shopping,
tele-working. How these things will turn out to be is still a matter of
conjecture, but that they are changing our traditional ways of operating is a
certainty. Possibly, quite a few of the changes wrought by the Industrial
Revolution could be reversed. Already today, according to some recent U.S.
figures we see phenomena like to growth of tele-working (almost half of the
new jobs created in the last 5 years are tele-jobs), the fact that more jobs
are created in rural areas than cities, and the extraordinary growth in the
number of home-schoolers (almost one million). Our current level of
technology allows us to produce more and more material products, with less
and less manpower. Ultimately, only a few percent of the working population
will be employed for material production. Again, this is a major shift in 
civilisation. In the thirties, under influence of organisational advances
like Taylorism, manual labor was heavily automated and  gradually expelled
from the production process. Since the late eighties, a similar process is
now at work concerning routine intellectual work. Many companies are
undergoing processes like business process re-engineering which reorganise
work processes around the advantages of the technology, and eliminate routine
procedures. Hence the elimination of middle managers and white collar
workers. The effect of the digital revolution on how we organise and
experience work will be very important, and is even suggested by some
analysts, like Jeremy Rifkin, that we seriously look at the hypothesis of
'the end of work', or at least at the hypothesis of the 'end of the job'.


Part of this digital revolution is the process of virtualisation. To
understand the nature of this process we have to look at how human beings
transform the material world for their own needs. In the agrarian age and
before, nature (matter) was being transformed by physical labor and
mechanical devices (i.e. matter). Hence matter was being transformed by
matter. During the Industrial Revolution, we inserted a new factor in the
production process, i .e. energy (in the form of processed fuels). Hence
matter was being transformed by matter, and by energy, and this lead to a
quantum leap in productivity.


We are now in the process of adding yet another factor in this equation: i.e.
information. Today, the natural world is being transformed not only by using
matter and  energy, but by the introduction of information, which leads to a
new explosion of productivity. We can say that virtualisation is the
increasing substitution of matter by information. This process has profound
consequences for our ways of relating to the world. Between humankind and
nature, between humans and other humans, between humans and machines, there
is now a layer of information. And, this layer of information gains in
prominence as the process of virtualisation intensifies. In the past, we were
able to say, 'if I can't touch it, it isn' t real'. This has been the credo
of science, of the industrial world, of materialism. Today, this situation is
being reversed to the point where one could even say, together with
management consultant Tom Peters: 'if you can touch it, it's not real'. In
other words: the informational, the non-material, has become more important,
in political, economic, social, and philosophical terms, than the material. A
pair of Reebok shoes, contains more non-material value (image, marketing,
research) than its actual value in terms of the available atoms. Our social
life is already virtualised to the extent that most of us would spend more
time watching nature documentaries, than effectively walking in the woods!
This process, which was begun by the emergence of television, will be
intensified by the new cyberspace media. Multidirectional networked media
like the internet are not just a continuation of the mass media, they
represent an important shift, because they create a new collective mental
space. Hence the notion of cyberspace, which means that next to the physical
world, humankind is now creating a parallel 'virtual' world, which will
co-exist with the so-called real world. If our ancestors have been living
principally in a natural environment, and civilised humanity in an
architectural environment, then our descendants will principally live in a
'digital environment'. Cyberspace is where they will live an important part
of their time, and what happens in cyberspace, will greatly determine the
rest of their lives.


If we look at the different aspects of the digital revolution, then we
clearly see that we are going through a major civilisational shift, and that
these changes have metaphysical importance, as they affect the basic building
blocks of our experience. It is not surprising therefore that we cannot
confine our thinking to science, which deals with the 'how' questions, but
that we must deal with the 'why' questions as well, the domain of
spirituality and its schools of thought.



* THE (TWO)  POINT(S)  OF VIEW OF THE WISDOM TRADITION


What would be a likely point of view of spiritual schools of thought towards
the  developments mentioned above? Before proceeding, let me digress about
the notion of the 'Wisdom Tradition' itself. At the start of this essay we
defined spirituality as the means through which mankind finds meaning in its
relationship to the totality of the external world. This definition was
chosen on purpose, so that it would also be acceptable to agnostics and
atheists, as spiritual then has the meaning of a most general human activity
aimed at understanding our relationship with the universe.  In the modern
world, there has been clearly a divorce between those who posit a belief in
an Absolute or Supreme Being, and generally accept  the existence of
non-material realms and beings, and the 'rationalist' or  scientific camp,
which does not accept non-materiality. Within the camp of the spiritualists,
there are many great differences in terms of methodology and approaches. In
very general terms we can distinguish paths based on 'belief', 'faith', and
those based on concrete experience. Hence quite a few authors posit a
distinction between 'exoteric' religion, based on belief and aimed at those
without concrete experience, and the 'esoteric' tradition, mostly hidden
within the exoteric structures, for those who do indeed  have experience with
the 'divine'. Quite a few authors call this body of knowledge the
'Tradition', the 'Philosophia Perennis' or the 'Wisdom Tradition', and claim
that behind the enormous diversity of religious thought, there is this body
of real spiritual knowledge. For those wishing to deepen their understanding
of these matters I refer to the extraordinary reading list compiled and
commented upon by Franklin Jones (Da Free John), i.e. the Basket of
Tolerance, which introduces the major spiritual works of mankind from this
point of view.  Other recommended authors would be Hegel, Teilhard de
Chardin, Rene Guenon, Fritjof Schuon, Julius Evola, and of course the current
master works by Ken Wilber. His three latest books, 'The Third Eye: the
search for a new paradigm';'Up from Eden'; and especially 'Sex, Ecology, and
Spirituality: the spirit of Evolution' are good modern introductions to this
approach. The latter, the first part of a trilogy, will probably turn out to
be the major philosophical and spiritual book of this century.


The author of this essay accepts the point of view that there is such a
Wisdom Tradition, but in my personal analysis, there are two main
interpretative schools within it. It is important to show this contradiction
between schools, as it will have an impact on their analysis of the meaning
and role of technology in the historical psycho-spiritual development of
mankind.


We will call these two schools of thought, the 'pessimistic' and the
'optimistic' interpretations of the Wisdom Tradition.


The pessimistic school basically sees human history as one of progressive
degeneration, i.e. regression. Authors like Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, and
others, will posit a 'spiritual  golden age' in the mythical past. Thus,
early mankind was more developed spiritually than current civilisation, and
they will for example show how the ruling classes where first spiritual
(shamans, priest y castes in Egypt, the Church), then military and finally
commercial. This school will be strengthened in its interpretation by many
sacred texts positing such gradual loss of consciousness. For example the
Hindu tradition clearly states we are now in the age of 'Kali Yuga', the last
stage before a world destruction. Hence the notion of the 'Fall' and others
concepts highlighting the predicament of current mankind.


The 'optimistic' school of thought, as exemplified in the works of Hegel,
Teilhard de Chardin,  and Ken Wilber, takes an evolutionary approach. They
will generally agree that  there has indeed been a fall, at the creation of
the Cosmos and our universe, when divine consciousness was lost in
unconscious matter. But from that point on, there has been progress towards
ever higher levels of complexity and consciousness.


This basic attitude towards spirituality, and life, will color the spiritual
point of view of the various schools. Pessimistic schools will tend towards
dualism (the fundamental split between the human and the divine), towards
Gnosticism (there will always remain a split between the Knower and the
Known, i.e. an individual self), and towards negative approaches towards the
body. Indeed, Pessimistic spiritual practice will tend toward techniques that
teach their adepts that 'you're not your body, you're not your mind, you're
not this, you're not that'. Optimistic spiritual practice will tend towards
non-duality approaches, mysticism (a fusion with the divine), and a positive
approach towards the body and the self. Its practices will tend towards
techniques that teach their adepts: 'you're more than your ego,  you're more
than your body'.


Of course, 'In Real Life', most spiritual schools will have elements of both,
but it is a very instructive 'heuristic' tool to look at the Tradition from
this point of view. The interpretation of human history, and of the role of
technology in it, will be colored by it.


Hence, the Technological Project of mankind (and especially the current
'cyberspatial phase' can be seen either as a 'Luciferian' God Project, i.e.
an attempt by humankind to usurp 'God' and to liberate itself from all limits
imposed on itself by Nature (the pessimistic interpretation), or on the
contrary, as a new phase in the evolution of mankind towards higher levels of
collective consciousness. We will therefore continue our exploration on the
meaning of technology, inspired by these two points of view, as a God
Project, or as Electric Gaia.


* THE GOD PROJECT


Metaphorically, we can argue that technology really started when Adam bit in
the apple of the Tree of Knowledge, the moment that mankind said, 'we can do
it on our own and we want to understand the meaning of it all'. Technology
started with the very first tools, which enhanced our mastery over Nature,
rather than our harmony with it. This has been understood very well by for
example the Australian aboriginals, who only accepted three technologies as
they were aware that more tools would destroy their harmonious relationship
with the environment. But the rest of us went along on the path of
technology.


For spiritualists there are basically two ways of approaching knowledge, one
approach which can lead to holiness (wholeness), the other which will lead to
a false and arrogant mastery over nature but which will ultimately destroy
us. The first, inner approach, is based on the idea that we are indeed
created as an image of God, and that by discovering our inner being, we will
discover our God-like aspects. (at the same time, these schools will warn
their adepts that these powers are only signposts along the way, and that
nobody should revel in them. As the soufi's say: heaven is the hell of the
wise men, i.e. even the pleasures of heaven have to be abandoned to reach
enlightenment). Spiritual practice will therefore give us aspects of the
powers of the divine, and the wisdom literature is full of testimonies to
that effect. For example, Richard Thompson, a Hindu scholar has described the
64 'siddhis'  (powers) one can achieve through meditation, and he describes
how the  technological program of mankind is an attempt to emulate these
powers one by one.


And there is no denying that technology is a magical program. As Arthur
Clarke said: 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic'. We can now routinely communicate with people over great distance, see
and hear what happens thousands of miles away, walk through walls in virtual
reality, etc...


But whereas the effect of the 'inner way' will strengthen human character,
the external technological way will progressively weaken humanity. McLuhan
would caution this interpretation and he also posited that technology is an
extension of our senses. Machines are extensions of our muscles, computers of
our brains, robots for example are extensions of both. Look at how the
automobile in effect 'amputates' our legs, how the calculator destroys our
capacity to calculate on our own, how text processing weakens grammar. The
more we extend our technology, and thus our senses on the outside, the less
we need our inner senses. At the same time, we're are creating a
'technosphere' (next to the biosphere and the sociosphere), which is
increasingly becoming inimical to our bodies and our minds. Ocean research
and space travels create conditions in which our bodies can't survive, and
information overload causes permanent stress on our minds.


Pioneering scientists, such as Marvin Minsky (Artificial Intelligence), Eric
Drexler (nanotechnology), Hans Moravec (Robot science) are predicting a world
in which both the body and the mind could become obsolete. A world in which a
combination of technologies (which invades our bodies) and genetic
engineering (which could change the very definition of what it is to become
human) could lead to a post-human world. Some are taking this concept very
seriously. For example the Extropians, a group of young scientists who
strongly believe in the promise of technology, are already now earnestly
discussing possibilities to double our lifespan (through special diets), to
resurrect the dying (through cryogenics, i.e. deep-freezing the body), to
download consciousness into computers, or to upload computer memory into our
very brains, and to merge with our machines (cyborgism). In their radicalism,
groupings like the Extropians represent the 'Technological Unconscious' of
Western civilisation, and they force us to decide whether it is that that we
really want. If we continue along our current path, we create an immortal man
which can control nature and will ultimately leave Earth, in order to control
the Universe. In the meantime, we are already creating a worldwide computer
network (the Internet) which will soon be inhabited by Artificial
Intelligences, and will reach such a level of complexity, that it is no
longer controllable by human intelligence. Surely, this will lead to the
creation of a Machine-God, a Deus Ex Machine (cfr. Paul Virillio) that is a
direct competitor of the Supreme Being of the spiritualists. Surely this is
proof that their analysis of technology as a Luciferian project is right on
the mark? It is also in that context that we can see the prediction of a
Technological Singularity, i.e. a moment in history in which there will be as
much novelty and in the whole preceding history. A moment that can be called
the 'End of History' or 'The End of Mankind'. Such an event would be an
abomination to the spiritual Pessimists who may well equate the advent of an
overpowering Machine Intelligence with the coming of the Anti-Christ.


The Spiritual Pessimists are of course not alone in this negative analysis.
Their point of view is largely shared by those who are now called
'Neo-Luddittes'. Like the original followers of General Ludd, i.e. the
English weavers who destroyed textile machinery at the end of the 19th
century, many of  the latter-day 'Deep Ecologists' would stop technological
evolution in order to go back to a golden age where humankind still lived in
harmony with nature. It is interesting to note the parallels: both pessimists
and neo-Luddittes place their Utopia in the past; while both spiritual
optimists and technological utopians place their Utopia in the future.

Surely,  there are a lot of facts that would lead many readers to accept a
pessimistic reading of the future, and to interpret technology as a path of
destruction. However, there are also quite a few facts which could point in
the other direction. The optimistic interpretation of the Wisdom Tradition
would point out that technology is one more step in the unfolding of
mankind's Consciousness.


ELECTRIC GAIA


At the creation of the Cosmos, divine consciousness 'fell' in a Nature that
could not be conscious of itself. Then came life in its various formations,
from unicellular, through plants, to animals in their various guises and
finally to Man and Woman, uniquely self-conscious beings. Through humankind,
Nature and the Cosmos, can become conscious of itself. But this process of
increasing consciousness is a slow process. Mankind itself moved from magical
to mythical to rational consciousness; from tribal through national to
planetary consciousness. For such a planetary vision to arise, the right
tools are needed. Hence we can make a reading of history, in which technology
can be seen as a necessary adjunct to make such consciousness possible. True,
it can be argued that there are Realised Beings who achieved such states of
Universal Awareness, but the mass of the people clearly need help. Thus it
can be argued that national consciousness could not be achieved without the
printing press, and that real planetary consciousness will not be achievable
without the creation of worldwide communication networks. Using a
proto-marxist language we could say that only such technological
infrastructure would create the necessary material conditions for such a
higher collective awareness to arise.


This process of universalisation started with print, extended itself through
communication technologies such as the telegraph and the telephone, and
through media such as radio and television. But only now do we have a medium
that combines the characteristics of both personal and mass media, that
extend every human's senses and reach of consciousness, to every corner of
the world. Traditional mass media were still one-way, and so expensive that
they could only be operated by the powers that be, while today the
fully-bidirectional internet can be used as a communication and broadcasting
tool by every connected individual. The internet can thus be seen as a tool
to broaden our awareness even further and for the first time, it allows
mankind to materialise the 'noosphere', i.e. the collective mental space
where all our cultural exchanges take place.  The internet will ultimately
evolve to a World Brain, which contains all connected individual brains. This
at least is the interpretation of the Positive School. To this school belong
philosophers as Hegel, and spiritualists such as Teilhard de Chardin and
today, Ken Wilber. Their optimism is shared by many others cyberspace
settlers and it helps explain the extraordinary amount of creative and
optimistic cultural energy that is generated throughout the internet. Seen in
that context, cyberspace is a very important civilisational project. It can
be compared to the building of the Gothic Cathedrals that were build to the
glory of God and that mobilised whole communities in the late Middle Ages.
Similarly, cyberspace is the creation of a new parallel world. Next to the
physical world, mankind is creating a virtual world, a 'country of the mind'
, as John Perry Barlow calls it, or perhaps even a country of the Spirit?
Whether such an interpretation is correct or not, at least it should be
understood  that cyberspace is seen by many as a utopian social and political
project, and hence as a generator of utopian energy.  (Michael Grosso sees a
fusion of utopian dreams, and the apocalyptic fears of the end of the
millennium, and calls this fusion the 'Technocalyps').In an epoch where all
political 'isms' have died, and in which the authoritarian religions are
either moribund or being hijacked by reactionary social forces, cyberspace is
seen as a home for freedom, a place where forms of equality can be achieved,
and as a organisational tool for the creation of utopian virtual communities
(in this sense, the internet's virtual communities can be seen as a revival
of pre-Marxist 'utopian socialism' which insisted that change could happen
here and now by creating communities of men of  goodwill who would operate
according to new social rules). Cyberspace functions as an ideal projection
screen for utopian hopes for a better world. In this context, it is not
surprising that Cyberspace is also a domain for the activities of spiritual
movements, especially those who share the  positive evolutionary
interpretation of history.


* SACRALISING CYBERSPACE


Stewart Brand, founder of the legendary Whole Earth Review and author of 'The
Media Lab', outlined a history of personal computing which showed a strong
relationship between the pioneering forces of technology and the
counter-culture of the sixties.  Both endeavours shared the goal of giving
'power to the people' and of 'augmenting the possibilities of the
individual'. While it is true that the internet was originally a U.S.
Department of Defence project, one has to admit that the internet shares this
strong link with the counter-cultural movement. One of the elements of this
social movement was a spiritual revival, due on the one hand to the import of
eastern religions and practices, and probably also to the discovery and
broader use of mind-altering drugs. The special characteristics of the
internet, where anyone can be a publisher at moderate cost, insures that many
alternative spiritual forces are finding a home on the internet and are using
it to further their spiritual aims. The link between the counter-culture,
spiritual interests, and cyberspace, can be seen in the prominence of
individuals such as John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor. Barlow has a major in
comparative religion and is the former lyricist of the Grateful Dead; Kapor,
former CEO of Lotus, is a former teacher of Transcendental Meditation and
still a practising Buddhist. Both are leaders of the movement for civil
rights in cyberspace (through their leadership of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation) and combine their humanitarian activism and their spiritual
concerns, into a hopeful vision of the possibilities of cyberspace. Howard
Rheingold, the influential author of the book about 'Virtual Communities' and
long-time former editor of the Whole Earth Review, is another example of the
California  counter-culture, which has now matured in cyberspace.


Certainly, the internet is also used by traditional spiritual forces. The
Christian fundamentalists, the Jewish Hasidim, and the Islam are present. The
Catholic Church is following suit, and the various schools of Buddhism are
particularly active. The latter have a very active 'Cyber-Sangha'
(community), but most traditional schools would use the internet as an
auxiliary tool, as a simple addition to their physical activities.


Some spiritual movements, who share the positive spiritual interpretation
outlined above, are taking a much more active role in cyberspace. Very
prominently active are the techno-pagans. It might surprise some observers
that a pre-christian nature religion may find the internet of interest, but
this is actually very much the case. Pagans are of course a urban phenomenon,
precisely amongst the social classes that are natural users  of the internet.
They use the internet not only as a self-organising tool, but as a new space
that has to be sacralised. For example, Mark Pesce, the creator of the
Virtual Reality Modelling Language, has created a Zero Circle on the
internet, which involved a shamanic ritual. Every 3D-object will have to
position itself against this spiritual 'Axis Mundi' or 'Center of the World'.
Similarly, Tibetan monks from the Namgyal Institute in Ithaca, NY have
consecrated cyberspace on February 8th. From a spiritual view such rituals
are very important as they created sacred spaces where the divine forces can
be present. Marc Pesce argues that cyberspace will contain a lot of
'pathogenic' spaces detrimental to our mental well-being, and that
'vivogenic' spaces have to be created as a counter force. Among the active
techno-pagans, there are quite a few experiments with cyber-rituals and
collective meditation using the internet as a focal point. This has led to a
lively debate on specialised mailing lists such as Techspirit-L about the
topic of 'Does Prana Travel the Wires'. The debate centers about the fact of
the transmission of spiritual energy. Does it need physical presence to
transmit itself, or, as it concerns immaterial energy anyway, can it be
transmitted through the 'wires'. Some clearly believe that cyberspace can be
used for bona fide spiritual practices, such as for example Alexander Besher,
author of the science-fiction book 'RIM', who argues for the creation of
Spiritual Spaces throughout cyberspace, through the practice of Feng Shui,
the Chinese Taoist  art of creating 'right' spaces and buildings. It should
also be noted that one can now witness the creation of specific
cyber-religions. Though many are indeed 'tongue-in-cheek', a few initiatives
are serious attempts to create a new kind of virtual spiritual community.
Also, the book of Douglas Rushkoff, i.e. Cyberia, has outlined the fusion of
the internet and the psychedelic and House music communities into a kind of
spiritualised youth culture which aims at spiritual awareness through the
combined use of ecstatic techno-music, hallucinogenic substances, and
communication in a collective mental realm, i.e. cyberspace. Terence McKenna
and the ever-present Timothy Leary are very much popular in these circles.
McKenna in particular has written very cogently argued books about the need
for a new alliance between technology and nature, what he calls the 'Archaic
Revolution'.


>From the above, we can indeed conclude that there is an active spiritual life
in cyberspace, and that there is indeed a specific cyber-spirituality being
developed. While every medium has indeed influenced human cultural practice,
including religion and spirituality (cfr. TV preachers), it is surprising
that the internet creates new types of social movements which take their very
identity from cyberspace. So, while we don't have radio-fascism and
TV-feminism, we do notice movements like cyber-feminism, cyber-marxism, and
specific cyber-spiritual movements. This is a further confirmation of the
fact that the internet is not just a medium, but a real 'space', a digital
environment for the life of the mind.


* SOME FURTHER PARALLELS


Can the body of the Wisdom Tradition offer any useful perspectives even to
those amongst us who are by nature skeptical of any non-scientific
'knowledge'? I believe there are some interesting parallels between
cyberspace and spiritual spaces that could make it of interest to look at
spiritual testimonies of immaterial realms.


Indeed, it can be said that science has always dealt with the material world,
while spirituality has extensively described non-material spaces. Until
today, there was no immaterial space which could be recognised by the
scientific mind. However, cyberspace is precisely such an immaterial space
and hence, there is very little in the scientific tradition that could help
us make sense of the dynamics of such a space. Not so in the Sacred Texts,
which for example describe Indra's Net (a metaphor for the nodes of the
internet) or the Akashic Records (the place where all the world's knowledge
is stored and where one can travel using out-of-body techniques). I therefore
believe that a study of such texts could be useful in understanding the
dynamics of cyberspace as the quintessential immaterial realm.


Another aspect is the magical aspect. There is no denying that cyberspace has
magical aspects. Especially with fully-developed VR environments, our minds
will be able to travel in worlds that are changeable at will and where our
very desires can be materialised. We have already seen how  MUDS, MOO'S and
MUSH'es are very much inspired by magical lore and techniques. This may be no
accident. Indeed it can be argued that to navigate a 'magical' space, we will
need 'magical' interfaces. This was the premise of the legendary hacker-sf
novel  of Vernon Vinge. Here again, a lot of the spiritual literature
outlining magical and theurgic techniques might find a useful application in
our new virtual worlds.


>From the point of view of spiritualists, cyberspace may also offer
interesting opportunities. For example, transpersonal psychologist Charles
Tart, has invoked the idea of 'faking' spiritual experiences through
technology. Out-of-Body experiences could be easily recreated in cyberspace,
using goggles linked to a robot, which then would look back at one-self. He's
also trying to find funds to create a lot of the intermediary worlds
described in Sacred Texts, such as the Bardo of the Tibetans, in VR
environments. Such a project would be an important cultural undertaking which
would increase the understanding of the world's spiritual traditions.


Cyberspace also presents an important spiritual challenge. Indeed, technology
is clearly an extension of mankind and hence of nature. One of the
fundamental aims of spiritual practice has been to extend our identities, and
to overcome our feelings of separateness with other human beings, nature and
the Cosmos. The same techniques could be used to arrive at a more holistic
view of technology. In that sense, the merging of man with machine and
technology, can be seen as part of the mystical task of union with the
universe.

For the rest of us, it will be always difficult to decide on the merits of
the Positive vs. the Negative spiritual view of technology. There would be
enough facts to sway our opinion in either direction. In this material world
of contradictions, of Yin and Yang, such opposing views  remain a useful
heuristic tool, and it shows us the contradictory logic of technological
progress. For every new power and possibility that it brings, technological
progress takes away some other part of our humanity. Perhaps in order to
survive in the high-stress world of  high-tech, we more than ever need the
high-touch psycho-technologies and body-work methods that are the enduring
legacy of spiritual practice and the human potential movement. The new edge
of technology, may need the 'new age' of reviving of spiritual practice.
Without them, we may not be able to survi

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