TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information

TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by Davis, Erik. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780517704158.

Exploring the mystical impulses behind our obsession with information technology, TechGnosis presents a fascinating and passionately original perspective on technoculture. Today we often assume that the triumph of technological rationality has condemned the spiritual imagination to the trash heap of history. But as Erik Davis explains, religious impulses and magical dreams permeate the history of technology, and especially information technology. Ranging from the printing press to the telegraph, from radio to the Internet, Davis peels away the utilitarian shell of technology to reveal the mystical and millennialist fervor that attends each new communications breakthrough. As he unveils the hidden history of technomysticism, Davis shows how the religious imagination continues to feed the utopian dreams, apocalyptic visions, digital phantasms, and alien obsessions that populate todays technological unconscious. From shamanism to alchemy, evangelism to Buddhism, TechGnosis probes our virtual future through the visionary lenses of the past. In these pages, Davis offers a lucid, playful, and astonishingly erudite journey through our hyper-mediated environment. Anyone grappling with the morphing boundaries and terminal speed of our present moment will want to take the ride.