TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information (Five Star Paperback) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "This book is written in the shadow of the millennium, that arbitrary but incontestable line that the Western imagination has drawn in the sands of..." (more)
Key Phrases: electromagnetic imaginary, spiritual cyborg, arresting magic, Star Trek, World Wide Web, New Jerusalem (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Five Star (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852427728
• ISBN-13: 978-1852427726
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #620,726 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning Debut Unveils Hermetic Underside To Cyberculture, April 14, 1999

By	Alex Burns ([e-mail]) (Melbourne (Australia)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Hardcover)

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.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No There There, December 28, 2001

By	Arch Llewellyn "arch-l" - See all my reviews

This review is from: TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Paperback)

Erik Davis's often creative connections between magic and technology suffer from his style--a hip, let me explain it to you in terms you can understand narrative that casts every age as a pale anticipation of our own. The bloom is off the information age, and while the Internet is here to stay, Davis's way of talking about it isn't. I'd give this book an 'A' for enthusiasm from a talented undergrad. But as a serious analysis of the bridge between myth and machines, the story collapses under its own pretense of being 'now'. Search out the sources he footnotes and take the rest as an artefact of the dot-com boom.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking to the future with roots in the past, April 24, 2002

By	Vargr "Vargr" (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Paperback)

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.