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

by Erik Davis

Paperback, 1999

Status

Available

Call number

303.4833

Genres

Technology

Religion & Spirituality

Publication

Three Rivers Press (1999), Paperback

Description

"A most informative account of a culture whose secular concerns continue to collide with their supernatural flip-side."--Voice Literary Supplement In this dazzling book, writer and cyber guru Erik Davis demonstrates how religious imagination, magical dreams and millennialist fervor have always permeated the story of technology. Through shamanism to Gnosticism, voodoo to alchemy, Buddhism to evangelism, TechGnosis peels away the rational shell of infotech to reveal the utopian dreams, alien obsessions and apocalyptic visions that populate the ongoing digital revolution. Erik Davis' work has appeared in Wired, The Village Voice and Gnosis, and he has lectured internationally on technoculture and new forms of religion. He is a fifth-generation Californian who currently lives in San Francisco.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Paul_Samael

I first read this shortly after it came out, but I have periodically been back to it and I think it's still as relevant as when it came out - which is no mean feat for a book that deals with a fast-moving area like technology. I think the reason it has stood the test of time so well has to do with

its focus on our own attitudes to technology (as much as on the technology itself). We like to think of ourselves as having attained a level of sophistication that has taken us beyond the kind of primitive attitudes which Arthur C Clarke was probably thinking of when he suggested that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. The key insight of Techgnosis is that some of those primitive views still exert a strong influence when it comes to our reactions to technology and in particular, our hopes about what it can do for us (particularly its ability to "transform" our world). That insight remains as important now as when the book was first written.

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LibraryThing member porges

I loved this. Not only does it shine light on traditionally-occulted aspects of tech history, the writing exuberates in allusions that range from hilarious to astute.

LibraryThing member Charon07

Less satisfying than I'd hoped. Though Erik Davis makes the case that technology and spirituality are and have been inextricably linked throughout human history, he doesn't really offer a theory as to why this is so or take a position on whether this is a good or a bad thing. I would have preferred

less of his supporting his argument and more analysis of it.

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