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

445 Pages·2005·1.5 MB·English

by  Erik Davis

T UPDATED EDITION WITH NEW AFTERWORD
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TechGnosis
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ERIK DAVIS
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MYTH, MAGIC AND MYSTICISM IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION
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'TechGnosis IS STIMULATING and original, learned AND READABLE. ERIK DAVIS OFFERS a WIDE-RANGING
AND CONSISTENTLY THOUGHT-PROVOKING GUIDE TO THE HIDDEN CIRCUITRY OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL
UNCONSCIOUS. INVALUABLE’ GEOFF DYER
From the printing press to the telegraph, through radio, TV and the Internet, TechGnosis explores the
mystical impulses that lie behind our obsession with information technology. In this dazzling book, writer
and cyber guru Erik Davis demonstrates how religious imagination, magical dreams and millennialist
fervour have always permeated the story of technology.
Through shamanism to Gnosticism, voodoo to alchemy, Buddhism to evangelism, TechGnosis peels away
the rational shell of info tech to reveal the utopian dreams, alien obsessions and apocalyptic visions that
populate the ongoing digital revolution.
Erik Davis offers a unique and fascinating perspective of technoculture, inviting comparisons to Marshall
McLuhan, Greil Marcus and William Gibson.
‘Beautifully written, carefully conceived and absolutely accessible’ Observer
‘TechGnosis is a masterpiece of informed polemic, welding seemingly disparate blocks of knowledge and
thought into a coherent, challenging whole with passion, erudition and wit’ Independent
ISBN 1-85242-77 2 - 8
A FIVE STAR PAPERBACK
FROM SERPENT’S TAIL
Cover design by WALL
UK£9.99/Popular Cuture
/Mind, body and spirit/$18.00
WWW.SERPENTSTAIL.COM
9 7 8 1 8 452 72726
Erik Davis is a fifth-generation Californian who currently
resides in San Francisco. His work has appeared in Wired, The
Village Voice, Gnosis, and other publications, and he has lectured
internationally on technoculture and the fringes of religion. He
can be contacted at his website: www.techgnosis.com
For this edition of TechGnosis Erik Davis has written a new
afterword.
Praise for TechGnosis
“TechGnosis is stimulating and original, learned
and readable. Erik Davis offers a wide-ranging and
consistently thought-provoking guide to the hidden
circuitry of the technological unconscious. Invaluable”
Geoff Dyer
“A most informative account of a culture whose
secular concerns continue to collide with their
supernatural flip side”
Sadie Plant, Voice Literary Supplement
“Beautifully written, carefully conceived and
absolutely accessible, TechGnosis proves that it’s time
we sat up and took notice”
Observer
“ TechGnosis is a masterpiece of informed polemic,
welding seemingly disparate blocs of knowledge and
thought into a coherent, challenging whole with
passion, erudition and wit”
Independent
“Brilliant” Guardian
“Surfing Davis’s datastream makes for an
exhilarating ride”
Publishers Weekly
“Davis’s dense, playful prose crackles with energy and
enthusiasm in his attempt to map the mythos of
technology”
Daily Telegraph
“Davis is trenchant, entertaining and timely; a Zeitgeist book”
The Times
“Like its subject, this is a stimulating and electric tool for
anyone caught in the Net”
Attitude Magazine
“Davis jumps from religious philosophy to the
telegraph, from the cult of Santeria to HTML to LSD, draw­
ing erudite conclusions throughout”
The Face
“Davis cites many sources, synthesizing information in ways
that make the synapses effervesce”
Gnosis Magazine
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E R I K D A V I S
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library on request
The right of Erik Davis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by
him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
Copyright © 1998, 2004 Erik Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
First published by Harmony Books,
a division of Crown Publishers, Inc., New York
First published in the UK in 1999 by Serpents Tail.
4 Blackstock Mews, London N4 2BT
First published in this 5-Star edition in 2004
Website: www.serpentstail.com
Printed in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham, pic
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For My Folks
contents
acknowledgements ix
INTRODUCTION
crossed wires 3
I imagining technologies 14
II the alchemical fire 49
III the gnostic infonaut 92
IV techgnosis, american-style 123
V the spiritual cyborg 155
VI a most enchanting machine 196
VII cyberspace: the virtual craft 226
VIII the alien call 267
IX datapocalypse 299
X third mind from the sun 341
XI the path is a network 376
AFTERWORD
beyond the boom 397
endnotes 409
index 421
acknowledgments
It would be impossible to fully trace the network of minds and
hearts that helped bring this book into being, but some specific
shout-outs are definitely in order. A number of the ideas animati ng
Tech Gnosis have been pulsing in my brain for nearly a decade, and
I am indebted to a handful of teachers and editors who have helped
me shape them into worthy prose at various stages of my writing
career: my undergraduate thesis advisers at Yale, Richard Halpern
and David Rodowick; former Village Voice editors Jeff Salamon,
Scott Malcolmson, Lisa Kennedy, and Joe Levy; Gnosis editors Jay
Kinney and Richard Smoley; and ace cybercritic Mark Dery, who
asked me to write the essay that formed the seed crystal for the
present work. Even more invaluable have been the coundess
kaleidoscopic conversations about philosophy, science, and spirit I
have had over the years with my great friends Julian Dibbell, JP
Harpignies, and Marcus Boon, all of whom challenged me to find
my own weird path into technoculture and to face the difficulties
of writing it down head-on.
My buddy Dan Levy harangued me into shaping my stray
thoughts into a book project, and then convinced someone to
actually buy it. Relationships with huge and distant corpora­
tions can be rocky: thanks to Harmony editors Andrew Stuart,
who swooped in midway to save the day with his generous
attention and sharp suggestions, and Peter Guzzardi, who
kindly shepherded TechGnosis through the end game. The book
you hold would be a flabbier and more error-ridden thing were
x TECHGNOSIS
it not for the perceptions, pens, and pencils of my manuscript
readers, who, if they have not already been mentioned, include
Margaret Wertheim, papa Russ Davis, Rachel Koenig, David
Ulansey, Jeff Gorvetzian, and my mother Sandra Zarcades, who
lent her razor-sharp copyediting skills to many of its drafts.
Wef Linson helped me keep perspective throughout the
daily grind with his spiritual ruminations and carefree cracks,
while the Midtown Niki Starving Writers Fund allowed me to
focus on the task at hand. Thanks as well to the large circle of
comrades and netminds who took the time to swap ideas, give
me encouragement, or feed me nifty memes: Peter Lamborn
Wilson, Mark Pesce, Scott Durham, Spiros Antonopoulos,
Molly McGarry, Manuel DeLanda, Hermano Vianna Jr., Jordan
Gruber, Terence McKenna, Charles Cameron, Tom Lane, James
O’Meara, Paul Miller, Kate Ramsey, Konrad Becker, Craig
Baldwin, Sam Webster, Mark Stahlman, and Grampa Jake, who
sent me a steady stream of juicy newspaper clippings from the
desert heartland. In particular, Pit Schultz, Diana McCarty, and
the nettime crew plugged me into a community of technology
critics whose trenchant debates helped me keep my cosmologi­
cal feet on the ground.
Everyone knows that no single individual can write a book,
even though one person, i.e., me, must take responsibility for its
perhaps inevitable flaws and errors. This does not mean that
writing TechGnosis did not sometimes make me feel as though I
were alone in the Siberian wastes, trying to claw my way out of
an ice cave with a toothbrush and a Bic lighter. I thank all gods
for my love, Jennifer Dumpert, who not only scraped me up
from the bottom of the barrel on a regular basis, but whose wis­
dom, patience, and incisive feedback helped me weave this labor
into a life of riches.