Techgnosis: Myth, Magic + Mysticism in the Age of Information [Anglais] [Broché]

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 --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

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. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Davis, who has written for magazines as diverse as Wired, Rolling Stone, and Gnosis, here tackles the mythological and Gnostic implications of our continual push for new information technologies. He does bring together perspectives from a variety of disciplines, allowing some fascinating insights into the congruence between our quest for religious understanding and our technological progress. Unfortunately, Davis's reliance on unnecessary anachronisms (e.g., "the Gnostics imagined [the afterlife] as a kind of multileveled computer game") and his sometimes jarringly colloquial approach undermine the promise of the material. The book also suffers from a certain lack of critical examination and would have been stronger had Davis paid more attention to contextualizing and analyzing his material. Libraries looking for titles on the theological implications of technological progress would be better served by Jennifer Cobb's Cybergrace (LJ 3/15/98).ARachel Singer Gordon, Franklin Park P.L., IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

This look at heterodox approaches to postmodern technology veers all over the map, leaving little room for informed comments on pertinent subtopics. Logically enough, Davis begins by looking at the impact of both the phonetic alphabet - specifically, its relationship to Christianity - and of the discovery of electricity on modern technology. His definition of ``gnostic''in these early chapters seems innovative: Davis is careful to distinguish between the word's relation to the form of Christianity revealed in the documents found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the late 1940s, and its more general meaning as that which lies outside the mainstream. Yet, at the same time, he emphasizes that a strong link connects both definitions. Davis characterizes their shades-of-gray division as like that between the ``soul''and the ``spirit.'' Along the way, the author also considers important figures on the fringes of mainstream Christianity, notably Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and their bearing on emerging technologies. Unwisely, he spends a great deal of time discussing movements that are far beyond the pale, such as the Church of Scientology and the suicidal Heaven's Gate cult. In addition, Davis touches on the ties that bind J.R.R. Tolkien to high-powered computer games such as Doom; on the Year 2000 computer issue; on Masonic conspiracy theories; and much more. As all of this leaves him with little extra space, he (ironically) doesn - t engage enough with postmodern technology itself. In the concluding chapter, which provides an intriguing yet unmapped connection between an ancient Buddhist myth of Indra's net and today's World Wide Web before lapsing into a preachy epilogue, Davis writes, ``Tough-minded readers may find this interdependent vision of mystic materialism a bit of a stretch .`' Unfortunately for him, the same is also true of most of his work. He would have done well to have taken any chapter of Techgnosis and developed a book from it. Instead, here - s a challenging mishmash. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Davis draws from many sources and quotes them generously (even the most disaffected reader will be rewarded with a huge and hugely enjoyable reading list), but there is nothing frayed or secondhand about Davis's study. For a start, there is the sheer exuberance of the writing.... But it is Davis's own humanity that lends Techgnosis its lasting value. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"TechGnosis is a tour de force of scholarship, insight, and juicy writing. Like McLuhan, Erik Davis sheds light on the shadows--the places we've neglected to look, in our search for the meaning of human inventions."
--Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier


From the Trade Paperback edition. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

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. Ranging from the printing press to the telegraph, from radio to the Internet, David 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 techno-mysticism, Davis shows how the religious imagination continues to feed the utopian dreams, apocalyptic visions, and alien obsessions that populate today's technological unconscious.
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.

Revealing a mystical impulse behind our culture's information fetish, the author follows the religious roots of the information revolution to uncover surprising insights into our rational world. Reprint. PW.

Praise for TechGnosis

"TechGnosis is a tour de force of scholarship, insight, and juicy writing. Like McLuhan, Erik Davis sheds light on the shadows--the places we've neglected to look, or have feared to look, in our search for the meaning of human inventions."
--Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier

"TechGnosis is at once an EEG of our silicon unconscious and a recovered memory of sacred technologies. Erudite but wired to the eyeballs, Davis is that rare blend: a postmodern classicist, equally at home with ancient automata and alien autopsies. A true believer in the politics of myth, he is mindful, nonetheless, of the social issues that haunt our techno-eschatologies. Erik Davis is the perfect tour guide to our Disneyland of the Gods."
--Mark Dery, author of Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century and editor of Flame Wars

"Erik Davis has written one of the best media studies books ever published. There's never been a more lucid analysis of the goofy, muddled, superstition-riddled human mind, struggling to come to terms with high technology. Unlike most tomes about tech, the occult, and social theory, TechGnosis is literate, accessible, and funny. A real winner all around!"
--Bruce Sterling, author of The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier

"TechGnosis is a delirious and exhilarating exploration of the metascapes of new mind and new nature. Pungent and profound, the writing is pure alchemy, and the reader is redesigned in the very act of reading. This is perhaps the best book written on where we are going and how we got there."
--Jean Houston, author of A Mythic Life

"Erik Davis is an astute guide through the heavens and hells where cyber-reality, pop culture, and spiritual impulses arm wrestle each other for dominance. TechGnosis is a fascinating book that rewards the reader with an uncommon number of surprises and insights."
--Jay Kinney, editor-in-chief, Gnosis magazine

"Erik Davis's compendious recitation of the history of communications technology dominates the discursive landscape of techno-exegesis like a Martian war machine. In the grand style of H. G. Wells, TechGnosis is an apocalyptic synopsis of this century's technological climax."        
--Terence McKenna, author of The Archaic Revival --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Erik Davis has written for Wired, The Village Voice, Details, Spin, Gnosis, Rolling Stone, Lingua Franca, and The Nation and has lectured internationally on topics related to cyberculture and the fringes of religion. He lives in San Francisco.