Atheistic Idolatry

There's been some recent discussion in the part of the online world I inhabit on AI and its usefulness or otherwise. I haven't much to add to the wise words of William James Tychonievich, Frank Berger and Bruce Charlton, but I would reinforce all that they say. As far as I am concerned, AI might have some value for students wishing to submit essays without actually doing any work or learning anything, but, from the spiritual point of view, it is not just a negative but something approaching a Satanic snare. 

What is the point of something that knows everything but understands nothing? If knowledge does not come from a place of understanding but what is effectively a void then it can only be harmful, harmful to the mind and harmful to the soul. For it is not the informational content of knowledge that matters so much as that from which it arises. In the case of a human source that would be a living mind. It is the mind that gives food for thought. There is no nourishment in AI for the knowledge it provides comes from emptiness, and anything that comes from such a source is devoid of truth and light. AI is the endarkenment of the human mind, and that is not even going into its potential for demonic exploitation.

Note: I took the idea of AI being a form of idolatry from Bruce Charlton.

Fear of the Dark

Few of us know real darkness nowadays. Unless you live deep in the countryside you will be probably have some buildings nearby that keep their outside lights on all night. Business premises have been like this for some time but now many private properties do it as well, presumably for security reasons. I remember as a child waking up in the night and not being able to see my hand in front of my face. There's no chance of that where I live today as there's always some light coming in through the curtains, some from lights on a neighbouring property but also a great deal from the night sky itself which reflects back light from the earth, from street lights and lights left on all night on the exteriors of buildings, both private and commercial.

It's insane. We evolved to need darkness to have proper sleep. Without darkness our sleep is more easily disturbed and more likely to be shallow, and this means our waking life will be lived more on the surface too because our minds have not engaged with deeper levels at night. The constant noise we put up with is a contributing factor to that as well, but the lack of darkness in our lives means we live in an increasingly artificial state. Darkness helps us to go inwards. It takes us away from the distractions of life and the excessive stimulation of the modern world. Too much stimulation makes us live on edge, on the outside of things, caught up in the endless movement of material life, and unable to find true rest and restoration which can only be known in stillness and silence, and in the deep darkness that is conducive to peace. Darkness is a friend we no longer wish to know.

We can do this because of electricity. It's no coincidence that the discovery and exploitation of electricity has accompanied the rise and growth of materialism. The two are clearly linked and not just because electricity has powered the modern world. If we ask where electricity comes from we find that it has its origin in the world of sub-nature, and what comes from that world partakes of that world and carries the influence of that world. Jeremy Naydler wrote an interesting book about the prehistory of the computer called In the Shadow of the Machine in which he examines this question of electricity. He concludes with Rudolf Steiner that it is a form of degraded light which might mimic light but lacks its spiritual qualities because it comes from what we might justifiably call the nether regions. Our reliance on electricity and addiction to its use will affect our consciousness which will also become, has become, degraded and desensitised. This is because what we use imparts its qualities to our minds. We enter its world and become part of that world. Our injudicious and excessive use of electricity is taking us out of the world of nature, never mind the spiritual world, and into the underworld which is where electricity comes from.

This is obviously all part of the end times scenario and we can't escape it unless we trek off into the wilderness which is not feasible for most of us and may have its own problems for souls who have elected to live now. What we can do is become aware of the problem. We may have to use electricity to live in the world of the present time but we can be sparing in our use of it, and not allow ourselves to become caught up in the products it powers which will inevitably have a despiritualising effect on us. Electricity is not just material as opposed to spiritual. It derives from a place below the natural world which is our proper earthly home. Who does not feel a greater sense of emotional well-being in a room lit by candlelight or even gas than one with electric light? We may have found a great source of energy but it demands something of us and what it demands is of a spiritual nature.

Symbolically, darkness is ignorance and death, and light is knowledge and life. But there is also good darkness and bad light and we must know the difference.

AI is Simply the Latest Manifestation of Materialism

Bruce Charlton has a recent piece on the subject of AI, something about which, I must confess, I know next to nothing. But I do know a little about computer technology which is the basis of AI, and I also have enough spiritual understanding to realise that AI is just another poisoned chalice, something that will suck us into its orbit because of its spurious attractions and the ease it offers to lazy minds. I am pretty lazy myself but at least I know it's a fault that, if indulged in, leads to inertia which is another form of death.

I was encouraged by Bruce's post to offer a short comment which ran as follows: "AI is simply the latest manifestation of materialism, latest and worst because it is the fullest denial so far of spirit. It is humanity rejecting the reality of soul and farming out its consciousness to the machine. This is the modern cult of death in its grimmest form to date because it is a renunciation of both individuality and freedom. Neither can exist in a computer and the more we embrace this technology the more we lose connection to what actually makes us human."

When will we learn that just because we can do something doesn't mean we should? But we will do it. Naturally there will be the usual round of fake debate in which we question the use of AI and wonder if the robots will take over the world and destroy humanity but we will go ahead and everyone will eagerly hop on board just as they did with computers and smart phones. The machine will have made further inroads into our consciousness and we will have separated ourselves even more from the reality of spirit. This is part of the ongoing descent into a world of pure quantity in which nothing exists that cannot be measured. Human creativity will be put in a box with its lid firmly fastened. We will be told that AI and creativity can run alongside each other but it doesn't work like that. You either acknowledge the reality of spirit in which case AI will be recognised as anti-spirit or you ignore it in which case you enter a world in which everything is counted, controlled, numbered and known. That is a form of death because it denies freedom which is life.

The Transhumanist Route to Hell

This article is all about Satanism but the hapless individual promoting it is totally unaware of the path she has embarked on and where she will end up if she pursues her current course. Transhumanism presents itself as a bright and shiny new development for the human race which has the potential to bring enlightenment and immortality by manipulating our minds and bodies so that the errors and deficiencies of nature are corrected. This could be through mechanical, chemical or biological means but is essentially an artificial reconstruction based on purely materialistic methods. It claims a certain spiritual content but let's not forget that Satan is a spiritual being. His sin is not the denial of the spiritual so much as the denial of God. It is most telling that the article specifically says, "We are building God." No, you are not. You are building hell on earth. You are rejecting the true God and attempting to build a false one. A man-made one, an idol, and this would turn out to be, if it ever actually came to pass, just another means for the demonic powers to milk human energy and consciousness. We would go into it expecting salvation but it would really be damnation which is another way of describing soul loss. Transhumanism is all about handing over your soul to the demons. It's the ultimate Faustian pact. You get power of some kind, though it's never what you really hoped for, but at the cost of your soul.

The transhumanists think they are pioneers in opening up consciousness and finding new ways of reconfiguring the human form but they are actually following the oldest of paths that goes right back to the book of Genesis and maybe to Atlantean times. What Satan offered in the Garden of Eden was the transhumanist ticket. Be a god yourself. Forget God. The Tower of Babel was a transhumanist construction. Get to heaven without God. Be your own god. This is pure Satanism and it leads straight to hell. One can only hope that the naive egotists who follow this path don't encourage too many others to join them and that they themselves wake up before it's too late. You have to go up to Heaven which you do by conforming your being to its laws. You cannot bypass those laws and bring Heaven down to where you are now.

Science and God

 Adam Piggott has written an interesting piece on his blog about science and God that takes no prisoners. His conclusion is that you can have one or the other but not both. One part of me agrees but another part feels that science is just a word for knowledge and surely it is not wrong to explore the creation as long as one does it while fully acknowledging the Creator and understanding everything in his light? I have to say that my personal feelings incline towards Adam Piggott’s position but I am not convinced I am correct. It may be how things are now but is not necessarily how the situation always would be. Perhaps the problem is that science easily corrupts the scientist and the type of person who becomes a scientist is often (not always) a materialist who lacks both imagination and intuition not to mention faith. Maybe the scientific method and way of thinking actually require one to close off parts of one's mind that are spiritually attuned or to atrophy these parts*.

But notwithstanding my uncertainty on the matter, let's take the position of assuming there is indeed a dichotomy between science and God. Here are some thoughts put forward as a theory – no more. This also echoes a previous post I did on technology.

What if all our science and, especially, our technology actually comes from a highly intelligent but spiritually dead demonic source, and is given to humanity to separate us from God and bring about our spiritual corruption?

 

The stories we hear about scientists being inspired in dreams which are sometimes taken as being somehow divine in origin may be something quite other. The spiritual and the demonic are often confused by those who have no experience of such things.

 

What brought about the Fall of Man from Paradise? It was when the serpent promised Eve that she could be the equal of Adam and even God if she ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now, this tree and its fruit were presumably created by God so were not bad in themselves but the sin was to eat from the tree before being ready and against the specific instruction from God not to do so. The fruit represents the mind or thought which are not bad things except when they are separated from the spiritual source and regarded as independent of God. That is science, is it not?

 

Eating the fruit means awakening to mind and the world of opposites it reveals and that in turn brings about the sense of a separate self. It destroyed Paradise and resulted in the Fall. Sin and death entered the world and they entered, it could reasonably be said, with science.

 

The process has continued. Over the last 200 years technology, put through from demonic levels, has destroyed tradition and religion and turned the world into an outpost of hell. Look at our art and architecture just for starters. Technology has corrupted our minds and now, with the diabolical fantasies of transhumanism, is even beginning to deform the human image. The Faustian pact gives us power over our world and our outer self but at the price of severing the link with the divine and our true being.

 

We get material power but each new form of technology takes us further away from God and the soul. We accept this happily because we only see the benefits which are not even benefits really because they soon pall and we demand more like a junkie with his fix.

 

Technology is about replacing man with machine, first externally but increasingly internally. Depending on machines for everything just makes our consciousness more mechanical and less alive which is why everything is duller these days. Our minds and our very consciousness become desensitised by technology and shrivel. The computers we increasingly live our lives through are stealing our souls and eroding our spiritual faculties which range from imagination to awareness of the sacred. Even our moral sense is undermined.

 

Where is all this leading? Is the aim to turn this world into hell and human souls into soulless zombies which the demons can exploit for their own ends? That may be why they wish to have people mentally and physically remade by technology. It is like the corruption of elves into orcs by Morgoth in Tolkien’s legendarium. But perhaps the technological advancements have another aim as well.

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Demons lack bodies. They have lost their angelic forms and do not have a physical form either. They are spirits in the inner dimensions but they crave form for the greater powers of self-expression and freedom this would give them. Is it possible that through technology, through computers, through artificial intelligence, they are trying to gain an entry into this world? Could this provide the platform they need to incarnate directly in matter? Remember they are currently neither in spirit proper nor matter. They exist in a kind of limbo world, cut off from God. By remodelling the physical world so it is no longer the natural creation they make it possible to connect directly with it. Through digital and mechanical means they can incarnate. Sensitive souls have complained about the spiritual ravages caused by the Industrial Revolution from the beginning. Blake and Wordsworth were at the forefront of this but we have ignored them because we are so easily seduced by material goods. But now things are potentially much worse. The dream of freedom offered by technology is close to becoming the nightmare of slavery to it.

 

This is a theory. From the normal point of view it’s crazy, the stuff of science fiction as the saying goes. But maybe science fiction can warn us of what may happen if we let it. No, what will happen if we do not take active steps to stop it. We absolutely must rediscover God and reject completely the lure of the demons before they destroy us. Could this be what happened before and brought about the necessity for God to drown a previous humanity at the time of the Flood? For one thing is certain. Even if the demons succeed their success won’t last long. God will not permit it. Surely they know that? Perhaps, but maybe their pride thinks they can get away with it this time. It's up to us to make sure they do not.

* Adam Piggott has written a later piece clarifying that he is referring to science as it is today. So, as it has become rather than what it intrinsically is though the question still remains as to whether that is inevitable given the nature of science and the type of thought that is required to pursue it.

Modern Technology Equals Materialism

I don't comment in many places online but I recently did so on a good article on William Briggs's site as it addressed one of my concerns, that being the nefarious influence of modern technology on the soul or, better put, on awareness of the soul. The article was basically saying that none of events of the last two years could have taken the form they did without technology which has aided, abetted and made possible the agenda from lockdowns to pecks to incessant testing to the possibility of home-working etc. This could not have happened until the last few years which makes one wonder if the reason the thing broke out when it did was precisely that it could now happen. Be that as it may, the fact is that even ten years ago we would just have had to tough it out and get on with life as we have had to do on previous occasions. And it is quite possible that it would all be over by now instead of being dragged out seemingly endlessly.

My comment was not to with the way modern technology facilitated what Mr Briggs correctly calls "the madness of rulers, Experts and ourselves" but the whole notion of technology itself. I said as follows. "Technology equals materialism, it’s as simple as that. Yes, I know stone age man had tools but that’s not what I mean. A line is crossed when the technology we use is no longer made by hand and the average person cannot understand how it is made. Then we find we have separated ourselves from the world of spirit and embedded ourselves in matter. That is why it is a mistake to say that technology is neutral, it’s how we use it that matters. The sort of technology we have and use inevitably bends our minds into its shape. The more sophisticated the technology, the more it separates us from God. The only way to protect against this is to be very aware of it."

My point was that technology as we practice it now is not a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill. That theory is often put forward but I regard it as a grave error. The sort of technology we use determines the sort of people we are or the sort we become. A materialistic technology, one based on machines, makes a materialistic people. It cannot fail to do this because it makes assumptions about life that we tacitly absorb when we use it. It even moulds our minds into the form it takes so to say that it is neutral is absurd. 

Another commenter disagreed with me maintaining that it is not technology but what we do with it that matters. In other words, the technologies are neutral argument I have mentioned. He said we are made in God's image and our technologies reflect God's creativity. This may seem superficially plausible but ignores the effect that using a materialistic technology has on the soul however you use it, as well as the mindset that creates and sustains such a technology. What is that mindset? Human beings probably could have done this kind of thing long ago but did not think it worthwhile because we were more spiritual focussed. Only when we lost that focus did we pursue the path of dominating matter by artificial means.

 In order to clarify my original post I replied that I was talking about modern technology which I regard as an aberration which is not to say that it shouldn't have happened at all but it may have been a phase to go through and grow out of relatively quickly rather than get stuck in as has happened. Was it just a coincidence that modern technology arose at the same time as atheism, materialism and the decline of Christian understanding and it directly supported these things? The technology we develop and use does affect our relationship with the world and our approach to God so it really isn’t what we do with it that matters. It does things with us, with us and to us, and a materialistic technology will materialise our minds. It dehumanises us and desanctifies the world. It separates us from both God and Nature. That is what it has clearly done and is doing more than ever now. 

God certainly did make us in his image but we constantly distort that image. I do believe that a spiritual technology can be developed (it may even have existed in previous civilisations), but it will not be mechanistic as our current technology is. A materialistic technology produces materialistic people.

My commenting correspondent said that "Materialism implies that living in matter or desiring things made of matter is bad. But if the Creation is good, then how can that possibly be? It can’t." To which I replied that the Creation is certainly good but we live in a fallen world. Matter is good but only when seen as the expression of spirit not when seen as its own reality.

I know that an argument of this sort can go on forever. I can be accused of hypocrisy because I use technology when I criticise the basis of it, but I live in the modern world and have to adjust to it up to a point. That doesn't mean that I can't envisage a situation better than the one we have. Do you not know that if our consciousness changed the world would also change? A spiritualised consciousness would produce a more spiritualised world. The physical environment would actually adapt to our minds. We cannot use the tools of materialism without the strong likelihood of becoming materialised ourselves.

Technocracy is the Perfection of Materialism

The events of the last 12 months have made obvious something that has been gradually taking place over many years. The world is on the way to being ruled by a system of technocracy. Politics and politicians play their part but they are increasingly just enacting the will of a group of technical specialists and experts working to impose control over the populace. In their own minds and according to their own beliefs, these people may be well-motivated and working for the good of humanity but that is because their vision of life is severely limited. They are completely materialistic, regarding human beings as things to be worked on. Certainly, to be brought to an optimum level of efficiency, at once intellectual, emotional and moral, and made collectively happy with suffering, both physical and mental, reduced to a minimum but ultimately little more than machines which need effective servicing to run smoothly. In this scenario, the individual is of diminished importance, personal freedom is allowed only to the extent that it doesn't interfere with the overall programme and the spiritual is completely denied except insofar as a pseudo-spiritual might be included as a psychological palliative. 

It is computers that have made this possible. There are grounds for saying that computers are one of the greatest disasters to have befallen human beings since we got thrown out of Eden. So seductive that we have all succumbed to them but actually separating us from the soul more than we ever have been because in many ways they parody true spiritual consciousness. Indeed, computers can be regarded as a material perversion of the spiritual in that they externalise (on a lower level and in a degraded fashion) some of the qualities of the soul thus disincentivising us to seek the higher reality. But they have also laid bare the myth that technology in itself is neutral. Technology is far from neutral for our minds tend to adopt the form of the technology we use. We are starting to think like computers and in terms of computer technology and in so doing we create a barrier between our minds and higher domains of spiritual freedom and intuition.

Technocracy is anti-God because it is materialistic, atheistic, seeks complete control, subordinates truth to the expedient and the efficient, denies the primacy of the good, the beautiful and the true and puts power in the hands of an unaccountable few whose expertise in specialised areas blinds them to the overall picture. But for the technocratic type of mind theirs is the best way to organise society because this mind is oblivious to what lies beyond the quantitative level.

In a world controlled by data and spreadsheets there is no room for beauty, mystery, sacrifice or love. It is a world run by algorithms in which neither freedom nor the real good can find expression, good now being defined as that which makes the system run more efficiently. Human beings are viewed in terms of their material selves only, and this in a far more complete way than any of our previous political systems which were a hodge-podge of the natural human and materialistic ways of thinking. Technocracy is materialism brought to full power and complete dominance. It is the logical conclusion of materialism hence its appeal to materialistic minds. There is no space for anything outside a closed system. Inevitably any technocracy will collapse in the long run because there cannot be a closed system. Truth must eventually interpose. However, tremendous damage can be done to the soul before this position is reached. 

If hell can be defined as a place closed to divine influence then the ideal technocratic society is a reasonable image of of one kind of hell, the kind run by measurement and numbers in which the soul is a known quantity. And this is what we are in the process of constructing. It's what the events of the last 12 months have brought closer. Do you want your soul to be just a statistic on a computer?

Online Services

Today is Easter Sunday and churches are closed everywhere. Supermarkets are open, chemists are open, even garages and off-licences are open. In the town where I live there is a shop selling nothing but sweets that is still open. But churches are closed and the substitute offered is online.

This is what I think. Online services have no spiritual validity whatsoever. They are a mechanical imitation of the real thing which exist on a materialist level only. The words may be the same, the formal ceremony may be very similar but the spiritual force is just not there. How could it be? The spiritual cannot exist in the virtual. It is not a materialistic thing that can be reproduced through algorithms and those who consider this in any way a satisfactory replacement for the true interaction of human beings in the real world have no comprehension of what spirituality is. Where two or three are gathered together, there I am.  But they are not gathered together if they all sit in their isolated rooms staring at a computer screen. It's like thinking you can be fed while looking at a menu.

I know there will be all sorts of specious explanations as to why this is better than nothing or has been done many times before for the elderly who cannot get to church or is not different to services on the television (also spiritually useless in my opinion), but these are all self-deceiving excuses. The spiritual cannot be reproduced by the material, and computer technology is materialistic to its core.

You see, it all depends on what spirituality actually is. Is it just the outer form and words or is it an inner reality that may be conveyed by the words but goes beyond them? Clearly, it is this latter but that cannot pass through machines or remotely and if you don't understand that, you are a long way from the living truth of God. 

By accepting an imitation as valid you lose your connection to the authentic. I personally feel that the churches have long lost that connection anyway and if they hadn't, they would never have contemplated offering this parody of reality as a satisfactory substitute for it. It is a capitulation to the forces of secularism and this closing of the churches at Easter is surely conclusive proof that the churches no longer serve their supposed Master.  Don't bother attending an online service. Rather, go out into the open air. Stand in your bare feet on the grass and make your prayers to God there. He is to be found in the wind and the trees, the blue sky and the bright sun. Also, of course, in the human heart that is turned towards him. He is not to be found through a computer screen.

Is Christianity supposed to be about making good men or new men? Surely the teaching of Easter is that it is the latter. Resurrection of the spiritual self from the death of the earthly self. But the modern churches seem to believe that it all about being good and good, what is more, in the secular sense of a generalised humanitarianism according to the philosophical grounding of the French Revolution which was a complete rejection of God. The church, especially the Church of England (as a body, there are plenty of individuals for whom this is not the case), has increasingly incorporated the teachings of its enemy as its core principles.

Note: Lest I be accused of hypocrisy I should add that a post on blog is not like a church service. Computers are good for some things  such as conveying information and ideas but cannot serve as a medium between God and Man as, ideally, a church service should.

Computers and Demons

 I'm venturing into a field I know very little about here but I have some observations to make about the computer revolution and where it might lead that I believe are not as far-fetched as you might think. 

Computers reduce quality to quantity. That is the basis of their operations and completely in line with the materialistic view of the world. They are also a form of magic insofar as magic is the power to effect change by unusual methods not normally open to us. Much of modern technology could be called that but computers are the most extreme example up to now. 

Magic, it is said, can be white or black but, to all intents and purposes, it is largely the province of the demonic since it is overcoming nature by the will, specifically the will to power. 

I think that the computer revolution has been driven by demons. It has certainly been captured by them but it was probably instigated by them too. 

I think this for several reasons. Computers are wholly materialistic in conception, function and operation but they imitate the spiritual. The effect of computers is spuriously spiritual in that they give theoretical access to all knowledge and have the capacity to simulate reality on a virtual level. Also, there is the ability of a network of computers to create a kind of global oneness even if this is external only and largely artificial. 

The use of computers separates human beings from their source and renders their thinking mechanical. Our minds tend to adopt the form of the technology we use and this is certainly the case with computers. 

Computers distract us from reality, leading us into a rabbit warren of illusion and fantasy and making us less able to discriminate between the real and the unreal. I could go on but really you either see this or you don't. The only question is do the positives, too obvious to mention, outweigh the negatives or vice versa. Given that the positives are obvious and the negatives more subtle that is not such an easy question to answer though I know what I think.

If the IT revolution is demonically inspired the question is why? The immediate answer might be to distract people from the spiritual and make them more susceptible to evil using that word in its broadest sense to mean anti-spiritual. Not just conventionally bad but wrong, that which separates us from truth. Computers are seductive and create a world of glamour and enchantment that allures us. They lead us away from nature into dreams and artificiality.

But is there more?  It seems to be the case that the demons cannot take physical form except under certain very particular circumstances and for brief periods. UFO phenomena indicates that and stories from tradition about other-worldly beings inhabiting a kind of borderland between this world and the next say the same thing. Demons would probably like to incarnate directly on Earth because this would give them greater power over us. There might also be something about being in a body that they covet. Might the drive towards artificial intelligence, quantum computing and developing computers that are carbon-based actually be all about enabling demons to incarnate? CS Lewis explored ideas along these lines in his novel That Hideous Strength where the 'macrobes' sought to take a kind of embodiment through the severed head of an executed evil genius type.

Many people are aware of the problems associated with humanity's current addiction to IT. These are mostly to do with how it denatures us and reduces our ability to respond to the real world, never mind the spiritual world, properly. The increase in global surveillance is also a concern. But what if the true purpose of the computer revolution, the end game so to speak, was to enable the incarnation of demons in this world? Is this a possibility we should start taking seriously?

Technological Gain equals Spiritual Loss

Since the industrial age, at least, there are solid grounds for saying that all technology makes human beings worse. More 'me-focused' and more exteriorised in their consciousness in that the outer world becomes more real to them and the inner world correspondingly less so. If ever one doubted this to be the case the computer age has surely confirmed it. You only have to see the addicted state of people to their mobile phones to perceive this. You might say that in the past the people who stare at their phones all the time on the train (for example) would have been reading books, and some might be doing that on their phone. But most aren't. They're doing trivial stuff, and their phones have just facilitated and encouraged the unfortunate human desire to distract itself with baubles and be constantly entertained. Reading a book requires a much deeper level of engagement. Now, people live more and more on the surface, separated at several removes from reality and are increasingly unable to engage with life at a deeper level. Of course, this is not all down to mobile phones but they have enabled a weakness that in the past would not have been so easily indulged.

That's one example but it's just the most obvious. There are others. Take cars. They seem a universal good to most people (as long as one ignores the noise, pollution and disfigurement of the land). But they can subtly change character. All that power seems to be an extension of me and gives me an inflated sense of myself. Then I feel that it is my right to have this ease of transport instead of it being a gift and a privilege. If I can pay for it then it is mine. Again, more me. This attitude is the reverse of the spiritual approach that sees everything as coming from God. Obviously, it's not restricted to cars but the point is that technological advances encourage it because they take us further away from the natural and the simple. Unless we are very alive to the dangers they pose, they can easily corrupt us.

Communities like the Amish are aware of this but I don't believe they are the answer. Technology is a fact of life and one we have to engage with if we are born at a time when it exists in a certain form. But, if we should not cut ourselves off from it, nor should we give it our full allegiance. We should use it while being aware of its spiritual dangers, and therefore use it sparingly.

Early humanity had no technology as such. Then we invented tools and set off down the path which has brought us to where we are now, completely in thrall to it, its master but also its servant. I have a theory that as we progress, if we progress in the way God intends, we will gradually strip ourselves of technological dependence and revert to something like the old hunter gatherers. But with this critical difference. We will acquire the ability to mentally engage with our environment. I believe the environment itself will become more pliable as we become more spiritually attuned. It is the hardening of our consciousness that has aided and abetted in the hardening of the environment. The reverse process is possible, indeed desirable. Jesus told us we would be able to do what he did. That is what he meant. But note that unlike magicians, many of whom are still amongst us, Jesus worked through God, making himself the vessel of his Father. That is what we have to learn to do to overcome our technological addiction without falling into magic which always separates its practitioner from God. For all magic is black magic.

Technology and the Smartphone

More and more people are uneasy about the dehumanising effects of modern technology, particularly the ubiquitous use of the smartphone to which the younger generation are, without exaggeration, addicted. I have felt extremely ambivalent about all this since the early days of the computer.  I remember being told by many people who identified themselves with New Age types of spirituality in the 1980s that computer technology was inspired by God or the spiritual powers or whatever form of hidden reality they believed in, but I instinctively resisted this. Ditto for the worldwide connectivity of the internet which was supposed to be a forerunner of spiritual consciousness. To me the whole technology was a parody of true spiritual understanding, Satan aping God as he likes to do but doing so in a crude and materialistic way since he is unable to do otherwise. As time has gone by I have become ever more convinced that modern computer technology is, to put it bluntly, demonically inspired, if not in its actual origin then certainly in its development and use and exploitation. How can it be otherwise since it substitutes breadth for depth, the exterior for the interior and makes everything so easy that it loses its flavour and nourishment? Those who understand will know what I mean. Others might perhaps ponder on the difference between material and spiritual progress and see that the two don't necessarily go together, and are sometimes at complete odds.

There is an often quoted passage from the book of Revelation which can be taken to be referring to the outcome of this form of technology without too much stretching of the imagination.

"And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Rev 14:9-11)

Strong stuff that would probably be considered hate speech nowadays. But let's consider what it might mean in relation to modern computer technology. You can't call this technology evil in itself, and the use of it is not sinful as such though it can open the door to all sorts of temptations and distractions. Therefore it can undoubtedly lead to potential sins not to mention ever more separation from the spiritual world. Nonetheless, worshipping the beast and receiving the mark must entail more than simply using a computer or smartphone.


The devil is no fool. He works in stages, leading us from seemingly innocent pursuits and preoccupations more and more deeply into his net until we end up doing and thinking and feeling things we never would have done when we started. So once we have become so addicted to our smartphones that we cannot imagine life without them he will introduce another level and then another and so on until there will finally come a point at which we will be led to make a conscious decision as to whether to carry on down this path or turn back. Carrying on will, in some way, mean renouncing God and utterly rejecting spiritual truth. 

Perhaps by then we will only be able to engage in any kind of economic activity if we allow ourselves to receive some kind of 'tag', even an implant, to get which we might have to take an oath of commitment to something that, in effect, denies God. Things do seem to be tending in that direction. So the time may come when we will have to choose whether to continue receiving our habitual worldly benefits, or maybe receive even greater benefits which we might not be aware of now but which will seem very attractive then, or not, and if we wish to get these things then we may have to do something similar to swearing allegiance to the old Roman gods, only something far more serious in its implications because it will require not just an outer gesture as that did but a real inner act of submission. By then the establishment hierarchy will probably be devil worshippers of some sort, though it will be perceived far less crudely than that, of course. It will doubtless seem sophisticated and spiritually advanced though it will clearly lack Christ in spirit and probably in name too since the name of Christ is a holy one that cannot be defiled. But anyone wishing to receive the favour and privileges of the establishment, or even lead a normal life in the world with money, material comfort and all the perks of modernity, will have to make a similar commitment to the 'beast'. They will have to accept its 'mark' in return for being allowed full participation as a citizen of a global government.


Hysterical fear-mongering? Perhaps. It is only an imaginary speculation. Nevertheless the signs of the times are pointing in this direction for those whose spiritual eyes are in any way open, and who have paid attention to the warnings we have been given from tradition.

Technology and Computers

I am writing this on a computer and you will be reading it on one too. In the course of your work you are probably using a computer for much of the time and, increasingly, your leisure hours will be spent looking at some form of computer. Life today is unthinkable without these machines which have conquered the world in an incredibly short space of time.  Many people may have reservations about certain aspects of the computer revolution but most still regard it as something whose advantages greatly outweigh its drawbacks. Here I'd like to act as devil's advocate. I think there is a case to be made that the computer and the technology associated with it are inherently anti-spiritual.

Of course, I’m not blind to the computer's many benefits, the ease of access to a seemingly limitless range of information, the speed of communication, the bringing together of physically separated like-minded individuals and so on. The computer would never have made such an impact if it had not opened up so many new opportunities, and there is no doubt that it has done so in virtually every field. All that is obvious. And yet there is a price to pay, and I am reminded of the remark made by Jesus that 'What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?' I realise that puts me in the corner marked for cranks, killjoys and Luddites, but I am not saying we should throw away our computers. Only that we should be alive to the threat they represent. They are a fact of the modern world but that shouldn't mean that we close our eyes to the potential dangers that come with them.

How is it that computers could cause you to lose your soul? I should say first of all that I don't mean this literally, but, figuratively speaking, I do mean it. What you lose is awareness of your soul. As you become more and more caught up in a virtual reality, as you become more absorbed by it, so you become more and more separated from your soul. The computer denatures life. It is the most significant advance yet of the machine and, as such, it points to the mechanisation of consciousness. It is that which will cause you to lose touch with your soul. The more you succumb to the lure of a computerised world, the more you will lose the connection to the mystery of the world that lies beyond form and quantity which is the world of materialistic science.

Advocates of modern technology like to say that it is neutral in itself. It is what you do with it that raises questions, moral questions, questions of philosophy and so on. But I think this is mistaken. The acceptance of the increasing dominance of technology in our lives is a psychological attitude and what that attitude indicates is an implicit belief in the superiority of the machine over nature. I don't think that technology is neutral or that it is just a means to an end which we may determine ourselves. I believe it to be an end in itself, and that end is the de-naturing of the world leading to the separation of man from God.

Don't write this off as the reaction of an hysterical alarmist. We have been told by someone who knew what he was talking about that you cannot serve God and Mammon, and I believe that to be literally true. Mammon is not just money. It represents everything that is of this world and what else is technology, the attempt to conquer nature by mechanical means, if not a thing of this world? I am not arguing for a return to the Stone Age (or even before that time since Stone Age man had axes and the like so had a technology of some kind), but for a proper understanding of the significance of what modern technology really is. I write this with no hope of appealing to anyone except the already converted, and with the full expectation that most people will reject it as nonsense. I would expect to be reminded of the countless lives that technology has saved and I obviously don't dismiss that as insignificant though I would say that we all die anyway and our state of mind at death is perhaps more important than how long we live. We live forever anyway. No, the many benefits of modern technology are undeniable. But to me what is also undeniable is that our growing addiction to it and dependence on it is robbing us of our ability to respond to the soul. And that means that our capacity to respond to real truth and real beauty, even, I would submit, real love, is much diminished. We are increasingly fobbed off with imitations and distortions of these things, and many of us don't even notice it though many do notice, even if only subliminally, resulting in feelings of discontent and pointlessness.

Maybe this is all meant to be as anything that can be must eventually work itself out in the external world. That doesn't mean it is a good thing, though, in the sense of something to be wholeheartedly embraced and regarded without circumspection just because it is an inevitable part of the world we live in and we must accept that world as it is. It might also represent a test for humanity to hold fast to a higher truth in the face of a sustained assault on the very notion of any such thing as a higher truth. One of the tasks of all those who value the spiritual is to call the world back to its source, to point out that it has lost its way and been bewitched by the spurious glamour of fake gold. Fake gold is everywhere these days and the only way to avoid being corrupted by its alluring sparkle is to see beyond appearance and hold fast to purity.

The computer may just be a tool but our minds tend to reflect the technologies they use and the limitations of these technologies become our own.