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Apple, Are You Ready to Make Contact?

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13825577.2011.626949

1744-4233

Miriam Wallraven,

Media, Religion, Digital Communication

According to the holistic world view of the western esoteric tradition, science and esoteric knowledge have always been intertwined due to their recognition of the universal relationships of energy. By providing a continuation of the esoteric approach to science and technology in the post-modern period, the computer and the internet represent particular examples of the continuation of characteristic esoteric principles. Yet, they also shed light on the adaptability of esoteric approaches to understanding the world. Bearing this in mind, this article examines the esoteric understanding of the computer and internet as manifest in texts of various genres, such as the New-Age ‘Faces of Findhorn: Images of a Planetary Family’ (1980), Starhawk's esoteric-utopian novel ‘The Fifth Sacred Thing’ (1993) as well as the Neopagan texts ‘The Goddess in the Office’ (1993) by Zsuzsanna Budapest, and, finally, Barbara Ardinger's ‘Pagan Every Day’ (2006) and ‘Finding New Goddesses’ (2003). These texts show how, on the one hand, esoteric traditions of correspondences and principles of universal interdependence have remained stable over the ages. On the other hand, they demonstrate how these traditions are creatively and pragmatically applied to the innovation of the computer. Thus, an old esoteric tradition is brought to bear on a new paradigm of communication technology which testifies to the creative adaptability of esotericism and accounts for its persistence throughout the ages.