Angels with Nanotech Wings: Magic, Medicine and Technology in Aronofsky's the Fountain, Gibson's the Neuromancer and Slonczewski's Brain Plague (Joan Slonczewski and Darren Aronofsky) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Entry: Angels with Synapses How many angels can dance at the head of a pin? This question perplexed Medieval and Renaissance scholars. For them, the fantastic was not a matter of science fiction, but science fact. There was much debate as to whether angels were material entities or forms of energy. Curiously, angels and spiritual accomplices are re-appearing in the current zeitgeist. On the lecture site "Ted.Com," the author of Eat, Pray, Love (2006), Elizabeth Gilbert makes a powerful plea for protecting our metaphors of creativity by re-adopting the Platonic models of the 'diamonic.' Cited in "The Myth of Er" (Book X of Plato's Republic), this spiritual entity is acquired by human souls in their pre-lives before they arrive on the planet. The diamon then accompanies us on our human journey, helping us to deliver on our pre-ordained purpose. If we avoid our destiny, it can quite literally raise hell. The diamon is also the accompanying 'genius,' or 'spirit.' Gilbert takes on this concept to suggest that we will be saner as artists if we drop the idea that it is humans themselves who are the geniuses, considering instead that we are aided in our creativity by forces beyond us. As literary scholar and ecologist Harold Fromm reminds us, from the ancients referring to their Muses, Milton speaking of his "Creator Spiritus" and W.B. Yeats surrounded by his writerly spooks, traditionally, many literary practitioners have been open minded towards spiritual discourses (2005). Gilbert's lecture might signify a revitalizing of the idea that artists need their mystical accomplices.