Spirit Tech
The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Featuring a Foreword by Mikey Siegel, founder of Consciousness Hacking.
Technology can now control the spiritual experience. This is a journey through the high-tech aids for psychological growth that are changing our world, while exploring the safety, authenticity and ethics of this new world.
We already rely on technology to manage our health, sleep, relationships, and finances, so it’s no surprise that we’re turning to technological aids for the spiritual journey. From apps that help us pray or meditate, to cybernauts seeking the fast track to nirvana through magnetic brain stimulation, we are on the brink of the most transformative revolution in the practice of religion: an era in which we harness the power of “spirit tech” to deepen our experience of the divine.
Spirit tech products are rapidly improving in sophistication and power, and ordinary people need a trustworthy guide. Through their own research and insiders’ access to the top innovators and early adopters, Wesley J. Wildman and Kate J. Stockly take you deep inside an evolving world:
- Find out how increasingly popular “wearables” work on your brain, promising a shortcut to transformative meditative states.
- Meet the inventor of the “God Helmet” who developed a tool to increase psychic skills, and overcome fear, sadness, and anger.
- Visit churches that use ayahuasca as their sacrament and explore the booming industry of psychedelic tourism.
- Journey to a mansion in the heart of Silicon Valley where a group of scientists and entrepreneurs are working feverishly to bring brain-based spirit tech applications to the masses.
- Discover a research team who achieved brain-to-brain communication between individuals thousands of miles apart, harnessing neurofeedback techniques to sync and share emotions among group members.
Spirit Tech offers readers a compelling glimpse into the future and is the definitive guide to the fascinating world of new innovations for personal transformation, spiritual growth, and pushing the boundaries of human nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stimulating look into the technologies that could shape the future of spirituality, Wildman (Religion and Science) and Stockly (High on God) explore a range of brain-based tech designed to trigger, enhance, accelerate, modify, or measure spiritual experiences. Investigating the intensifying interaction between technology and religion, the authors talk to innovators and early adopters who are "hacking the spiritual brain" using ultrasounds to help practitioners meditate and experimenting with "high-tech telepathy" to build a social network of meditative brains. While critics may question "spirit tech's efficacy, elitism, and ethics," Wildman and Stockly are careful to note that religious believers have always used tools—including mantras, mandalas, prayer beads, and palm reading—to enhance spiritual experiences. The difference now, they write, is the sheer number of "customizable and exploratory practices at the threshold between cutting-edge tech and the soul," such as psychedelic trips in lieu of Holy Communion and LED orbs meant to foster connection between congregants. Wildman and Stockly's revealing introduction to this brave new world of transcendent tech will give both pious pioneers and defenders of traditional religiosity something to consider.
