Culture

We Invented Our Past Again

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In the world of technology 2024, among the bullshit (AI that’s just Clippy Turbo), the scams (pick your food substitute), and the pathological rich (everywhere) something seems familiar. There’s something that feels similar, something that’s not just a rut, but a sameness to all of this new inanity. Consider.

There’s new tech messiahs in town, a handful of men (always men) worshiped as virtual gods who are going to save us. Sure they may no thave invented anything, are building on connections and/or inherited money, have horrible politics, and probably committed sexual assault. Yet people gather around them reverently, singing their praises, vying for attention.

We have our Lord and Saviors – and best of all you can swap one out for another, plus they kind of dress alike,

There’s the promise of change, of revolution. We’ll ascend to space or go to mars. We can acclerate technical development into utopia (especially if you give my company money and venture capital). Just trust us, remove all limit, and we’ll have a future – and show those people who’s in charge.

We have the Apocalypse and the Kingdom of Heaven. Funny how the apocalyptic parts don’t get mentioned as much except for a few tech-types who like to pen vicious screeds grounded in their own paranoia.

There’s even the promise of immortality. This new food substitute will add years onto your life. There’s curious and disturbing talk of blood transfusions. Of course there’s always that promise of uploading your brain to the internet that echoes around the edges of these futuristic grasps for eternity.

For some tech promises we shall be undying in the new utopia.

What has Silicon Valley and it’s attendant technosphere given us? Simple.

It’s given us Christianity2.0.

We’ve got thirst for a messiah, a constant promise of Heaven, and a hope of long life/immortality. Wrap this all up in money and what appear to be widespread daddy issues, and yep, it’s American Christianity re-invented.

I mean we shouldn’t be surprised. Religion has well-worn cultural paths that are easy to follow intentionally or not. The tech world has gotten less and less original anyway, so it doesn’t surprise me to see this weird duplication. Honestly, there may be nothing malicious here, it may be sheer unoriginality.

A lot of are looking for a future of more responsible technology, less grift, less bullshit. Economic downturns and economic bubbles may help, but we need to remember there’s a culture issue here. A change will not just be federated servers or government regulation – it willl be, on some level, spiritual and psychological.

Otherwise we might just re-invent a kind of flaccid, hack Christianity again.

-Xenofact

So Where’s The Spirituality?

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It seems a lot of people want to tell me and my friends how to live, act, love, etc. all in the name of their “god.”

They have lists of things to do and don’t do. They have rules. These are all things we have to follow – though it seems certain people get to make exceptions. Usually those shouting the loudest about “divine” guidance seem to get to follow none of it.

They have opinions of who can do what. Often around gender, sometimes age, and in the end skin color and ethnicity. Oh they’ll deny the latter, but it’s fairly obvious their little checklists of who is exceptional is pretty small – and funny thing is all the religious shouters are in that small group.

Know what I don’t see in these religious authoritarians? Any kind of spirituality.

Where’s the soul-shattering insights that lay you humbly low? Where’s the connection of some universal truth that comes through from elsewhere into your mind and words? Where’s the depth of it all, of that great sea of being behind things? Be it god, archetype or insight, these religious checklist-wielders don’t have it.

There’s nothing because all they have is their pile of rules (that of course they don’t have to follow). It’s clear as desert-noon day that there’s nothing spiritual at all, nothing deep, in their minds. There’s just the rage-fueled clockwork click-clack chatter of their demands we conform.

Sure some of them make it up. They fake speaking in tongues, they get ghostwritten books, they have some media consultants. A few are wacked-out enough to think they’re having visions, but then you hear about portals to hell over landmarks and other recycled internet conspiracy theories.

And, in the end, there’s nothing there.

I’ve said that I don’t have to take religious fanatics seriously. I don’t believe in their religion, and as they’re obvious hypocrites I don’t have to believe them. But let me add to that, in my more esoteric moments, it’s pretty damn clear they have no claim to deep spiritual insights.

They’ve just got a checklist, and obviously an agenda. If they every encountered some moment that cracked their soul open to something bigger, they wouldn’t be such assholes, or they’d crawl away in shame.

-Xenofact

Understanding Addressing The Pain

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Writing this in 2024 it seems that conspiracy theories flourish in spiritual and mystical communities we’d not expect to see them in. To flip through Instagram or podcasts and hear some “crunchy” New Age yoga teacher swing from positions to WHO conspiracies and Hillary-Clinton-Is-A-Clone is disturbing. Worse, like the more standard conspiracy theories we’re used, to there’s a violent trend in these communities.

The Starseeds are buying guns, the Yoga enthusiasts want to hang doctors, and we’re wondering what the shit is going on.

Well first, if you’re surprised metaphysical communities have issues with conspiracies, fascism, and violent imagery, you’re not paying attention. This has always happened, from grifters to cultic spinoffs to political manipulation. We’re just a bit surprised by it since too many of us still, unconsciously, think of these as some fusion of hippies and peace-and-love New Agers.

But let us not forget that many people seek out magical and metaphysical practices out of pain.

That ache that won’t go away so you try yoga. The spiritual void from consumer culture that leads you to a Buddhist church. The bad year that leads you to magic in hope for understanding and influence. So many of us take to the mystical out of ennui or agony or need.

This is not always a bad thing of course. Those moments of waking up are vital for us to get what’s going on and realize what we have to do differently. But sometimes, the pain leads you down terrible paths, to grift, to fanaticism, to worse.

Conspiracy theories for many are an attempt to soothe pain as well. To explain problems you can’t explain easily. To seek assurance of meaning, even if the meaning is horrible. To give you some way to channel that rage inside you left from your bad job or bad family. Conspiracy theories, used by grifters and manipulators, are also something that can make people feel better for awhile.

So many of us turn to “The Big Picture” in a moment of pain. But it might not be waking up, just finding new ways to numb ourselves.

As much as the conspiracism and tilts towards revenge fantasies bother me in many communities of the metaphysical, keeping this in mind helps. It helps us understand how to handle people better, protect them from falling into traps, and maybe avoid the traps ourselves.

It also reminds us that these days, some of these folks might turn violent as we’ve seen, and we can keep an eye out.

– Xenofact