Magazine

Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine
ISSN 1076-027X / Volume 4, Number 4 / April 1, 1997

Editor's Page

We continue this month's theme of Spirituality Online that we began in last month's issue. Special guest editor Michael Bauwens describes the theme of this issue: technology can actually be interpreted as a metaphysical project that can have far-reaching positive or negative consequences.

SPECIAL FOCUS: SPIRITUALITY ONLINE

Ontos and Techne

Mark Pesce, co-inventor of Virtual Reality Modeling Language, shows that cyberspace is a medium based on powerful archetypal mythologies. Both the myth of mastery over matter and the unification with spirit are converging on the Internet.

A View from the Buddhist Middle Way

Ian Clark describes how the Internet and virtual reality may give a practitioner an audience with teachers who would be otherwise unreachable. However, he doubts if ceremonies of raising or transferring consciousness will ever be possible on the Net.

Technology as a Psychic Phenomenon

Michael Grosso, a professor of philosophy, speculates on how the psychic and the technological represent two forms of the human attempt to abolish the constraints of time and space. The psychic and the technical, however, fail to reach the level of spirit.

The Cyborganic Path

Jon Lebkowsky maintains that there is little proof so far that the Internet is an integrating force, and yet it is not another Tower of Babel.

DEPARTMENTS

Book Review: Defining Style and Culture in the Digital Age

Kevin Hunt reviews HardWired's Wired Style. While finding it useful for deciphering some of the arcana of the information age, he warns against treating it as the definitive guide for communicating in the digital age.

The Last Link: Deus ex Machina vs. Electric Gaia

Michel Bauwens caps this issue with an essay that explores the Deus Ex Machina and Electric Gaia trends in talking about spirituality online.

Letters to the editor always welcome: mailto:john@december.com