Space Occultism: Sci-Fi Magick I
Was skimming through The Blood of the Saints by Alan Chapman and saw mention of the Holy Guardian Angel as the future magical self (then Hyperion Cantos came to mind...). Got me thinking about Tommie Kelly's mention of the Simulation Hypothesis as a way of seeing the world from a particular esoteric angle. There's also Rune Soup's Gordon White who talks about Space Shamanism and Astrognosticism. And of course all the New Age stuff that came out of Quantum Mechanics.
Makes me wonder about more science fiction inspirations for occult practices. I don't mean Technology-Indistinguishable-From-Magic but rather Magic(k) inspired by science & science fiction or, to put it in a way internal to the setting, scientific advancements that could lead to particular rituals, initiatory practices, or at least metaphysical outlooks.
So some very preliminary thoughts on that:
Faster Than Light Travel: If alien civs are like our own they likely held light to be a hard limit on space travel, and so the ability to break that barrier would - AFAICTell from my non-physicist perspective - warrant a new look at the nature of reality. I can see mention of breaking one's "personal light speed barrier" as a way to look at one's personal Great Work, with rituals to inspire being done while traveling at FTL speeds ("when one's flesh has come closest to transcendent light"). Ideas like Peter Russell's connecting light and consciousness might also gain some prominence, especially if we go with the Strange Stars idea that Jump Gates are activated with the use of Psi.
Chaos Theory: If small fluctuations can cause big changes, then if Gordon White is correct and magick is about probability influence it still has a good deal of validity. This might tie into the idea that everyone is capable of micro-psychokinesis and limited precognition/telepathy/etc so getting involved with some magic(k) to stack the odds is a good idea. When I visited the Rosicrucian Temple near San Jose one thing they noted was the Egyptians were into magic(k) because it beat feeling helpless about every random thing that happened in life.
On the flip side there's Braude's idea that we could unconsciously cause planes to crash. This might people fearful of Psi as well as magick, something Psi-fearing AIs would definitely exploit. However I think there is a rational argument against this particular fear - Braude appeals to the mysterious nature of Psi and our lack of knowledge about its limitations. However this also means we don't know if negative feelings cause disasters or positive ones do, or if thinking about ice cream is what could result in Psi-caused earthquakes. Realizing this would hopefully alleviate many civs fear of Psi & magic(k), though it could also give rise to bizarre rituals like the one mentioned in this great SCP.
Virtual Reality: Likely will inspire ideas relating to virtual reality idealism (see here & here) and information realism (see here & here). Are we part of the simulation - thus created by programmers as Platonic Atheism suggests as one potential afterlife - or are we users from a higher reality as Bottom Layer suggests? We may try to contact our programmers or our Holy Guardian Angel may be our higher subconscious self that realizes, as Grant Morrison once put it, "You've bccome lost in a game disguised as everything - Try to Remember."
And of course VR/AR is a great way to conduct initiations.
Makes me wonder about more science fiction inspirations for occult practices. I don't mean Technology-Indistinguishable-From-Magic but rather Magic(k) inspired by science & science fiction or, to put it in a way internal to the setting, scientific advancements that could lead to particular rituals, initiatory practices, or at least metaphysical outlooks.
So some very preliminary thoughts on that:
Faster Than Light Travel: If alien civs are like our own they likely held light to be a hard limit on space travel, and so the ability to break that barrier would - AFAICTell from my non-physicist perspective - warrant a new look at the nature of reality. I can see mention of breaking one's "personal light speed barrier" as a way to look at one's personal Great Work, with rituals to inspire being done while traveling at FTL speeds ("when one's flesh has come closest to transcendent light"). Ideas like Peter Russell's connecting light and consciousness might also gain some prominence, especially if we go with the Strange Stars idea that Jump Gates are activated with the use of Psi.
Chaos Theory: If small fluctuations can cause big changes, then if Gordon White is correct and magick is about probability influence it still has a good deal of validity. This might tie into the idea that everyone is capable of micro-psychokinesis and limited precognition/telepathy/etc so getting involved with some magic(k) to stack the odds is a good idea. When I visited the Rosicrucian Temple near San Jose one thing they noted was the Egyptians were into magic(k) because it beat feeling helpless about every random thing that happened in life.
On the flip side there's Braude's idea that we could unconsciously cause planes to crash. This might people fearful of Psi as well as magick, something Psi-fearing AIs would definitely exploit. However I think there is a rational argument against this particular fear - Braude appeals to the mysterious nature of Psi and our lack of knowledge about its limitations. However this also means we don't know if negative feelings cause disasters or positive ones do, or if thinking about ice cream is what could result in Psi-caused earthquakes. Realizing this would hopefully alleviate many civs fear of Psi & magic(k), though it could also give rise to bizarre rituals like the one mentioned in this great SCP.
Virtual Reality: Likely will inspire ideas relating to virtual reality idealism (see here & here) and information realism (see here & here). Are we part of the simulation - thus created by programmers as Platonic Atheism suggests as one potential afterlife - or are we users from a higher reality as Bottom Layer suggests? We may try to contact our programmers or our Holy Guardian Angel may be our higher subconscious self that realizes, as Grant Morrison once put it, "You've bccome lost in a game disguised as everything - Try to Remember."
And of course VR/AR is a great way to conduct initiations.
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