In the first two of his essays, ‘Four Questions Concerning the Internet’ (1) Paul Kingsnorth identifies the force behind the Machine (technology/the internet) as Ahriman, an evil and destructive spirit in the Zoroastrian religion (2).
He argues that ‘the sacred and the digital not only don’t mix, but are fatal to each other. That they are in metaphysical opposition.’ ‘The digital revolution represents a spiritual crisis’ and ‘a spiritual response is needed.’ As an aid to living through ‘the age of Ahriman’ he suggests the practice of ‘technological askesis.’ He notes that the Greek word ‘askesis’ has been translated as ‘self-discipline’ and ‘self denial’ and that asceticism forms the ‘foundation stone of all spiritual practices’. Its literal translation is ‘exercise’. ‘Asceticism, then, is a series of spiritual exercises designed to train the body, the mind and the soul.’
As a nun of Annwn in the making I can relate to much of what Kingsnorth is saying. As an animist and polytheist I perceive technology and the internet to be a living being with a will of its own although I’m not sure it can be reduced to one supposedly evil spirit. I tend to see it as the co-creation of many humans and many Gods, some more benevolent, some more malevolent. Unfortunately as the hunting ground of many malicious humans and non-human entities including the one I identified as the King of Distractions last week.
I personally do not agree with the statement that ‘the sacred and the digital don’t mix’ are ‘fatal to each other’ ‘in metaphysical opposition.’ I think their relationship is more complex and ambiguous. The internet can certainly steer us away from the sacred if we’re mindlessly scrolling or using it merely for entertainment. Yet it can help us deepen our relationship with the sacred if used mindfully to view content and engage in dialogue that is thoughtful and meaningful.
Without the internet I would not have managed to reach the small but much appreciated audience I have today through my blogging and my books. The Monastery of Annwn would not exist as a virtual space of sanctuary where members feel safe to converse on the deeper aspects of spiritual practice and we wouldn’t be able to hold on-line meditations and events.
Although I didn’t have a name for it ‘technological askesis’ is something I have been practicing for a while. Firstly by leaving social media. More recently by blocking off my time on week days from when I get up at 4am until around 3pm to focus on my spiritual practice and writing and only when I have done my deeper work answering emails and using the internet.
This has helped me to be more focused and less scattered. It hasn’t been easy – not being able to check my emails has been like an itch I can’t scratch and I’ll admit I’ve given in to checking them again at around 6pm ‘just in case there’s anything I need to deal with so I can relax for the evening.’ It’s possible next week I will set them back to 6pm so I only need to check them once and I might even try a day without checking them at all (!).
As I write this I see that going to such lengths and the amount of restraint I am having to use shows that I am under the sway of forces difficult to control within and without. I have an addiction to checking my emails and my blog and much of it comes from anxiety so might be labelled ‘email/blog anxiety’. I get anxious about ‘missing something’ or having one or more email or blog comment that is long or difficult to answer and getting overwhelmed. My checking is for reassurance – making sure ‘there are none there.’
Of course this is a bit silly as I have placed strict limitations on what I subscribe to and my communications and correspondences are usually from friends and thus friendly and encouraging and usually quite positive.
I think when tackling the internet the best way forward is being mindful of how we are relating to it in terms both of our inner impulses and the forces without. Of how we are using it and how it is using us. Of the complex net of relationships it has brought us into, friendly and unfriendly, human and non-human.
- ‘The Universal’ HERE ‘The ‘Neon God’ HERE
- Ahriman’s nature is described by John R. Hinnel: ‘He is the demon of demons, and dwells in an abyss of endless darkness in the north, the traditional home of the demons. Ignorance, harmfulness, and disorder are the characteristics of Ahriman. He can change his outward form and appear as a lizard, a snake, or a youth. His aim is always to destroy the creation of [Ahura Mazda] and to this end he follows behind the creator’s work, seeking to spoil it. As Ahura Mazda creates life, Ahriman creates death; for health, he produces disease; for beauty, ugliness. All man’s ills are due entirely to Ahriman.’ HERE
The Sanctuary of Vindos 
Very useful and insightful commentary on the challenges of living with technology and maintaining balance with the real and virtual.
I’ve really enjoyed reading your reflections on technology in dialogue with Paul Kingsnorth’s. While his analysis has been deeply thought-provoking, I find your more animistic approach much more practicable in terms of answering the questions he raises (I really enjoyed the King of Distractions for this – a much easier entity to face than the Zoroastrian / Anthroposophical Ahriman).
Having received some prompting three years ago to go “fully analogue” – which would involve losing my work as much as drastically restructuring my social life – I have been dipping my toe in technological aesceticism by having one screen-free day each week. It’s amazing how difficult even that can be to manage, having to plan things in advance to make sure I retrieve any information I need from the internet or else make do without it, and letting people know I won’t really be contactable. It’s helping me to be more mindful, as you say, of how I am using these devices and how these devices are using me.
Whenever I see or hear someone decrying the ills of technology, I want to bring forth Ursula K. LeGuin’s reminder that a stone ax or a handwoven basket are technology.
In my opinion, the evils of “technology” lie mostly in the use of social media to attack, exploit, or manipulate people, and in the general monetization of the Internet for the benefit of corporations. I’m also philosophically opposed to dualism on principle, so demonizing a complex form of connection and commerce (in the broadest sense) seems merely wrong-headed to me.
I am aligned with you, M.T. I also have made the choice to consciously curate my social media into an avenue that supports my mental health (after being a late adapter to it). And during a health decline, cancer, chemotherapy, and being very very sick, and now facing a hip replacement, my social life and the things I used to do for enrichment (walks, theatre, art galleries, movies) have been incredibly limited and technology has been a life line, and, in terms of medicine, a literal life saver. I found an old zen poem warning about books and how they would take us away from god, and I consider the concerns about women being able to use postal services and how that would destroy the fabric of society, and I do feel that it’s all a bit reactionary.
Dualism is a major sticking point for me too, and considering anything evil kind of abdicates the responsibility of the individual to be disciplined, to educate themselves (I read so many articles on how to protect yourself online, and on the psychological impacts of social media, to ensure that I am aligning with what is best practice). There are free online courses in critical thinking for example if people find that is a vulnerability when interacting with the world outside their immediate physical sphere.
Likewise, as a solitary practitioner, the blogsphere is a significant daily part of my practice, similar to how someone else might read scripture. It ensures that I am reflective of my own practice outside my solitary path, reducing the echo chamber, and hopefully, keeping my mind open and my practice evolving.
I take your point about seeing other forms of intelligence from an animist perspective being equally valid as human intelligence, a point explored in a recent book – Ways of Being – by James Bridle. I notice the person who pioneered AI has recently retired from Google warning of its dangers; it’s debatable whether AI is an extension of human intelligence (but controlled by corporate insitutions who have certainly determined its initial character) or whether it is becoming an entity in its own right, and escaping into the ecosystem of intelligences that surround us. Whichever is the case we’ll certainly have to find ways to live with it and relate to the gods that shape its being, as we should with other intelligences that inhabit and share the world with us.
Ways of Being has been on my wishlist for a while! I’ll have to get to it. And yes, from an animist perspective, non-human intelligences are nothing new. The ‘I’ of AI is challenging for people with a wholly human-centred conception of intelligence, but the ‘A’ of AI is just as worthy of consideration, per M.T.’s comment above. How do the tools we use affect our relationship with the cosmos?
I find myself remembering an ancient sword I saw at the Keltenmuseum in Hallein, which confronted me for the first time with the imagining and deliberate creation of weapons with the sole purpose of killing other humans. It puts me in mind of the apocryphal stories of the watchers, angels who fall to earth and teach us the arts of civilisation. It is debatable how many of those arts are solely for our benefit, or how far any of them benefit us at all. Yet here I am, engaging in an activity which would not exist were it not for those teachings and these technologies…
Yes, we seem to be in an unavoidable dilemma of wanting to be critical of the very process that allows us to criticise. Trying to escape the ‘subject-object’ dichotomy for a more polycentric view looks like the answer, but because that way of seeing things infuses our perceptions this isn’t easy. ‘Ways of being’ dependent on ‘ways of seeing’?
‘Ways of being’ dependent on ‘ways of seeing’? – I like that Greg. I think we have to remember there is no separation and we’re part of both the being and seeing processes.
So true . nowadays technology is very important tool