Abstract
A Religion of Progress has taken shape over the last 21 centuries, from the Enlightenment to present times. It is quite simple to follow a thread from Hermeticism to today, however, several facts have altered its content, therefore, reformulating some of its promises and vision of the world. This paper attempts to evaluate how that Religion of Progress has become a sort of Techno-Hermeticism 2.0. Digital technologies have redefined old hermetic myths into a high-tech religion with dire environmental consequencies. Some of those myths are the resurrection of the bodies, the construction of the City of God, the Adamic universal language and so forth. Now religion must confront the upcoming collapse, however, it is unable to provide satisfactory answers. This goes for all the different churches, from accelerationists (Nick Land) to extinctionists and believers of digital solutionism. That leaves possible imaginative responses to that sociecological crisis without any relevant proposals.
The basis of the new religion will be the recognition of the law of progress
Preface
Is technology neutral? There are many ways to tackle this question (Almazán, 2021). This paper will attempt an indirect way of answering this by relating technology to religion. At first sight, it is clear that religion is by no means something neutral: it implies values, dogmas, ethical commandments, and sometimes both technology and religion, that would include a negative answer to this. Another way could be to ask if something like a ‘technological religion’ exists. And if so, what features; what properties would it have? What influence does our vision of the world and of technology itself have for the environment? It is clear that religion is a crucial component of culture to the same extent as technology. Both are embedded within ethics and politics. How both mix, influence and are articulated has been a traditional question studied by the philosophy of technology. Technological drift towards a religious connection may be surprising; however, it is something widely studied. In fact, religion and technology show a fairly multi-directional relationship in Western culture. Many thinkers (Mitcham, 2017; Ellul, 2018; Noble, 2013), have tried to decipher how these two concepts relate. But a specifically technological religion is quite a different question, surely less frequently visited.
Religion is quite ambigous concept. It could be useful to differentiate between religious experience and religion the different theologies and institutions – as James (2003) did. The approach in this paper will refer mainly to Christianity and its connections with philosophy and Hermeticism, mainly a Western perspective on the subject. Of course there are other approaches, for instance, what Carl Mitcham became to propose lately (Mitcham, 2017).
Our hypothesis in this paper is that there is a sort of techno-religion based on computer and digital technologies that spread two decades ago (Alonso and Arzoz, 2002). This is what we have branded as Techno-Hermetism1.0., the beginning of a religion specific to technology. Historical and cultural changes have, to some extent, modified that techno-religion to a Techno-Hermetism 2.0., a second point in time for the religion that our time encompasses. Techno-Hermetism, in its different variants, has certain acceptance, especially in the academic world. At the same time, this represents a main obstacle to understanding the present under the threat of imminent civilisational collapse (Heinberg, 2005). This religion is the main deviation of intellectual efforts to confront catastrophe, as Keary (2016) analyzes very acutely.
So, our stance is basically as follows: technology cannot be neutral because, as part of our culture, it is interwoven with politics and ethics. If this is true, there are more-or-less appropriate technologies based not on efficiency but on social and ethical and ecological perspectives. And at the present moment, we are at a critical point due to the impending collapse. This paper was inspired by the path suggested by Illich (1971, 1991), one of the leading critics of post-industrial society. Illich proposed that our technological society is a degradation, a failed secularisation of Christian theology into modern technological life. Institutions such as schools, medical centres and transport systems appear to be extensions of some kind of Church of Progress. Illich did not complete this task and simply gave a few hints as to what has happened over the last few centuries. Basically, he defines this secularisation as the corruptio optimi pesima (corruption of the best is the worst). There is a long connection between technological thinking and Christianity, of which Illich recalls a number of milestones. In the Middle Ages, Hugh of Saint Victor proposed the first Christian philosophy of technology in the 11th century, as the road to achieving complete humanity (Illich, 1996). Alchemy became a crucial interpretative key in modern education, thanks to John Amos Comenius (Illich, 1996), and Hermeticism permeated science and philosophy with Albert the Great 1 (Weisheipl, 1983). These precedents explain in part the features of modern science in the 16th century and decisively influenced the future of our technological development. Therefore, there is an important kernel of technological thought, from Saint Victor to Illich, both enthusiastic and critical at the same time. However, those influences also evolved and it is important to see how they present themselves today.
From the religion of progress to the religion of digital technology
Christianity adopted many different stances and gave birth to different trends such as Modern Progress. In many senses, the notion of Progress is closer to Religion than to Philosophy or Science. From the Renaissance, the idea of something such as Progress ruling over the destiny of humanity began to spread (Bury, 1921) and to demonstrate an enormous tendency towards becoming a sort of religion. True, even in those times, God appeared to sit somewhere and govern the world through Providence. Step by step, up until the Enlightenment, divine government began to fade away. Scientific achievements led to considering technology and science as something more than a simple activity, among many others, a radical change from the Middle Ages. According to Bacon, science was the real objective for human beings: their duty. In those times, science mixed with alchemy and hermeticism provided the idea that their results could allow humans to decipher the secrets of the universe. Any distinction between magic and technology was blurry. For instance, Alchemy maintained a close relation with standard Chemistry. Newton 2 was able to devote many hours to Gnosticism and Alchemy and, at the same time make crucial contributions to mathematics and physics.
Even Bacon had an interest in Occultism, despite his sceptical mind. At the same time, that effort to decipher and unveil the secrets of the Universe could be the way to obtain the promises made by Religion: immortality, a united humanity, omniscience, the transmutation of matter and others along with the same lines. It is clear that today's techno-science has its origins in that mixed science; Hermeticism, magic and alchemy – and sometimes it has been difficult to trace borders. This is what David Noble (1996) attempted to demonstrate with his historical research on the origins of western technology. From Llull (2021) in the Middle Ages, up to Teilhard de Chardin in the 20th century (De Chardin, 2004), it is possible to trace a religious-scientific mix that has led to the present techno-scientific religion. Humans are created by God to alter and adapt the world for their own interests; nature is just a stuff, a material, nothing with a value of its own, with no respect involved. This is a key point to understand the environmental disaster we live today, that is, the consequence of a completely utilitarian approach to the environment. 3 Nature is simply a warehouse of resources. Secularisation began in the 18th century among the thinkers of the Enlightenment. A little later, Auguste Comteembodies the true, new preacher of the Religion of Progress. In fact, Comte (1973) gave a name to the new Religion of Humanity, summarised in The Catechism of Positive Religion. 4 In dialogue form, a priest explains and defends the truth of his new doctrine to a woman, who represents the truest believer in traditional religion. Somehow that religion was successful in attracting scientists and thinkers, although Comte's philosophy itself did not achieve great success. According to the Catechism, Progress was the way to Utopia, to cope with the ‘death of God’, announced by Nietzsche and unfold our destiny as species. Progress then became something more than an ideology or a utopian project; it transformed into a true religion extending its reach to scientists, thinkers and laypersons alike. As a sociological phenomenon, this new religion soon interested sociologists. Studies on the religion of Progress became widespread by the end of the 19th century.
There are several works dealing with how this religion spread an American mentality by the end of the 19th century. Cristopher Dawson had reflected on the subject by 1929 (Dawson, 2001), showing the religion of progress to be something that provided civilising energy in times where traditional religions are unable to mobilise individuals. According to Salomon (1946), the combination of a growing radical individualism and the marvels of techno-science combined to offer a sort of common ground for individuals in society. All humanity has a law of progress in common that has an undoubtedly spiritual purpose. In addition, it seems that Progress, understood as a form of religion, has its place only in industrial society, in other words, industrialism has produced its own religion. For a time, that industrialist religion was supported by optimism, as George Steiner identified during the Belle Époque: that was the time of international trade fairs where industry showed its continuous accomplishments (Steiner, 2002).
Each of those accomplishments was proof of the truth of Progress. But World War I profoundly shook the firm beliefs acquired by the end of the 19th century, and the war industry revealed a till then unimaginable potential for destruction. In the intervening period between the two world wars, somehow faith in progress grew, but World War Two and the Cold War period made it progressively clear how that faith was largely unjustified. Not only war but ecological disaster, cultural destruction and consumerism made it clear that Progress, in some way, was deeply flawed. It had increasingly become a naive religion, difficult to accept. Ecological awareness and criticism of post-industrial societies put the very idea of Progress in jeopardy. Illich devoted his work to developing a profound criticism of institutions; examples of the best global progress (Illich, 1971). There were good reasons to disagree with a general techno-scientific optimism: war, political instability, ecological problems and limits to growth, among other issues that became increasingly noticeable. Decades later, the position is the same: limitless growth continues today as the main economical model in spite of rational and deep criticism (Hagbert et al., 2021). Things have changed very little: Weak forms of sustainability abound, from ‘moral’ justifications for fossil fuel extraction based on financial values to dominant theological traditions to continued human exceptionalism. Despite many decades of evidence and thought relating to environmental degradation and its myriad costs, it appears that minor adjustments to dominant ideas and practices are still the norm across much of global society (Dandy, 2021, 145).
It is useful to establish how that nonmaterial or spiritual quest for the end of time appeared. After the fall of ancient Rome by Alaric the barbarian, the theologian and father of the church – Augustine of Hippo – imagined the first religious Utopia: Civitas Dei (the City of God). The inexplicable catastrophe of Rome, centre of Christendom and protected by God, needed a justification and Augustine wrote what was probably his masterpiece. The city of God would be the new Jerusalem, just the opposite of Babylon, the archetypal pagan and earthly city, dominated by sin. Digitalism basically proposed to recreate that utopia, a new city of God, not as imagined by Augustine. That city will appear not at the end of time, after the death of humankind, but in the near future, thanks to digital technologies. Digitalism has taken on the role of a new religion, substituting Progress in the collective imagination of today it was able to attract numerous scientists and technologists, massive investments, occupying a broad spectrum in culture, politics and social action. Even more, capitalism presents itself as the herald of that Digitalism, as the engine that justifies actions such as geo-engineering, massive data capture and disruptive changes in society. In the era of a pending socioecological collapse, Digitalism, as a millennialist faith, becomes the only hope to save humanity from catastrophe and extinction. Wertheim (2000) pointed out how Dante's space from his Divine Comedy could be used to understand cyberspace and its disembodiment from the physical world. That was the scenario to build the eschatological city of God, the heaven for immortal souls.
Principal techno-hermetic myths
Faith in the technological future needs clear facts or prospects, it needs a set of promises to pursue. Historical Hermeticism promised a set of different achievements that magic could obtain: for instance, immortality, the creation of golems (artificial beings), avatars or angels to assist us, paradise on Earth etc. Magicians boasted of their ability to achieve those results. Some of these myths have been translated into technological jargon: immortality (as trans-humanists announce, in the near future); artificial intelligence will be an assistant angel or avatar; robots will obey like the Golem did with Rabbi Löw; nanotechnology will build the paradise on Earth; and computation will resurrect immortal bodies in cyberspace. Techno-Hermetism claims that has been done before – although only partially: modern medicine has prolonged human life; artificial intelligence is able to manage billions of data; robots can save us from repetitive or dangerous tasks; and virtual reality can re-create the world, among other marvels.
De Chardin (2004) proposed how humanity is reaching the Omega Point, an evolutionary moment where time would attain the ultimate moment, the real hope for humanity, the glorious end for all the intellectual efforts made throughout all the previous centuries 5 . It is true that many of those goals are still promises. It is quite difficult to accept that machines can think. Nanotechnology is not what many scientists expect it to be; virtual reality is still far from re-creating the world; energy is a major problem; the biosphere seems to be under a dire threat. Those failures do not matter because this is what implies faith in digitalism: the belief that later all those obstacles will be removed by technology. This Techno-Hermetic faith could be qualified as irrational or delirious, belonging more to speculation over hard science fiction than any reasonable or plausible prospect. But again, faith is what counts, and the future will prove this.
Today's digitalism
For some decades, the prophets of the Digital Advent were preaching in different places such as Wired magazine. Those were the times for technological bestsellers such as Negroponte's Being Digital (1996) or Bill Gates’ The Road Ahead. Marvin Minsky, the father of Modern artificial intelligence considered future artificial intelligence to be our future mentor (Minsky, 1987). Moravec (1988) conceived robots as the next natural evolutionary step for humanity. Tipler (1997) designed a whole physical theory of the universe as an operating system about to reach the Omega Point. Some of those theories did not resist the passage of time and it is difficult to take them seriously. That should not be a surprise: classical Hermeticism ended by being an assortment of superstition and bogus magic. Many of those technological prophets simply retired or disappeared discretely. Some of them went on with their preaching; Kurzweil (2014), for example, now Chancellor of the Singularity University, kept up promising that in few years’ time human life expectancy will double.
Today, the digital society is an obvious reality; therefore, there is no need to produce any more propaganda about it. Almost everybody uses mobiles; wireless connections are everywhere; and people buy, chat, date, do banking and many different activities online. Somehow, those omens about, reaching the eschaton, the assistance of electronic avatars, and that whole panoply of promises does not appear to be necessary. If everyday life implies digital activity in different and varied aspects, there is not much interest in knowing whether or not robots would be our successors. Pragmatism may explain the fact that religious discourse may have lost vigour, but still, there are new preachers stepping forward. It seems obvious that now, when the future has caught up with us, after several unfulfilled dates of techno-utopian prophecies, the transcendental promises that Digitalism may not have become real.
Artificial intelligence – an entity more intelligent than human beings – or virtual reality, something more real than reality itself, is one of those technical advancements that clearly fail to meet expectations. True, there are smart TVs and phones but that is not what Minsky had in mind. Virtual Reality forked into Artificial Reality and Augmented Reality via glasses or phones are far from that immersive environments able to trick us. But still, those failures have not compromised more humble or common-or-garden developments, more useful and addictive at the same time. There are robots in industry, state-of-the-art cell phones and drones everywhere. Those possibly represent a delay or detour from those bigger promises, however, at the same time, they encourage faith in salvation because for true believers, hope for that future is really what the future holds for us. Persevering and keeping the faith alive will be rewarded. Harold Bloom used to speak of an ‘American Religion’ that may have some connections with techno-Hermetism (Bloom, 1993; 1996). That is a religion where angels and after-death experiences are elements of that faith. Individualism, confrontation with divinity alone, outside the community, is what defines that cultural element. Perhaps Kelly's Nerd Theology (Kelly, 2002) could be included in this current too.. Eric Davis defined information technology as ‘techgnosis’ (Davis, 1998). Gnosticism also has connections with eschatology and the end of times, something that techno-hermetism has reinterpreted as the scaton. Galtung (1999) added another element: that is a religion for the chosen people, a special destiny for the US. This is, as Sullivan describes, national and reliogious based exceptionalism (Sullivan and Hurd, 2021). So gnosticism, protestantism and exceptionalism conform a powerful religious current.
The power given by science and technology; the means to prevail as the first nation in the world, proves that Prometheus has failed in bringing us the Hermetic fire but, instead, brings a new promise: we can become gods, homo Deus, but only if we maintain our fidelity to the religion of Progress. That implies being actively technologised in our lives and in our world as humans have never done before. One recent bestseller – Homo Deus – (Harari, 2016) synthetises how Techno-Hermetism is still alive. Harari explains what shape that will take; how human beings would accept their technological destiny. In his own words ‘Having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans to gods and turn Homo sapiens into Homo Deus’. That is achieved thanks to technology. Harari says that technology will overrun religion, but it is difficult to see his own prediction differs from some sort of religious faith. It seems that the huge problems we are confronting right now, the pending socio-ecological collapse, will somehow be resolved. Other examples and trans-humanism defenders could be included in that renewed faith. If Kurzweil is the Ur-transhumanist, people such as Elon Musk or Peter Theil confess their adherence to that creed. If Tipler made a fairly bizarre universe composed of software, Bostrom (2003) takes the possibility of us living in a computer simulation seriously. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO, together with other billionaires, is investing $200 million in Altos Lab to reverse ageing. Larry Page did the same through Calico Labs, an enterprise seeking immortality via biological research. José Cordeiro has followed in Kurzweil's footsteps, declaring the imminence of the death of death (Cordeiro, 2018) to reassure Musk and other billionaires. So, here we see a token of what Digitalism 2.0 means: faith in money, technology and progress. The list could go on. Zuckerberg has announced a plan to take Facebook into the ‘metaverse’, a complete digital reconstruction of the world. His idea is to recreate some sort of virtual paradise where none of the bad that reality bring us will exist. Here techno-Hermetism demonstrates its alliance with digital capitalism. The Capitalocene – capitalism activating all forces to improve human life through technology and by consuming nature – as Moore criticises (2016) would be capable of achieving the promised Singularity.
The capitalocene as a progressive collapse
This renewed technological religion faces new and profound challenges. The main one may be: what if the collapse (the end of Capitalocene) or, in broader terms, the collapse of human existence on Earth has actually already arrived, thanks to capitalism. Capitalocene is what promises to implement all that technology that excites those techno-hermetic dreams. The well-known motto ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism’, erroneously attributed to Frederic Jameson, may reflect our zeitgeist. Time plays against those hopes and unfulfilled promises. It seems this time span is too short for techno-hermetic solutions. The collapse, completely invisible for decades, now becomes a very plausible prediction. In fact, according to many reputed experts and trustworthy indicators, that collapse has already begun and we are living through the sequels to its ongoing process.
Linked to that ecological collapse are others such as the energy, economic and political crises on a planetary scale. Solving these crises would require different models to the current ones we have now but maintaining faith in technological capitalism. Our trust is in today's production, management and technocratic administration that, after all, belong to the old Religion of Progress. Still, there are many people with the conviction that technology will fix all problems. Techno-Hermetism does not deal with very pressing problems such as global warming, the disappearance of species or the depletion of land and water. It seems that since it is not possible to imagine a solution to reverse that point of no return we are living through now, it may be better to think about other things, as frivolous at this may sound.
In this era which awaits the consequences of collapse (Bauman and Bordoni, 2014), the production of utopias – the model for the new city of God – should not make much sense any more. There is no belief in supernatural reality like that of Augustine, unless we build it ourselves. Our gloomy prospects remove any plausibility of a perfect or desirable society. Utopias have little predicament in the 21st century but dystopias enjoy good health in our times (Balasopoulos, 2006) seem to have been abandoned. Consequently, dystopias have taken over; their plausibility makes it easier to reach big audiences by announcing social degradation. And in the last decades, there has been quite a large production of dystopias in movies or TV series. From The Walking Dead to the last Mad Max episodes or The Hunger Games, it is common to find audio-visual products showing different apocalyptic scenarios. Sometimes centred in the past, removed from our own possible collapse, those dystopias attempt to offer a humanistic perspective to lessen the damage. Or perhaps this is a way to lecture audiences on what is coming – but in quite an obtuse way. Somehow, that fear manifests itself as the reverse of the Digitalist religion; this has more to do with a secularised Apocalypse than with the Omega point. There will be no afterlife, no Heaven but just destruction. Alien invasions and appropriation of our resources, a planet devastated by glaciation or drought, plagues of viruses or zombies and, with the pandemic as a great warning, the truth is that the Utopia has disappeared from our imagination and has been replaced by disciplinary dystopia. Another possible reading is that capitalism attempts to reinforce our techno-hermetic faith in salvation through science. Only with absolute faith and obedience to present science and technology, will it be possible to escape catastrophe.
Techno-hermetism as a millenarist faith
It seems that over the last 20 years, we have swung from a utopian enthusiasm of techno-hermetic capitalism to complete panic, then to collapse. Nevertheless, this cultural switch has not translated into a profound social or cultural change. Accepted as it is, catastrophe does not appear to mobilise society to a great extent. One of the reasons for that social paralysis could be the millennial weight of a deeply rooted religion of the Progress we refuse to abandon. The impression is that we are living at a critical and decisive time and, at the same time, stalled by a false faith based on pseudoscientific promises. Moreover, the present, threatening reality seems only to have exacerbated the most desperate expressions of and appeals to Digitalism. The new commandment could perhaps be summarised in this way: if we want salvation from destruction; if we want. to reach the celestial city of God, we need to cultivate our faith with more zeal and devotion. Our faith is being tested by the upcoming collapse (Cohn, 2001).
Techno-hermetic digitalism, despite fanatic effusions and propaganda, is still present in our society and our culture. Now it is less visible to the general public or has become reduced to circles of minority believers. Techno-Hermeticism 2.0. has to face a new situation and provide other answers. The great unified religion has been divided into a variety of cults. Different new technologies implemented by industrial innovation are the reason for different churches; biology, nanotechnology or digital technologies are at the basis of those creeds. But above all, techno-hermetic digitalism has become the patrimony of novel philosophical trends, which, in the face of the threat of collapse, reconfigure themselves to adapt to an intensely millennial faith. The complexity of this neo-religious panorama could be staged against the dispute between futuristic theories – led by accelerationism – and certain eco-feminist trends where there is a proposal to substitute the traditional masculine God by the feminine goddess, Gaia. Patriarchalism being an evidently damaging position, a new theology does not appear to be a solution. A horizon of certain latent religious wars between different cults – as yet non-violent – appears to be variants of faith in progress. However, the caesura that this collapse supposes also gives way to updated versions of previous tendencies, such as dataism (Harari, 2016; Sadin, 2013) and other philosophical views partly related to earlier theories such as speculative realism.
The extinctionist heresy
If positive Digitalism has demonstrated shaky foundations, it is revealing to see what happens to symmetrical positions; extinctionism. The future is more – not less – than the extinction of our species; as in thermodynamics by the law of Entropy. The realisation of the collapse has led to a rise in absolute nihilism. Thinkers with a solid philosophical training, such as Harman (2019), Meillasoux and Asimov (2015), Thacker (2011, 2015, 2015b), Brassier (2007), Negarestani (2014) or Ligotti (2010), introduce us to new and sophisticated philosophical approaches, whose main focus is a trend towards extinctionism. Basically, the postulates are as follows: the human being is a mistake of nature, ‘evilly useless’ (Ligotti, 2010), and we must not oppose his disappearance. It is clear that technology cannot, finally, save us. Only death, nothingness and the horror of cosmic meaninglessness are certain and visible for us. So, if it is easier to imagine the end of the world instead of the end of Capitalism, let's concentrate on the former and forget about the latter. So, the rational solution does not go beyond the extinction of our species, the disappearance of the world, as we know it. And our more credible forecasts go in that direction.
However, some of these authors, even assuming the consistency of this approach, desperately refuse to accept this final horizon. Somehow, this tendency reminds us very much of Rand (2005) rescued by neo-reactonaries, specially Nick Land The case of Nick Land may be especially notorious. An author with some prestige among young generations of English-speaking philosophers, for his far-reaching work, he became famous through his Dark Enlightenment. Basically, that Dark Enlightenment fights against a traditional one because those cherished ideals have eroded the essence of freedom. His proposal is, therefore, an extreme right-wing trend that considers democracy, gender equality and respect for ethnicities to be pernicious. All this counter-current, as a position, claims to have scientific evidence of the inferiority of women and ethnic groups, among other things. CEOs are the best placed to rule a country and Feudalism should be a political structure that could be resurrected. In brief, right-wing accelerationism proposes rampant capitalism combined with patriarchalism and racist supremacism, reminiscent of Rand, to some extent. Accelerationism is sold as a re-edition of the technological utopia, without an eschatological horizon. A certain secularisation, more palatable in terms of theory than those crude techno-hermeticians of the first generation.
How can we do this; how can we change society; how can we introduce the needed reforms? Land proposes ‘hyperstition’ as a key to social change. Hyperstition is an idea thrown at society that becomes real, for instance, the idea of cyberspace. First cyberspace was a mere proposal but, entering into the social arena, later became real. In fact, hyperstition could be understood as a leap into a rhetorical void, more typical of science fiction fantasy. Still, it has inspired accelerationist trends. If hyperstitions can be injected into society, there will be an opportunity for change. But change must be profound and fast-moving, this is what accelerationists demand. So, instead of trying to change capitalism, let us accelerate it in a technological-digital direction. That would bring us to Singularity and avoid disaster. This is what right-wing accelerationism proposes, in a quite perfect hermetic tradition. From the hyperstitious leap of Nick Land, accelerationism appears to be an irrational faith in a utopian future. Technology, therefore, should not be questioned because there we can achieve the benefits of technological acceleration and save ourselves. This is a re-edited dogma of Progress with more rhetorical baggage:
Symmetrically there is a left-wing accelerationism that could be classified as a heresy: acceleration should serve to end capitalism itself and guarantee exactly the opposite of Land's theories. Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, who introduced it, propose a left-wing accelerationism based on technological development and the overthrowing of capitalism. Their proposal is a scenario of abundance with little work, thanks to robots, and technological development. A universal basic income would solve the problem of inequality and other social issues. But the problem with accelerationism – both right and left – is that it does not introduce the fact of the collapse of its structure as a decisive element. That threat is obviously going to upset any possibility unless acceleration skyrockets. But for a true faith, with paradise at hand, this slight setback should not be an obstacle. Then Accelerationism can be understood as a sort of Counter-Reformation of techno-hermetic Digitalism to avoid future heresies.
This hyperstitious, accelerationist, extinctionist, racist, patriarchal approach has not remained uncontested. Against the blind faith in the technological utopianism of accelerationists, a certain eco-feminist trend has appeared. Influenced by posthumanism and transhumanism, this gave rise to the Gaia hypothesis (Latour, 2017). Philosophers like Haraway (2016) correct the futuristic visions of accelerationism, with a much greater ecological sensitivity, while more attentive to the serious situation of the planet, although not fully aware of its gravity in the collapsing scenario. Still, Haraway understands much better the importance of environment and the respect for living beings. Also, the ‘inhumanity’ of the Universe should not paralyse us. It is true that the Cosmos does not need us but that should not drive us to promote extinction. We must stay with the problem. But in a certain way, the return to the Gaia hypothesis means opening up a pagan or techno-pagan vision for some followers of that reform. Paganism should be the guarantee to avoid secularised religion. In that realisation, the mythical Gaia rises again. The difficulty of this trend is that it frequently takes for granted that Gaia 6 is basically a cybernetic system, no different from other cybernetic proposals. In short, this is another techno-religious irrationalism. Albeit more moderate and technologically balanced, techno-paganism is equally disoriented and oblivious to the urgency of collapse. Although, from this position, one could scale more realistic and ultimately emancipatory proposals, their link to hyperstitious transhumanism ultimately renders them not very acceptable. This inclination is finally shown to be yet another of the collectivist chimeras of the previous stage of Digitalism, such as collective intelligence (2013) or intelligence in connection (De Kerckhove, 2002). The important question, therefore, is how to preserve that valuable eco-feminist approach without any pseudo-religious element.
Religion and religiosity revisited
After this brief overview of the current situation, it is necessary to clarify the differences and transitions between faith or religiosity, religion, secularisation and spirituality. Is religion, as a human tendency, completely evil? Not at all, in spite of what Dawkins or Bostrom would argue. Have different creeds or churches done harm? Yes, history is full of that. Anyway, equating Francis of Assisi with Tomás de Torquemada would not be a useful exercise. Differences matter a lot here (Dupuy, 2020). What we are dealing with is more about churches and creeds than spiritual human tendencies. In this sense, it is evident that the informal faith or religiosity around technology reached a quasi-religious status in its initial digital stage. One proof of that is how the root of all of this, the Religion of Progress ended adrift in theological terms, followed by techno-Hermetism. That explains the painful details of what immortal bodies would probably be like, according to some trans-humanists; how the digital paradise would be deployed, if our mind-soul could be downloaded into cyberspace. Even traditional religions such as Catholicism have left aside that kind of sterile discussion.
Beliefs about immortality, immateriality, the universal language and so on are common to Hermetism and its version 1.0 and 2.0. This is proof of how they are dragged along with the theological current. In fact, those beliefs and religions have more to do with superstition (including Land's hyperstition). The difference between religion and superstition appears when religion attempts to become science instead of being a ‘general way to confront the world’, as Wittgenstein would say. Wittgenstein read Jame very carefully and considered religion – a personal experience – as part of human beings, not as something senseless or silly. On the other hand, religious institutions and theology were nonsense, according to him: ‘It appears to me as though a religious belief could only be (something like) passionately committing oneself to a system of coordinates. Hence although it's belief, it is really a way of living, or a way of judging life. Passionately taking up this interpretation. And so instructing in a religious belief would have to be portraying, describing that system of reference & at the same time appealing to the conscience. And these together would have to result finally in the one under instruction himself, of his own accord, passionately taking up that system of reference. It would be as though someone were on the one hand to let me see my hopeless situation, on the other depict the rescue-anchor, until of my own accord, or at any rate noticed led by the hand by the instructor, I were to rush up & seize it’. (Wittgenstein 1980, 45)
With the passage of time and the Promethean promises of technology delayed, we have entered a moment of apparent scientific secularisation – but clearly with a millenarist breath. Various expressions belonging to Techno-Hermetism 2.0, such as accelerationism or techno-paganism, cannot hide their religious template (as was the case with other philosophical theories, such as Marxism, when accused of having a secularised Christian eschatology). 7 On the margins appears the possibility of a humanist (or anti-humanist) spirituality with non-religious traits but compatible with some of these. In general, that would be the impression that reality; others; ourselves, and living beings around us have a mysterious side, something incomprehensible or not transparent. In the era of transparency, this sounds like real heresy because it defies the basic and not logically proven belief that science and technology render everything transparent. This respectful approach may be an expression of the Luddite critique of the religion of technology. A path that may be worth exploring.
Conclusion: An imaginary politics vs neoliberal hyperstition
Finally, a question remains: what to think or what to expect for the near future. On the one hand, there are the religious fantasies of a runaway scientific rationalism. Those lame imaginations tightly relate to ‘alternative facts’ and fake news. On the other, there is the possibility of imagining politics from a critical stance (Horvart, 2019; Alonso & Arzoz; 2005, Avanessian 2020; Wallace-Wells, D. 2019). In other words, there is space for political or science fiction (Meillassoux and Asimov, 2015). That should be science fiction as audacious as possible, in the face of the self-interestedly irrational confusion between fiction, philosophy and science. We do not know what awaits us in the progressively catastrophic scenario of collapse. This present pandemic, completely unexpected, could be a serious example of what is to come. Nobody anticipated it and still we do not know all the implications around it. What seems true is that the pandemic has relaunched the digital invasion and social control instead of taking seriously basic problems due to technology. Environmental issues have been neglected and now it seems that deterioration has been exacerbated (Servinge and Stevens, 2020). From a rational point of view, it is quite unlikely that techno-hermetic Digitalism 2.0, plunged into a desperate hyperstitious delirium, or will create the new city of God, a paradise on Earth. Today it requires a lot of faith to trust that the future will be better; that promises will ever be fulfilled. If we should choose the most likely city we are beginning to build right now, perhaps the city described by Dante in the Divine Comedy would approach it more closely, that is, Hell on Earth. On the contrary, we have imaginary politics crossed by a communalist spirituality that opens up for us the frontiers of the impossible from a well-oriented possibility. A radical imagination, owner of its resources and its potentialities, can direct the collapsism and illuminate the post-collapse, so that the end of the Capitalocene does not finally become, at the same time, the end of the Era of human beings. Digital techno-Hermetism, in all its variants, presents a danger for the future. As a by-product of Capitalocene, it is a major obstacle to seeing the developing collapse differently and that precludes possible and imaginative solutions.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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