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Apple, Are You Ready to Make Contact?Miriam Wallraven

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To cite this article: Miriam Wallraven (2011): Apple, Are You Ready to Make Contact?, EuropeanJournal of English Studies, 15:3, 237-249

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Miriam Wallraven

APPLE, ARE YOU READY TO MAKE

CONTACT?

The esoteric understanding of the

computer and the internet in

postmodern texts

According to the holistic world view of the western esoteric tradition, science and esotericknowledge have always been intertwined due to their recognition of the universalrelationships of energy. By providing a continuation of the esoteric approach to scienceand technology in the post-modern period, the computer and the internet representparticular examples of the continuation of characteristic esoteric principles. Yet, they alsoshed light on the adaptability of esoteric approaches to understanding the world. Bearingthis in mind, this article examines the esoteric understanding of the computer andinternet as manifest in texts of various genres, such as the New-Age ‘Faces of Findhorn:Images of a Planetary Family’ (1980), Starhawk’s esoteric-utopian novel ‘The FifthSacred Thing’ (1993) as well as the Neopagan texts ‘The Goddess in the Office’ (1993)by Zsuzsanna Budapest, and, finally, Barbara Ardinger’s ‘Pagan Every Day’ (2006) and‘Finding New Goddesses’ (2003). These texts show how, on the one hand, esoterictraditions of correspondences and principles of universal interdependence have remainedstable over the ages. On the other hand, they demonstrate how these traditions arecreatively and pragmatically applied to the innovation of the computer. Thus, an oldesoteric tradition is brought to bear on a new paradigm of communication technologywhich testifies to the creative adaptability of esotericism and accounts for its persistencethroughout the ages.

Keywords Western Esoteric Tradition; esotericism; occult; magic;neopaganism; computer; internet

Introduction: The magical computer

‘Computers are like magic’: as early as in 1986, Margot Adler used these words tosummarise the findings of her survey of Neopagans’ understanding of computertechnology in North America. Comparing computers to magic is not done arbitrarilybecause, far from functioning as a contrast to a magical world, science and technology

European Journal of English Studies Vol. 15, No. 3, December 2011, pp. 237–249

ISSN 1382-5577 print/ISSN 1744-4233 online ª 2011 Taylor & Francis

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have long been perceived as being connected with the esoteric. This trend becameapparent in the nineteenth century and it is even more prominent in modern andpostmodern texts. According to the holistic worldview of the western esoterictradition, science and esoteric knowledge have always been intertwined due touniversal relationships of energy. By providing esoteric approaches to technology inthe postmodern period, the computer and the internet represent particularly salientexamples of esoteric thinking. Thus, they shed light on the historical adaptability ofesoteric approaches.

The most important features of the western esoteric tradition have been definedas the belief in correspondences, in living nature conceived of in animist ways, and inimagination and mediations (such as rituals and symbols). These features become toolsfor understanding the web of correspondences and for putting this theory into practice(Faivre, 1994: 10–3). Thus, magic ‘is simultaneously the knowledge of the networksof sympathies or antipathies that link the things of Nature and the concrete operationof these bodies of knowledge’ (11). According to Stuckrad, esotericism and magic areorganised along the same lines. He states that magic implies an active use of one’s willto interfere with the energetic web of reality; this is performed through rituals,visualisations, or mental concentration (2004: 101).

The western esoteric tradition1 reaches back to Gnosticism, Neoplatonism andHermeticism. It can be traced from the first centuries A.D. through the Renaissance,with its fascination with magic, alchemy, astrology, and ancient esoteric texts,through the subsequent rise of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry up to the occultrevival of the nineteenth century. This revival included Blavatsky’s Theosophy,spiritualism as well as those orders which were preoccupied with ceremonial magic(Goodrick-Clarke, 2008: 3). During the twentieth century and the beginning of thetwenty-first century, esotericism has proliferated and diversified and now comprisessuch diverse phenomena as shamanism, Neopaganism and Goddess spirituality,astrology, and occultist magic (Ivakhiv, 1996: 242–3).

In this context, the New Age represents a specifically twentieth century form ofthe esoteric tradition (Heelas, 1996). One other important strand of esotericism,Neopaganism, is also firmly anchored in the western esoteric tradition (Carpenter,1996: 40) since the basic features of Paganism are beliefs in interconnectedness,immanence and transcendence, animism and spiritism, polytheism, magic andcyclicity.2 Neopaganism’s belief in animism pertains to all kinds of entities: ‘Today itcommonly refers to perceptions that natural entities, forces, and nonhuman life-formshave one or more of the following: a soul or vital life force or spirit, personhood(an affective life and personal intentions); and consciousness, often but not alwaysincluding special spiritual intelligence or powers’ (Taylor, 2010: 15). New Agemovements and Neopaganism are not the same but their boundaries becomeincreasingly blurred in the second half of the 20th century, since they are closelyrelated because they share the same esoteric principles:

Symbolic and real correspondences (there is no room for abstraction here!) aresaid to exist among all parts of the universe, both seen and unseen. (‘As above, sobelow.’) We find again here the ancient idea of microcosm and macrocosm or, ifpreferred, the principle of universal interdependence. These correspondences,considered more or less veiled at first sight, are, therefore, intended to be read

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and deciphered. The entire universe is a huge theatre of mirrors, an ensemble ofhieroglyphs to be decoded. Everything is a sign; everything conceals and exudesmystery; every object hides a secret (10).

In this essay, I want to follow this belief in correspondences by showing that thecomputer and the internet are charged with magic. Moreover, a belief in esotericcorrespondences allows for altered types of interactions with the computer.Combining concepts of animism, correspondences, and imagination will provideindividuals with new ways to interact with postmodern ‘intelligent technology’. Theenchantment of the computer and the internet is the central idea in the esoteric textsthat will be dealt with here, which range from a documentary by a New Age centre toa utopian novel and Neopagan manuals. Despite their generic differences, these textsfollow what could be called a utopian trajectory in the sense that they stage and at thesame time imagine holistic interactions with technology. In this process they expandour cultural imaginary.

The Esoteric Understanding of the Computer and theInternet

Particularly in modernism and postmodernism, science/technology and the esoterichave been perceived as connected. Already in the nineteenth century, twoepistemological processes establishing the mutual dependence of science and theesoteric came into existence. On the one hand, new physical sciences such asmesmerism and electricity – and radioactivity in the twentieth century – are attributedmagical properties. The ensuing enchantment of the technical and the scientific asmagical thus challenges the ways in which science as such was and still isconceptualised. On the other hand, the desire for the scientific verification of esotericphenomena is at the heart of the central movements of the Western Esoteric Traditionin the nineteenth century, such as Spiritualism3 or Theosophy. Thus, while the esotericis presented as scientific, scientific discourses are used in order to explain and authorisethe esoteric (Wallraven 2008: 398, 404–5). Theosophy – apart from Spiritualism themost influential esoteric movement in the second half of the nineteenth century –furnishes a particularly effective vehicle for reconciling science and the esoteric.Theosophy was indeed particularly aimed at establishing a counter-development to thematerialistic-technological ideology of industrialism of the nineteenth century and anattempt at providing an esoteric view of the world, which again uses the term science –but with expanded connotations. Blavatsky’s most successful publication, Isis Unveiled:Secrets of the Ancient Wisdom Tradition (1877), consists of two parts: ‘Part One: Science,Part Two: Religion’. In the text, Blavatsky argues that ‘Magic, as a science, is theknowledge of these principles [of natural law4] and of the way by which theomniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature’s forces may beacquired by the individual while still in the body’ (Blavatsky, 1997: 241).

Magic and science have historically been brought into conjunction in theory andpractice; in the tripartite scheme of human evolution in The Golden Bough (1890),Frazer proposes the sequence of a belief in magic, the development of religion, andfinally an understanding of the world in terms of science. Although he – as other

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scholars of his time – displays an uncritical belief in science which he considers aguarantee for social progress, he states that ‘science has this much in common withmagic that both rest on a faith in order as the underlying principle of all things’ (854).Since Spiritualism and Theosophy – the precursors of the New Age and importantstepping stones for twentieth century esoteric thought – were not antiscience, butthey regarded their movement as an extension of practical science and saw themselvesas providing ‘a scientifically valid and empirically grounded basis for religiousexperience and faith’ (Hess, 1993: 19), this belief in the scientific characteristics ofthe esoteric was further foregrounded in the New Age and in Neopaganism.

What has become known as ‘New Age Science’5 is characterised by a belief in theunderlying animist connectedness of everything. By confounding easy distinctionsbetween rationality and belief, in the understanding of for example quantum physics,chaos theory, or deep ecology, the holistic thinking of esotericism accounts for thefact that religious and scientific knowledge are most often not regarded as a contrastand that the structure of the web is taken as the pivotal metaphor of the world,displaying a fascination with the idea of universal interconnection. Frazer’sobservation that both magic and science ‘open up a seemingly boundless vista ofpossibilities to him who knows the cause of things and can touch the secret springsthat set in motion the vast and intricate mechanism of the world’ (Frazer, 1996: 59)also relates to the computer and its usage in the postmodern age. ‘Knowing the causeof things’ as a shared function of magic and science acknowledges the scientificelements as well as the magical characteristics of the computer and the internet whichis ubiquitous in late twentieth century texts. Thus, the parameters of the westernesoteric tradition are brought to bear on scientific innovations such as the computerand the internet which distinctively shape society. In this way, esoteric principles areadapted to new discourses and inventions.

‘Grandmother Spider, did you weave the World WideWeb?’: The magic of computers and the internet

According to several surveys, many Neopagans and New Agers are working ascomputer programmers, systems analysts, or software developers, or are avid users ofcomputers and the internet (Adler, 1986: 446–7).6 Focussing on this fact sheds newlight on esoteric believers’ perception that the machine is alive and magical and theinternet is a form of magical communication. First, for pagan and other alternativeesoteric movements, the importance of the computer for information and networkingis paramount: online calendars, newsletters, and the internet forum connect theotherwise unconnected and unorganised groups and individuals (Starwalker, 2009).Second, it is striking that many Neopagans and New Agers are scientists and computerprogrammers, thus being extremely literate in information technology. For them,there is a strong relationship between an esoteric philosophy and an interest incomputers, as several surveys show – both concerning technology as such (themachine itself) and the internet. Understood in terms of magic (‘sigil’) as well as seenin animist terms (‘living entities’), as ‘oracles’ and as ‘networks’, their futuristicimpact was already highlighted in the 1980s, when Adler quotes from the answers tothe surveys that constitute the basis of her study:

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1. Computers are like magic. ‘Symbolic thinking and patterning are essential tomagical thinking. Like magic, computers work in unseen ways to accomplishtasks.’ . . . ‘A computer is like a sigil.’ ‘Computers often seem to living entities.’. . . ‘They are the new magic of our culture.’ . . . ‘Coupled with modems,computers are the oracles of the future.’ . . . ‘They are the networks for a newage.’

(Adler, 1986: 447–8)

Clearly, esoteric thinking transforms the use and understanding of the computer,as becomes visible in central esoteric texts.

As one of the first New Age centres and spiritual communities of Europe, theFindhorn Community in Scotland can be regarded as the blueprint for the New Age intheory and practice. Coming into existence in 1962, in the 1980s Findhorn wasalready instrumental in creating a worldwide esoteric network as well as gaining fameby the thousands of visitors and by inviting speakers and workshop leaders from allover the world. In Faces of Findhorn: Images of a Planetary Family (Findhorn Community,1980) – a documentary that consists of a collage of different voices and pictures ofFindhorn-related people – the first visions of esoteric networking are presented in adream about the computer Apple when contact is established as soon as the machine’sintelligence and consciousness are recognised by the user:

Jeremy: Part of my networking job, linking with other new age groups,communities and individuals around the world, has been to computerize our filingsystems [. . .] Shortly after I started the networking job I had a recurring dreamabout ‘Apple’, our computer. In the dead of night I would get out of bed andsneak down to the room in which it is housed in the bowels of Universal Hall, andsit down and attune with the machine and type on the keyboard, ‘Apple, are youready to make contact?’ Each time the computer would reply, ‘Syntax Error,’which is its way of saying it doesn’t understand. Night after night, in my dream,I sneaked down and typed, ‘Apple, are you ready to make contact?’ Then onenight the single word ‘Yes’ appeared on the screen. From then on, before doingany work with ‘Apple’, I would sit down with it and attune to the intelligencethat lay beyond the machine, the consciousness behind its physical form. I foundthat the contact was powerful and came remarkably easy. My learning about theworkings of the computer came from that rather than from the manual I’d beenlabouring to understand.’

(Findhorn Community, 1980: n. pag.)

In the depiction of this ‘networking job’ both technological aspects as well asbasic esoteric parameters are brought into conjunction. While in daily reality,computerising the filing system appears as a mundane job, it is the process ofdreaming which establishes a contact between human being and machine. The occultsecret of this relationship is recaptured in the secrecy which is deployed in the dream:in the middle of the night, the computer user sneaks down to ‘attune with themachine.’ Such an attunement presupposes energy relations between all entities thatare recognised and made conscious use of. The computer is thus depicted as a livingentity – the machine has a consciousness the user has to understand and relate to.

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If ‘every object hides a secret’ (Faivre, 1994: 10), attuning to the computer reveals itsconsciousness. In this process of attunement, user and computer find a commonlanguage. Thus, it seems as if the computer’s positive response in the dream becomesintegrated in the computer user’s daily practice and thus becomes more than a visionas soon as the dream merges into reality and changes the computer user’s behaviourtowards the machine. Apart from relying on the belief in a web of connections andcorrespondences, it is particularly through mediation and imagination (the dream) thatthe consciousness of the machine is accessed; the dream thus results in a pragmaticimprovement of the work with the computer, presumably making the computerisingof the filing system easier for the user. In this – very early – vision of spiritualnetworking, the computer provides an unprecedented possibility, but only if aconnection to its consciousness based on a web of connections and correspondences isachieved.

More than 10 years later, computer technology had developed at unprecedentedspeed and the use of the internet had decisively shaped communication in the Westernworld. Significantly, one of the most popular figures in Neopagan witchcraft,Starhawk, provided another vision of conscious and animate computer technology. Inher esoteric-utopian novel The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993), technology and magicalpowers are conjoined in order to present an ideal society governed by deep ecology,an understanding of the interconnectedness of the whole cosmos as well as gender andracial equality. The characters are united by the belief in ‘five sacred things’ – earth,air, fire, water and spirit – and have developed magical abilities that they blend withpolitical activism when they are attacked by an authoritarian regime of Christianfundamentalists, who have developed a militaristic, oppressive, and technocraticdystopia. In the story, an advanced technology forms the backbone of the ecologicalutopia:

‘Do you have a computer system?’ Beth asked.‘A very sophisticated one,’ Madrone said. ‘It’s based on silicon crystals we growfrom sea water. The tecchies direct their formation by visualization. It’s a veryspecialized skill, and not everyone can learn it.’

(Starhawk, 1993: 274–5)

As is the case in Faces of Findhorn, the computer loses its object status and isinstead regarded as alive. Being of natural origin, its existence is explained in terms ofa magical interaction between crystals and human beings. Again, this implies theinterconnection of consciousness between computer users and the computer. In thecentral violent conflict of the novel, the fundamentalist enemies are unable to hackinto the computer system:

‘Nothing will function for us. None of the hardware responds to ourcommands.’‘No, no, they won’t function under stress. They don’t work that way.’. . . They [the databases] are all based on crystals,’ he said, barely audibly, ‘andthe crystals have a consciousness of their own. They cooperate with us, as long asthey want to. We don’t command them.’‘You cooperate with rocks?’

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‘That’s how it works. The tecchies spend a long time in meditation before theytry to work out a program.’

(Starhawk, 1993: 344)

Thus, computers are presented as having a consciousness of their own and humanscan only work with them when they are able to establish a communication on anenergetic level, respecting the crystals’ ‘consciousness’ and realising their own placein an esoteric web of universal interdependence, which has to be understood anddeciphered. In this way, the connection of technology, visualisation as a form ofimagination, and magic signals a challenge to a dissociation of human beings andmachines, of nature and science.

Hence, the principles of the western esoteric tradition allow for a conceptualisa-tion of the computer as an animate object in an exchange with human consciousness.Thus, it is only by deciphering the signs inherent in every object that theseconnections are understood – and utilised for one’s own purposes. In this vein, inZsuzsanna Budapest’s The Goddess in the Office (1993) a rune spell is offered in thechapter ‘When the Computer is Down or Won’t Behave’ (66), relying on the basicprinciples of magic in order to connect to the spirit of the machine:

This spell comes from my friend Laurel, an office witch. She loves the runes formagic in the office because runes make the life force available to you. Thecomputer is a device for powerful thinking, so she uses the rune Ansuz. This is therune of intellect, inspiration and communication [explanation of the runes’connection to Odin] Next Laurel uses the rune Sowilo. . . . Sowilo is regeneration,recharging, self-repair, and victory. Finally Laurel uses Elhaz, the rune ofprotection. . . . Laurel draws these three symbols on her dark computer screenwith saliva, her essence. Visualizing the symbols and the images they represent, shelinks them to the machine and actually endows it with a spirit she can talk to.

(Budapest, 1993: 66–7)

Casting a spell is in accord with the belief in an interconnection of all planes ofexistence which makes possible an intervention for one’s own purposes. Since ‘thecomputer is a device for powerful thinking’, the corresponding rune to use is ‘the runeof intellect, inspiration and communication.’ The other runes are likewise utilised bycorrespondences assumed to reinforce the intention of the computer user, which is torepair the computer and protect it from further failure. Drawing these symbols on thecomputer screen with saliva follows the basic principles of sympathetic magic7 bringinginto conjunction ‘the essence’ of the computer user and the machine. As in Faces ofFindhorn and in The Fifth Sacred Thing, the user thus connects to the consciousness of themachine. In this text, the basis for investing the world with meaning and decipheringthe web of connections is constituted by the belief in the magical purposes of runes(McKinnell, 2004: 32), which constitute an alphabet and at the same time carrymagical symbolism and number magic.8 Thus combining both a word and a sign,serving magical purposes, they draw attention to the complexity of understanding theworld and the importance of its deciphering.

Understanding the computer as a conscious entity results in a different perceptionboth of the hardware constituents and of the processes of networking, which are

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integrally related to each other. In this context, the internet and cyberspace areendowed with magical properties and take on a central status for the esotericcommunity and for the computer user. Barbara Ardinger’s Pagan Every Day (2006)links the computer’s energy to the energy patterns of the whole universe:

Without cyberenergy, we might still be isolated and ignorant. With it, we areable to announce our public rituals and classes and new books. Usingcyberenergy, we are able to mobilize the community to take action, whetherit’s sending healing energy or supporting a political candidate or not buyinggasoline on a certain day. Reader, we are raising cyberenergy and using it withintention. We’re standing in a worldwide circle and holding electronic hands.Grandmother Spider,did you weave the World Wide Web?Wise father Odin,do you cast electronic runes?

(Ardinger, 2006: 26)

In this text, which culminates in a ritualistic, chant-like ending, the World WideWeb is presented as a thread of life. For the popularisation of esoteric ideas and theestablishment of networks, the internet – regarded as a magical tool – creates a virtualreality. This image also draws attention to the political implications of networking. Inthis text, mythological Gods and Goddesses from different cultures9 are not seen asincompatible with the internet, but their qualities are humorously transferred ontothe postmodern world and invoked for the use of the computer. The importance ofrunes as magically charged symbols is once again emphasised as in Budapest’s TheGoddess in the Office; the term ‘electronic runes’ highlights the conjunction of anesoteric-magical world-picture and of postmodern technology.

In Ardinger’s Finding New Goddesses10: Reclaiming Playfulness in Our Spiritual Lives(2003), inventing new Goddesses for the postmodern world constitutes a playful act:‘I offer Them [the new Goddesses] playfully because we need a Found Pantheon forthe New Millennium to address issues earlier times never faced’ (Ardinger, 2003:37). In this book, one of the most important ‘issues earlier times never faced’ is theuse of the computer. In order to ‘find’ such Goddesses for postmodern times,Ardinger refers to the mechanisms of projections for creating an image of theotherwise unfathomable divine, because ‘we create our gods (and goddesses)’ (33). Inmore concrete terms, her book thus contains a whole chapter about computer andinternet Goddesses, such as Nerdix, Compuquia, or Cyberia. The Goddess of theinternet is presented as a figure who brings together nature and technology – atechnology which is alive precisely because it is enchanted with magical energy:

The Found Goddess of the Internet and the World Wide Web is Whizziwig [. . .]She is the true Cosmic Mother, and Her domain is Googleland, where she tendsthe Great Fields of Baud, planting and tending Her vast crops of kilobytes andgigabytes and coaxing each golden URL and pixel to bloom. [. . .] Whizziwig tiesthe knots in the warp and woof that supports the Net and the Web, and it is Shewho spins every cyberworld into being.

(Ardinger, 2003: 73–4)

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Inventing Goddesses of ‘the Net and the Web’ is in line with the enchantment ofthe computer and the internet in esoteric terms – an adaptation of esoteric beliefs topostmodern science and technology. The metaphor of the network connectspostmodern paradigm shifts in how to conceptualise knowledge, organic views of a‘web of life’ in ecology, an esoteric world view of correspondences and connections,and it refers to New Age and Neopagan self-images of a movement withouthierarchies.11 In addition, the network constitutes the crucial structure of postmoderninformation society. These approaches culminate in a (meta-)web integrating magicand science, the esoteric and the computer.

From the beginnings of modernity, the concept of the network has been of crucialimportance; Hartmut Bohme (2004: 31) justly emphasises that the network becomes‘the specific form of episteme in the modern age’ since the various forms of the webwith its nodes and connections and the techniques of networking belong to the basicconstituents of the technological, communicative, aesthetic, and symbolic levels ofculture. The communicative aspect signals a challenge to traditional models ofdiscursively constructed knowledge. Concerning the paradigm shift in conceptualisingknowledge, Fritjof Capra (1992: xiii–xiv), for example, declares that the old model ofconstructing knowledge from basic building blocks and fundamental assumptions is inthe process of being replaced by ‘network as a metaphor for knowledge’. Corrywright(2003: 24) justly draws attention to the fact that similarities exist between Capra’snetwork model of knowledge and Deleuze’s and Guattari’s postmodern model of therhizome.

This conception of discourses which exhibit web structures by connecting variouspoints of knowledge with each other is integrally related to the natural origin of theweb which has become fundamental for the idea of a web of life in postmodernecology. In The Web of Life (1996) Capra argues that ‘since living systems at all levelsare networks, we must visualise the web of life as living systems (networks)interacting with other systems (networks). . . . In other words, the web of life consistsof networks within networks’ (1996: 35). Again, it is this understanding of livingsystems interacting with other systems which makes possible the belief in magicunderstood as a conscious influencing of this web, precisely because the actor knowshis or her part in this web and utilises the right tools according to energycorrespondences. Thus, magic means to actively use one’s will to interfere with theenergetic web of reality by rituals, visualisations, or mental concentration. The use ofrunes, for instance, is justified because the computer user’s intention and magicalaction (for example visualisation) as well as the use of magical symbols correspondingto his or her intention are believed to work on this web.

This worldview of correspondences is also reinforced by the self-image of theNew Agers and Neopagans, because for them it proves essential that there is nohierarchy of organisation (Corrywright, 2003: 86). This lack of hierarchy in favour ofunrestricted forms of communication is also crucial for the postmodern informationsociety. Given the central status of the internet, it should come as no surprise that itbecomes the sign of the global network society (Castells, 2006: 3) constituting a new‘system of global, horizontal communication networks that, for the first time inhistory, allows people to communicate with each other without going through thechannels set up by the institutions of society for socialised communication’ (2006:13). This structure provides a parallel to the esoteric view of cause and effect in a web

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of universal interconnection. In this way, esoteric thinking and subsequent magicalpractice are brought to bear on postmodernity.

Conclusion: Computers and the esoteric worldview

As intelligent technology with a consciousness with which the user can communicate,the computer is regarded as alive and as crucial for a network that actualises the beliefin a cosmic web of connections and correspondences in the postmodern age. Far frombeing technology-hostile, New Agers and Neopagans integrate the computer and theinternet into a holistic worldview, which testifies to the adaptability of esotericprinciples to technical and scientific innovations. This is illustrated by the computerusers’ statements about computers that ‘they are the new magic of our culture’ and‘they are the networks for a new age’ (my emphasis, Adler, 1986: 447–8). Hence,magic is no longer regarded as ‘the bastard sister of science’ as Frazer had argued(1996: 59), but rather as a means to re-enchant science.

In literature, the perceived autonomous life of things and of machines whichescape the control of their creators has often been considered as disturbing anddangerous for human beings and often presented in terms of negative (‘black’) magic(‘Der Zauberlehrling’ can certainly be considered in this tradition). In contrast to suchviews, esotericism reinterprets this animate nature of technology in a positive way. Inthe groundbreaking Cyborg Manifesto (1983), Donna Haraway states that ‘latetwentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference betweennatural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed [. . .]Our machines are disturbingly lively’ (Haraway, 1983: 152). This conception ofmachines as alive, however, does not necessarily have to be disturbing if they areregarded as magical living entities with a consciousness with which human beings cancommunicate, which the esoteric approach clearly illustrates.

The concepts of animism (the computer is alive), correspondences (contact andcommunication with the computer are possible because the user can attune to theenergy of the machine), and imagination and mediation (communication with thecomputer works in dreams, by spells, and invocations) are combined in the texts. Thisprovides new ways of interacting with ‘intelligent technology’ – technology that hasbeforehand been charged with magical energy. Reading texts in different genres thatare preoccupied with understanding the computer from an animist viewpoint ofuniversal correspondences illustrates how, on the one hand, such esoteric traditionsand ideas have remained stable over the ages. On the other hand, in the postmodernage these traditions have been creatively and pragmatically applied to the innovation ofthe computer. Thus, an esoteric tradition of thought has been brought to bear on anew paradigm of communication technology. This testifies to the creative adaptabilityof esotericism and accounts for its persistence throughout the ages. In this way,Haraway’s final statement in the Cyborg Manifesto ‘I would rather be cyborg than agoddess’ (Haraway, 1983: 181) does not present a dichotomy in postmodern esotericthought and practice. While Haraway believes, as her famous statement illustrates,that one has to chose between technology and the esoteric, esoteric approachesto technology, as envisioned (or practiced) in all the texts under discussion, integratethe two.

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Notes

1 For the history of the esoteric and occult in the western esoteric tradition, compareStuckrad (2004), Versluis (2007), Goodrick-Clarke (2008) and Tryphonopoulos(1996). For the specific features and movements compare Faivre (1994) andHanegraaff (1996).

2 For the common ground between the New Age movement and Neopaganism see forexample Hanegraaff (1996: 78–9) and Corrywright (2003: 92).

3 Spiritualism was mostly regarded – and defended – as a scientifically grounded beliefsystem (Hess, 1993: 19; Oppenheim, 1985: 158).

4 In order to explain the principles of natural law, Blavatsky refers to the‘propositions of Oriental philosophy’: ‘There is no miracle. Everything thathappens is the result of law – eternal, immutable, ever active . . . Nature istriune: there is a visible, objective nature; an invisible, indwelling, energizingnature. . . and above these two, spirit, source of all forces. . . Man is alsotriune. . .’ (Blavatsky, 1997: 240). In this explanation, science and the principlesof magic already fall into one.

5 For the relation of New Age Science to the existing scientific consensus andthe most important proponents of New Age Science see Hanegraaff (1996: 62–76).

6 Newer surveys affirm Adler’s findings; compare for example the national surveyconducted between 1993 and 1995 by Berger et al. (2003): ‘The second mostpopular employment designation [after student and graduate student] is aprofessional within the computer industry’ (32). Also compare Starwalker (2009).

7 Compare Frazer (1996: 45).8 McKinnell (2004: 36). The magical associations of the runes as the keys to

understanding the cosmos stems from the myth of the God Odin who is attributedwith discovering the runes in order to learn the wisdom that would give him powerover all the worlds.

9 Esotericism is above all characterised by its hybrid and eclectic nature. In his analysisof twentieth century, esoteric nature spiritualities, Taylor (2010: 14) regards this‘bricolage’ as their founding moment and their basic epistemological operation; inthis context he describes them as ‘eclectic bricolage, by which I mean anamalgamation of bits and pieces of a wide array of ideas and practices, drawn fromdiverse cultural systems, religious traditions, and political ideologies. In a bricolage,these various ideas are fused together, like a bricklayer or mason piecing together awall or building with mortar and stone [. . .] It is a process characterised byhybridization and bricolage’.

10 Esoteric feminism is one major strand of twentieth century esotericism in both NewAge and Neopagan differentiations. Esotericism here seems to function as a specificallyfemale way of relating to technology. Given that many studies analyse the fraughtrelationship of women to technology and science and particularly the internet, thesetexts indicate a shift in women’s relationship to information technology in an esotericcontext. Compare for example Cooper and Weaver (2003) who analyse theresponsibility of education for the ‘digital divide’. See also Margolis and Fisher (2003)who address the gender gap existing in computing as well as Cherny/Weise (1996)who explore women’s trajectories of community-building, information andconnection in cyberspace. For gendered approaches in technology in more generalterms also compare Calvert and Terry (1997).

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11 It is obvious, however, that this understanding of the internet presents an idealconstructed in the process of a revaluation of the internet which forecloses anyproblematic aspects of its use.

References

Adler, Margot (1986). Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, andOther Pagans in America Today. New York: Penguin.

Ardinger, Barbara (2003). Finding New Goddesses: Reclaiming Playfulness in Our Spiritual Lives.Toronto: EWC Press.

Ardinger, Barbara (2006). Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives.San Francisco: Weiser.

Berger, Helen A., Leitch, Evan A., Schaffer, Leigh S. (2003). Voices from the Pagan Census.A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States. Columbia: U of SouthCarolina P.

Blavatsky, Helena P. (1997). Isis Unveiled: Secrets of the Ancient Wisdom Tradition. Illinois: Quest.Bohme, Hartmut (2004). ‘Einfuhrung. Netzwerke. Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer

Konstruktion.’ Eds Barkhoff, Jurgen/Bohme, Hartmut/Riou, Jeanne. Netzwerke.Eine Kulturtechnik der Moderne. Koln: Bohlau. 17–36.

Budapest, Zsuzsanna E. (1993). The Goddess in the Office: A Personal Guide for the SpiritualWarrior at Work. San Francisco: Harper Collins.

Calvert, Melodie and Jennifer Terry, eds (1997). Processed Lives: Gender andTechnology in Everyday Life. London: Routledge.

Capra, Fritjof (1996). The Web of Life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter. London:HarperCollins.

Capra, Fritjof, Steindl-Rast, David and Matus, Thomas (1992). Belonging to the Universe:New Thinking about God and Nature. London: Penguin.

Carpenter, Dennis D. (1996). ‘Emergent Nature Spirituality: An Examination of theMajor Spiritual Contours of the Contemporary Pagan Worldview.’ Magical Religionand Modern Witchcraft. Ed. James R. Lewis. New York: State University of NewYork Press. 35–72.

Castells, Manuel (2006). ‘The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy.’ The NetworkSociety: From Knowledge to Policy. Eds. Manuel Castell and Gustavo Cardoso.Washington: John Hopkins Center for Transatlantic Relations. 3–21.

Cooper, Joel and Weaver, Kimberlee D. (2003). Gender and Computers: Understanding theDigital Divide. London: Psychology Press.

Cherny, Lynn and Elizabeth, Reba Weise, eds. (1996). Wired Women: Gender and NewRealities in Cyberspace. Seattle: Seal Press.

Corrywright, Dominic (2003). Theoretical and Empirical Investigations into New AgeSpiritualities. Oxford: Peter Lang.

Faivre, Antoine (1994). Access to Western Esotericism. Albany: State University of New York Press.Findhorn Community (1980). Faces of Findhorn: Images of a Planetary Family. Findhorn:

Findhorn Publications.Frazer, James (1996). The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. [abridged ed. 1922,

first ed. 1890]. Abridged Edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2008). The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction.

Oxford: Oxford UP.

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Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (1996). New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirrorof Secular Thought. Leiden: Brill.

Haraway, Donna (1983). ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.’ Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: TheReinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. 149–181.

Heelas, Paul (1996). The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization ofModernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Hess, David J. (1993). Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers,and American Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Ivakhiv, Adrian (1996). ‘The Resurgence of Magical Religion as a Response to the Crisisof Modernity: A Postmodern Depth Psychological Perspective.’ Magical Religion andModern Witchcraft. Ed. James R. Lewis. New York: State University of New YorkPress. 237–65.

Margolis, Jane and Fisher, Allan (2003). Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

McKinnell, John, Simek, Rudolf and Duwel, Klaus (2004). Runes, Magic and Religion: ASourcebook. Wien: Fassbaender.

Oppenheim, Janet (1985). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England,1850–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Starhawk (1993). The Fifth Sacred Thing. New York: Bantam.Starwalker, Sage (2009). ‘Goddess 2.9: Goddess Movement Beyond the Baby Boom.’

MatriFocus: Cross-Quarterly for the Goddess Woman. vol. 8–4. 19 June 2010 5http://www.matrifocus.com/LAM09/editorial.htm.

Stuckrad, Kocku von (2004). Was ist Esoterik? Kleine Geschichte des geheimen Wissens.Munchen: Beck.

Taylor, Bron (2010). Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future.Berkeley: U of California P.

Tryphonopoulos, Demetres P. (1996). ‘The History of the Occult Movement.’ LiteraryModernism and the Occult Tradition. Eds Leon Surette and DemetresTryphonopoulos. Orono, Maine: National Poetry Foundation. 19–49.

Versluis, Arthur (2007). Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism. Lanham:Rowman & Littlefield.

Wallraven, Miriam (2008). ‘‘A mere instrument’ or ‘proud as Lucifer’? Self-presentationsin the Occult Autobiographies by Emma Hardinge Britten (1900) and Annie Besant(1893).’Women’s Writing 15/3: 390–411.

Miriam Wallraven is a lecturer of English, University of Tubingen, also a trainer for the

graduate schools of Frankfurt and Wurzburg as well as a post-doc researcher. She holds

a PhD in English Literature. She is currently working on her second book, Female

Lucifers, Priestesses, and Witches: Women Writers and the Discourses of Occultism and

Spirituality in the Twentieth Century. Her research focuses on gender studies, the

literatures of feminism, narratology, and cultural studies (particularly esotericism and

spirituality). She is the author of A Writing Halfway between Theory and Fiction: Mediating

Feminism from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Wurzburg, 2007). Address:

Eberhard Karls Universitat Tubingen, Englisches Seminar, Wilhelmstrasse 50, 72074

Tubingen, Germany. [email: miriam.wallraven@ es.unituebingen.de]

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