- Hardcover: 372 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail (24 Feb 1999)
- Language German
- ISBN-10: 1852426454
- ISBN-13: 978-1852426453
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.5 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 440,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The gap between the technological worldview and a mystical outlook may not be as great as it seems. In Techgnosis Erik Davis takes a look at modern information technology--as well as much previous technology--to reveal how it is often rooted in spiritual and mystical beliefs. He furthermore explores how those who embrace new technological advances often do so with expectations stemming from religious sensibilities.
Davis compares and contrasts the scientific attitude that we can know reality through technology with the Gnostic philosophy of developing ultimate understanding. The book comes in reasonably organised chapters but there's also a strong stream-of-consciousness component to Davis's writing as it moves back and forth across time and space to make connections. For example, one argument may run from information theory to the nebulous nature of Gnosticism to the philosophical problem of evil--all in just a few pages. But rather than being chaotic the result is a lively interplay of wide-ranging ideas. The style is equally lively and generally engaging even if it sometimes strays into the hip. Davis succeeds in revealing the spiritual side of what some may regard as cold technological thought. --Elizabeth Lewis
Product Description
From the printing press to the telegraph, through radio, TV and the Internet, TechGnosis explores the mystical impulses that lie behind our obsession with information technology. In this thrilling book, writer and cyber guru Erik Davis demonstrates how religious imagination, magical dreams and millennialist fervour have always permeated the story of technology. Through shamanism to gnosticism, voodoo to alchemy, Buddhism to evangelism, TechGnosis peels away the rational shell of info tech to reveal the utopian dreams, alien obsessions and apocalyptic visions that populate the ongoing digital revolution. 'Beautifully written, carefully conceived and absolutely accessible, TechGnosis proves that it?s time we sat up and took notice? Observer ?A masterpiece of informed polemic, welding seemingly disparate blocs of knowledge and thought into a coherent, challenging whole with passion, erudition and wit? Independent
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First Sentence
This book is written in the shadow of the millennium, that arbitrary but incontestable line that the Western imagination has drawn in the sands of time. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
This book is written in the shadow of the millennium, that arbitrary but incontestable line that the Western imagination has drawn in the sands of time. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of the very few modern books that I shall go on re-reading every few years for the rest of my life (I can only think of rwo or three others: Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind, George Lakoff's Women Fire and Dangerous Things and Richard Bentall's Madness Explained). The historical sweep, the originality and the relevance to so many contemporary questions are unrivalled. Amazingly, Davis was only thirty when he wrote it.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Erik Davis manages to show us how much we have learned, how sophisticated we have become and yet how much we are still the same beings we were 2000 or 4000 years ago in mythological, social and philosophical terms. He manages to dissect mankind in a cyber-philosophical way to show amazing analogies between our modern civilization and the antique and medieval world.
In my opinion, Davis manages to proof that a few things have never changed, and he also explains why.
This book took some time for me to read - not because it is hard to read, (it is actually very entertaining) but every few pages I had to stop and think a lot...There is a few things you will see in a different light after reading Techgnosis.
In my opinion, Davis manages to proof that a few things have never changed, and he also explains why.
This book took some time for me to read - not because it is hard to read, (it is actually very entertaining) but every few pages I had to stop and think a lot...There is a few things you will see in a different light after reading Techgnosis.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
18 reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Stunning Debut Unveils Hermetic Underside To Cyberculture
14 April 1999
Format:Hardcover
Erik Davis' fine writing has graced the pages of The Nation, Village Voice, Lingua Franca, and 21.C for many years. 'Techgnosis' grew out of an essay that he wrote for the seminal cyber-crit anthology 'Flame Wars', edited by Mark Dery.
Unlike other authors, Davis has an incredibly open mind and lets the disenfranchised speak for themselves. There are some stunning sections on Scientology, the Gurdjieff Work, John Dee, the Extropians, and the interface between early 1980s role-playing games like Gary Gygax's 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' and contemporary VR technology. Davis examines many of the integral examples of spirituality featured across many cyber-crit books, but his elegant writing and common sense inject a powerful dynamic into this work not often found elsewhere. He doesn't have the same hysterical tone often found in anti-cult literature for example, but is also balanced and can be subtly critical (confused yet?).
There are some strange omissions, notably an excellent piece Davis wrote for 21.C on the Mormons that appears to have been dropped by the publishers at last minute. Despite this, 'Techgnosis' is a strong debut that clearly conveys how the spiritual has transmutated into the technological at the end of the millennium. Fully referenced, Davis' book is a clear indication of the maturation of a defining authorial voice.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Looking to the future with roots in the past
25 April 2002
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was not expecting a classical Gnostic text when I picked this book up, perhaps that's why I'm not as dissapointed as others who have read it. I was looking for a work in the Gnostic tradition (not Tradition). Davis makes some compelling connections between the old and new seekers after Truth. References cited in this book were also good, and steered me toward other interesting works.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Techno wizard
20 Jan 2003
Format:Paperback
Techgnosis creatively runs the gamut of the language and human expression game - unfurled in such divergent media as computers, literature, and science.
Davis paints a vivid picture of worlds that have opened up as a result of cutting edge human thinking and natural extensions of the human nervous system which have made our lives - if not entirely more useful - at least a lot more interesting and enjoyable.
Davis is a modern shaman who ties together the mystical with the technological in ways that make sense.
Very nicely done.
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