Postmodern spirituality

[Magical Realist]

"In recent times, virtually all aspects of human life have adapted to the digital environment. The technologization of existence has long followed a steady trajectory toward what the social theorist Zygmunt Bauman dubbed “liquid modernity”—that is, the “melting” of the steel structures that once upheld the “solid modernity” of the industrial revolution into a state of limitless liquidity that we witness in the unfettered global movement and communication through technologies that seemingly obviate the constraints of space and time. The omnipresence of cyberspace signifies the climactic summation of this trajectory, enabling the cross-continental dissemination of images and sounds at nature-defying speeds. This “liquefaction” is not only ontological but also ideological; imbued in the very notion of transcending the limitations of the “solid” world is a narrative of secular progress that also endeavors to melt the mores of the traditional social environment. Cyberspace, then, plays an important role in creating and magnifying the liquid or postmodern cultural climate that it is a key feature of, enabling a liberation from both geographical and ideological restraints. Indeed, contemporary sociologist David Lyon has called cyberspace both “a child and parent of the postmodern” in this respect.

The forms of spirituality that have emerged on the internet in recent years have also assumed the characteristic liquidity of all cyberspace phenomena; disjointed elements of belief systems are propelled through digital channels where they ebb, flow, and transmute in accordance with the personal dispositions of individuals. Severed from the confines of orthodoxy, these fragments of structured systems can be adopted (and abandoned) at will by the individual. As such, they represent the unmooring of spirituality from the foundational principles of traditional religion—an amplification of what the sociologist Grace Davie dubbed “believing without belonging,” whereby religious institutions are rendered irrelevant to the pursuit of spiritual belief and practice. The social media app TikTok has become the tributary from which many deinstitutionalized spiritual practices proceed, forming digital subcultures—bound tenuously by hashtags and mutual followers—such as WitchTok, an amorphous hybrid of Wicca and other neo-pagan beliefs, and “reality shifting,” a trend comprised of practices for inducing altered states of consciousness..."

https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/sp...dern-world

I feel like this emergent DIY kind of spirituality relates strongly to that of Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. Thinkers and writers in the past few centuries who I feel set the stage for this shift, and whose writings continue to influence thru cyberspace, include Rumi, William Blake, Carl Jung, James Joyce, Colin Wilson, Aleister Crowley, William Burroughs, Teilhard de Chardin, H.P. Lovecraft, John Keel, Jeffery Kripal, Charles Fort, Whitley Strieber, Jacques Vallee, Joseph Campbell, Robert Anton Wilson, Aldous Huxley, Carlos Castaneda, Terrence McKenna, Erik Davis, and Philip K Dick to mention a few.

The metanarratives that once corraled spirituality into the forms of institutionalized religions and ideological movements are now being questioned. Not only is the Enlightenment narrative of mankind's supreme reason wearing thin but its tangential "truth" of an independent objective reality where there are absolute truths and immutable facts is also being doubted. This trend falls neatly in line with the gnostic view of reality ultimately being a collective illusion foisted upon us by the dark forces of our culture and our materialistic regime. Here the encounter with the transcendental is no longer about having faith in historical narratives and dogmas nor of conforming to some law or creed.. The epistemic imperative of "knowing the truth" has become one of personal engagement and customized cosmicity, now being a matter of lived experience and openness to an immanent Other of "living information", or what Wallace Stevens called "the Interior Paramour", and the imaginal creativity of language itself--the Logos of ancient thought.. Hence the universally eclectic and heuristic nature of this non-narrative based numinous experience, as well as its deeply anarchal and revolutionary power, always flowing and mixing up and liquifying the cognitive and soporific constraints of our contemporary simulacrum.

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[C C]

[...] I feel like this emergent DIY kind of spirituality relates strongly to that of Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. Thinkers and writers in the past few centuries who I feel set the stage for this shift [...] The metanarratives that once corraled spirituality into the forms of institutionalized religions and ideological movements are now being questioned...

The rise of "nones" apparently does not to equate to an increase in scientism, as militants might hope. Albeit some good news for science itself (though most of the "positive views" are probably from the non-theists and non-spiritualists who slot under the classification of "none").

A closer look at how atheists, agnostics and those who describe their religion as ‘nothing in particular’ see God, religion, morality, science and more
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...y-believe/

Our survey data shows:

• Most “nones” believe in God or another higher power. But very few go to religious services regularly.
  
• Most say religion does some harm, but many also think it does some good. They are not uniformly anti-religious.
  
• Most “nones” reject the idea that science can explain everything. But they express more positive views of science than religiously affiliated Americans do.

[Magical Realist]

The rise of "nones" apparently does not to equate to an increase in scientism, as militants might hope. Albeit some good news for science itself (though most of the "positive views" are probably from the non-theists and non-spiritualists who slot under the classification of "none").

Yeah..It's probably no coincidence that fundamentalist materialism and scientism emerged parallel to fundamentalist religion or scriptural literalism. They both eschew the possibility of the individual themselves deciding on and experiencing ultimate Reality on their own. Scientism is like the evil twin of fundamentalist Christianity, connecting all the same dots in its adherents that religion once did by providing them with another narrative of revealed absolute truth and a sacred canon of infallible texts that answers to their ontological alienation. And each worldview is mediated by its own unquestionable and authoritative knowledge regime. Robert Anton Wilson noticed this same ironic complimentarity in his own life:

“The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have my demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share the same crusading zeal and the same lack of humor, charity and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins