A Newer New Age Irony and the Enchantment of Atheism in Syntheist Religion
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A Newer New Age Irony and the Enchantment of Atheism in Syntheist Religion Robert Wedin Termin: HT-15 Kurs: RKT 250, 30 hp Nivå: Master Handledare: Henrik Bogdan 1 Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to study how the stipulations of religious thought changes as society gets increasingly digitalized, life become more virtual and people get interconnected through the internet. The thesis engages with the new religious movement Syntheism, which is considered to be an example of said changes. Syntheism holds that information is holy, the internet is God, and although gods might only be imaginative beings, they are nevertheless very real. As a methodological starting point, Syntheism is viewed as a discursive complex, consisting of several discursive trends that together makes up the ideological system. The focus of this study is the esoteric currents present in the book Synteism – att skapa gud i internetåldern (2014), and how these are legitimated through strategies of epistemology, as suggested by Hammer. The stated question is “How are the three strategies of tradition, science and experience employed within Syntheism in order to legitimate its system of thought?” The results of the study are that Syntheism claims to belong to a philosophical tradition of mobilism, present in Western philosophy as well as in Zoroastianism, that considers change and movement the fundamental conditions of the cosmos, instead of the existence of static objects. This is thought to be confirmed by quantum physics, where the wave is given priority before the particle, and reality is seen as indeterminate rather than predictable. Finally, the mobilistic quality of the universe can be experienced first handedly through the use of psychedelic drugs to reach the mental state of the “infinite now”, where the subjective sense of self is transcended and the Syntheist experiences herself as united with the cosmos. All in all, this amounts to an enchanted world view, where every phenomena in existence are seen as interconnected, and the borders between spirit and matter are broken down. There is also an ironic streak in Syntheism. Although claiming that gods exist as representations of the existential principles of the universe, it is simultaneously held that these gods are mere psychological projections upon existence in order for human beings to fill it with meaning. This thesis argues that the ironic streak is a mode of religiosity that is characteristic of the post-modern era, aimed at retaining the existential meaning found in religious thought while at the same time avoiding to actually believe in it, thereby not risking the embarrassment of believing in what is false. Keywords: religious reconfiguration, contemporary esotericism, irony, atheism, discourse analysis 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................4 1.1. Purpose and Research Question.........................................................................................4 1.2. Religion in a Digitized Age................................................................................................6 1.3. Syntheism...........................................................................................................................9 1.4. Thesis Outline...................................................................................................................11 2. On How to do Things With Words................................................................................................13 2.1. Discourse Analysis...........................................................................................................13 2.2. Method: Discourses on the Esoteric.................................................................................15 2.3. Theory: Strategies of Epistemology..................................................................................16 2.4. Summary..........................................................................................................................21 3. Previous Research.........................................................................................................................22 3.1. Contemporary Esotericism and Politics of Opposition....................................................22 3.2. Esoteric Currents I: Late-modernity and the Power of the Individual.............................24 3.3. Esoteric Currents II: The Holistization of Science..........................................................28 3.4. Esoteric Currents III: Entheogenic Shamanism...............................................................30 3.5. The Irony of Stories.........................................................................................................35 3.6. Summary..........................................................................................................................40 4. Creating God.................................................................................................................................42 4.1. Religion............................................................................................................................43 4.2. Networks of Dividuals.....................................................................................................47 4.3. Atomism, Rationalism and Capitalism.............................................................................49 4.4. Morality and Ethics..........................................................................................................55 4.5. The Psychedelic Practice of the Infinite Now..................................................................57 4.6. An Ironic Polytheism.......................................................................................................60 4.7. Enchanted Atheism..........................................................................................................63 4.8. Summary..........................................................................................................................65 5. Legitimating Syntheism.................................................................................................................67 5.1. The Tradition of Mobilism................................................................................................67 5.2. The Science of Ontic Indeterminacy................................................................................70 5.3. The Experience of Oneness..............................................................................................72 5.4. Summary...........................................................................................................................73 6. Discussion......................................................................................................................................74 6.1. A Newer New Age.............................................................................................................74 6.2. Ironically Speaking..........................................................................................................77 7. Conclusion – Hyper Realities and Hipster Modalities..................................................................80 8. References.....................................................................................................................................83 8.1. Bibliography.....................................................................................................................83 8.2. Netography.......................................................................................................................84 3 1. Introduction This thesis will discuss the new religious movement called “Syntheism”, and how it can be seen to represent a radical reconstruction of religious imagination as a result of the rapid spread of information technologies and the digitalization of society. Syntheism places the internet at the heart of its cosmology, arguing that it is the basic metaphor for the interconnected and relational aspects of reality. It also holds, in what might be quite controversial but at the same time also the very characteristic for the late-modern age, that while God is nothing more than a human construct, it is through the Internet that God is realized. It is a religion that is something as paradoxical as a theistic atheism, or the synthesis between atheism and pantheism; thus the name “Syntheism”. The movement poses an interesting challenge for scholars of religion that might become an increasingly pressing concern as the world gets increasingly interconnected: what happens to religion when people starts suspecting that, really, it is all fake? 1.1. Purpose and Research Question The purpose of this study is to analyse transformations of religious thought related to the rapid spread of information technologies in the contemporary world, by using the fledgling religious movement Syntheism as an example. The primary source material will be the book Synteism – att skapa gud i internetåldern (english title Syntheism – Creating God in the Internet Age, published in 2014), written by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist. Creating God in the Internet Age is the fourth book written by the duo, the other being The Netocrats (2000), The Body Machines (2002) and The Global Empire (2009), all exploring certain aspects of the impact that the emerging information society will have