Techgnosis

What Hacker News says

1. dawg-Nov 2019
   The best book I had to read in college was called "Madumo: A Man Bewitched". It's by an anthropologist who befriended a man in South Africa named Madumo. Madumo was a young man from a very poor family living in Suweto and he was working on going to college when the author met him.

   At some point Madumo became "cursed" according to a local shaman and all of this misfortune started to befall him. All of his friends and family believed that the curse was real. He believed that the curse was real. A series of shamans took his money and prescribed him increasingly outrageous cures for the curse, not unlike the treatments described in this article.

   The author's main question was, is the magic real? Isn't it real if everyone believes in it, and if everybody's actions are constrained by it? How can we honestly call something like that "not real"?

   My question is, do we really believe that we in the west are immune to this kind of behavior? Have we really escaped the clutches of witch magic and shamanism just because we have high-technology things like the internet, particle colliders, atom bombs?

   Maybe this is a part of human nature that will never go away. Maybe people will always snort rhinocerous horns for stronger erections and drink essential oils to get rid of their cancer. We think we're super modern but is it true? No matter how much "science education" spread by the likes of Niell DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, is it possibly that we will we always find ourselves possessed by curses, demons, aliens, parasites?

   If you're interested in this kind of thing I also recommend the book "Techgnosis" by Erik Davis, which brilliantly explores techno-magic and shamanism.

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2. kostadinMay 2019
   Agreed. Techgnosis was a very influential read for me and Expanding Mind is still a very unique program.

   A bit late probably, but for anyone reading this I highly recommend tracking down Davis’s interview with McKenna conducted shortly before he passed. It was probably one of the first things I heard from either and became interested for life in both.

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3. cookrnOct 2014
   A wonderful, albeit dense, read that touches on Extropianism among many other things is Techgnosis

   http://www.amazon.com/TechGnosis-Myth-Magic-Mysticism-Inform...

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4. convulsiveJul 2011
   Great list. I didn't know about De Landa's work, looks really interesting. In the same spirit, and for something more recent, I'd recommend Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. I also find Erik Davis' Techgnosis to be a criminally well-written book.
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5. Alex3917Mar 2024
   Great article, makes me want to finally read the author’s Techgnosis book which has been on my shelf forever.
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