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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: this is part two in our two part exploration of

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Speaker 1: techno religion of the convergence of religion and technology. So

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Speaker 1: before you listen to this episode, you should definitely go

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Speaker 1: back and check out our part one episode of techno Religion.

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Speaker 1: And at the beginning of the last episode, I told

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Speaker 1: the story about a strange incident taking place at High

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Speaker 1: Rock Tower in Lynn, Massachusetts in the eighteen fifties where

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Speaker 1: people were trying to build an electro mechanical Messiah, and

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Speaker 1: the chief intellectual architect of this event was a guy

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Speaker 1: named John Murray Spear. We now continue the story. So

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Speaker 1: who was John Murray Spear. He's in some ways a

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Speaker 1: much forgotten an overlooked figure from the sort of radical

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Speaker 1: reform movement of the early eighteen hundreds. So John R.

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Speaker 1: Spear was born in Boston in eighteen o four. His

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Speaker 1: father was a blacksmith. He had a brother named Charles

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Speaker 1: who was a year older than him, and he and

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Speaker 1: his family were members of the Universalist Church. And this

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Speaker 1: was a Christian church that was popular in some parts

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Speaker 1: of New England back then, and the Universalist Church rejected

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Speaker 1: the doctrine of hell. That's one of the most notable

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Speaker 1: things about them. They rejected the doctrine of hell and

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Speaker 1: eternal damn nation, and they preached that the salvation of

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Speaker 1: Christ was applied to all people unconditionally. I like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And they also were very often associated with political radical

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Speaker 1: reform causes. They were tied up in abolitionist movements. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So there was a somewhat utopian strain of thinking about

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Speaker 1: earthly life, not just the afterlife, in the Universalist circles

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Speaker 1: back then. So John Murray Spear and his brother Charles

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Speaker 1: grew up in the Church of Reverend John Murray, for

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Speaker 1: whom John Murray Spear was named, and young John they said,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was fond of going to solitary places

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Speaker 1: and sort of thinking deep thoughts. In his early life

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Speaker 1: he was apprentice to a shoemaker, which I had no

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Speaker 1: idea about this, but according to the book which is

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Speaker 1: my main source on John Murray Spear, which is called

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Speaker 1: The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear by John Benedict Baucher,

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Speaker 1: back then shoemakers were particularly radical and bookish group. Have

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Speaker 1: you ever heard this? No? I never, so the ideas

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Speaker 1: shoemakers would have young apprentices, and the the youngest apprentices

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Speaker 1: would go out each day and collect a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of pamphlets and newspapers for the day and then would

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Speaker 1: sit there reading them out loud to all the shoemakers

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Speaker 1: and older apprentice shoemakers while they did their work for

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Speaker 1: the day. And I wonder why this is shoemakers, why

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Speaker 1: shoemaker And of course the shoemakers would listen to the

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Speaker 1: stuff and they'd comment on it, sort of have debates.

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Speaker 1: I think maybe this is just completely uninformed. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if it's because shoemakers have a job where they're mostly stationary,

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Speaker 1: but it's not too loud. That's true. But that's a

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Speaker 1: good point because essentially they're listening to podcasts right right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and today a lot of people listen to podcasts. Like

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Speaker 1: if you're you know, you're working on a spreadsheet, or

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Speaker 1: you're doing something at your computer, or you're driving, right,

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Speaker 1: these are all tasks that that are not too loud

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Speaker 1: and they don't require a level of concentration that is

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Speaker 1: so intense that you can't hear a couple of people

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Speaker 1: talk about some topic or another. Right, So, John Murray Spear,

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Speaker 1: the young John Murray Spear, got some early practice sort

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Speaker 1: of dealing with radical ideas and participating in public conversations

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Speaker 1: this way through being a shoemaker, and through the influence

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Speaker 1: of the Universalist Church, especially eventually through the Universalist luminary

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Speaker 1: jose A. Blue, who's a big name in Universalist thinking

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Speaker 1: at this time, And eventually John Murray Spear went on

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Speaker 1: to become a Universalist minister himself, and he traveled round

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Speaker 1: and ministered in several different UH congregations and did a

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Speaker 1: lot of radical reform activism, what we would call activism now.

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Speaker 1: So he became deeply involved in the movement to abolish

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Speaker 1: the death penalty UH. He and his brother Charles were

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Speaker 1: both very much involved with that. He became very much

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Speaker 1: involved in women's rights and in the abolition of slavery.

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Speaker 1: Especially John Mary Spire was very much an abolitionist. He

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Speaker 1: he campaigned against slavery constantly, and he was also, i

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Speaker 1: would say in a way that was sort of ahead

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Speaker 1: of his time, campaigning against what we today know as racism.

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Speaker 1: Though I think back then a lot of white people

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Speaker 1: didn't even have a word for that or know what

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Speaker 1: to call it. But he was against prejudice, not just slavery,

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Speaker 1: but prejudice against people of different skin tones. And so

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Speaker 1: there's a lot to admire about this guy. I think

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Speaker 1: he was. He was active in William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist movements. Actually,

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Speaker 1: there's a great quote from this book where William Lloyd

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Speaker 1: Garrison was introducing spear as a speaker and an abolitionist convention,

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Speaker 1: and he made this horrible pun, but it sort of

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Speaker 1: reflects his role. He says, although weapons of our warfare

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Speaker 1: are not carnal but spiritual, we do not object at

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Speaker 1: all to the use of the spear. Now, this apparently

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Speaker 1: is this like a Miltonian reference here as well, Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a reference to the angel Etheriel in in

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Speaker 1: Paradise Lost, which has a spear that essentially exposes the

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Speaker 1: true nature of whatever it touches. It's you know, the

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Speaker 1: it's the glasses from they live. Um. So the Euriel

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Speaker 1: can touch the spirit to Satan when Satan's in the

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Speaker 1: form of a toad and reveal Satan's true nature as

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Speaker 1: Satan and This was a common metaphor in the abolitionist

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Speaker 1: movement at the time, and I think more generally the

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Speaker 1: radical reform movements of the time to sort of expose

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Speaker 1: the hypocrisy and oppression of the standard governments and institutions

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Speaker 1: of the time. So to summarize this is a this

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Speaker 1: is a guy who is very concerned with the real world,

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Speaker 1: oh totally. But then John Murray spirit took a turn

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Speaker 1: and while still i'd say in a lot of ways

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Speaker 1: being concerned with the real world, he took a turn

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Speaker 1: towards the spirit world. He became involved with what was

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Speaker 1: known at the time as the spiritualist movement. So this

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Speaker 1: for I think the first real piece of evidence here

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Speaker 1: that was in this book I read. It was in

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Speaker 1: August eighteen, John Murray spear penned a review in an

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Speaker 1: anti death penalty newspaper that he was co editor of

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Speaker 1: called The Prisoner's Friend, and he penned a review of

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Speaker 1: a book about spiritualism, which was The Principles of Nature,

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Speaker 1: Her Divine Revelations and a Voice to Mankind by Andrew

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Speaker 1: Jackson Davis. And this was sort of work in the

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Speaker 1: emerging field of spiritualism, and Davis claimed to be in

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Speaker 1: contact with the spirit of Emmanuel sweden Borg, like channeling

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Speaker 1: his statements from beyond the grave, and the book alleged

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Speaker 1: that there were these various universal laws at play, and

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Speaker 1: it sort of looked at religion from a rationalist angle. Actually,

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Speaker 1: this is a thing that might seem weird to us today,

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Speaker 1: but at the time, spiritualism represented what some people believe

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Speaker 1: to be a more scientific approach to the supernatural. So

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Speaker 1: you might have traditional religions that are based on received traditions,

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Speaker 1: whereas spiritualism, people sitting around channeling spirits was actually an

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Speaker 1: empirically observed phenomenon. You might not believe that they were

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Speaker 1: having real supernatural experiences, but the scientific thinking of the

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Speaker 1: time was, well, at least we're we're looking at real

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Speaker 1: phenomena here and we can make judgments on them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean you you look back to the spiritualist movement.

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Speaker 1: I mean, even in some of the fringier stuff with

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Speaker 1: seance an ectoplasm, right, even if it even though ectoplasm

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Speaker 1: was a was a con it was an attempt to say, look,

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Speaker 1: here's physical proof, some sort of biological manifestation of the spirit. Right.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of these people who were into spiritualism,

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Speaker 1: were people who were deeply desperately yearning for something to

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Speaker 1: cling onto about true messages from beyond, real transcendental knowledge.

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Speaker 1: So some Universalist ministries at the time were opposed to spiritualism.

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Speaker 1: But in eighteen fifty one, John Murray Spear broke ties

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Speaker 1: with the Universalist Church after refusing to affirm a simple

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Speaker 1: creed of the Church, which is basically pledging allegiance to

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Speaker 1: the guidance of the Bible and the person of Jesus,

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Speaker 1: because he's he saw that as too constrictive on on

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Speaker 1: sort of freedom of thought by that point, and it

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Speaker 1: seems like in some way he began to at least

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Speaker 1: secretly train himself as a seer and practitioner of mesmeric trances,

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Speaker 1: you know, like the Mesmerism. So on March thirty one,

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two, John Murray Spear actually began his career

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Speaker 1: as a spirit medium, and this was a career with

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Speaker 1: somewhat mixed reception among his social circles. He'd get messages

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Speaker 1: from spirits from beyond the grave, sometimes through automatic writing,

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Speaker 1: where he would sit there and just start writing whatever

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Speaker 1: came to his mind and believing it came from a

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Speaker 1: spirit and sometimes automatic drawing. Some of these drawings sound

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Speaker 1: pretty funny, where he'd like draw a human and then

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Speaker 1: like draw a spirit guided labels for all their body parts. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes through speech, so sometimes he might just get up

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Speaker 1: and give an extemporaneous speech on a subject he didn't

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Speaker 1: know anything about, believing he was channeling messages from someone

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Speaker 1: who did know something about it, who was in the

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Speaker 1: spirit world. So in spiritualism, like I mean, there's a

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Speaker 1: sense of evolution to this as well, because it's the

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Speaker 1: idea that we die, our spirit passes on and as

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Speaker 1: spirits we continue to evolve, and the spirit world is

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Speaker 1: filled with the individuals that have have a lot of

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Speaker 1: of of knowledge, a lot of wisdom to share with

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Speaker 1: the living. And John Murray spirit is essentially opening himself

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Speaker 1: up in along these lines as just anytime you want

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Speaker 1: to pop in and I am open Mike Night for humanity,

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Speaker 1: just pop into me. And so so he's popping in

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Speaker 1: and out of the real John Murray Spear and just

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Speaker 1: becoming whoever is coming up to the podium to speak,

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Speaker 1: that's right, yeah, yeah, exactly. So John Murray Spear and

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Speaker 1: his daughter Sophronia also Sophronia as I love that name. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They sort of became a spirit medium team. For a while,

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Speaker 1: they were both channeling messages of spirits, and for a

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Speaker 1: while he was getting various kinds of messages, sometimes like

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Speaker 1: vague messages would tell him to travel to a specific

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Speaker 1: place and meet people to do healing rituals on them.

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Speaker 1: One example was I think at some point Benjamin Franklin

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Speaker 1: contacted him via spirits and told him to go visit

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Speaker 1: a lady who had been struck by lightning and was ailing.

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Speaker 1: And then also, yeah, he'd be given these discourses on

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Speaker 1: the nature of reality, so Benjamin Franklin would inhabit him

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Speaker 1: and speak through him on the nature of electricity, magnetism,

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Speaker 1: the cosmic ether. There was also there was a particularly

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Speaker 1: funny story in this book where John Murray Spear was

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Speaker 1: in Cleveland channeling the spirit of the dead physician and

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Speaker 1: founding father Benjamin Rush. And this is a direct quote

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Speaker 1: from his speech in speaking of the mortal body, it

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Speaker 1: will be all things considered. Wisest to commence that what

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Speaker 1: looking at all things, may be considered the most or

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Speaker 1: more strictly speaking, the more important part, and that is

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Speaker 1: the head in the front part just below the eyes

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Speaker 1: there is what is generally called by the common people

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Speaker 1: a knows, and here it will be perceived that there

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Speaker 1: are two apartments. What what does that even mean? Um?

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Speaker 1: But it didn't stop there. Unfortunately he uh so, or

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Speaker 1: maybe fortunately who knows. Genrey spirit didn't just get these

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Speaker 1: discourses on the nature of humanity. He eventually started getting

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Speaker 1: messages from a congress of spirits, this great sort of

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Speaker 1: enclay of of spirits that formed a general assembly in

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Speaker 1: the spirit world. Uh. And these had sub committees basically

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Speaker 1: that would communicate to him, and they had these great names.

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Speaker 1: One was the Association of Beneficence. They're also the Association

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Speaker 1: of Electrizers, Elementizers, education Izers, governmentizers, healthfulizers, and agriculturalizers. It

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Speaker 1: makes it makes sense, you know, in terms of the

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Speaker 1: cosmology of the thing, right, because if if a living

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Speaker 1: human is just the larval form, and the spirit form

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Speaker 1: is kind of the adult, then imagine what kind of

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Speaker 1: an adult spirit form someone like Benjamin Franklin transforms into. Right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you have enough of these individuals floating

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Speaker 1: around in the spirit realm, they're going to form committees

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Speaker 1: exactly right. So this is where things got really interesting

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Speaker 1: because the association of electrizers, that's not as sinister as

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Speaker 1: it sounds. I think they were providing knowledge on the

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Speaker 1: electrification of the world through through technology. Contacted Spear and

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Speaker 1: said through Spear that they had some plans that needed

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Speaker 1: to be enacted on Earth, and those plans were for

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Speaker 1: what they called a new motor. Yes, the new motor,

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Speaker 1: which is the physical channel of the new motive power.

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Speaker 1: And this is the electro mechanical Messiah. We began the

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Speaker 1: episode with al Right, at this point, I should probably

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Speaker 1: jump in and just give just a brief overview of

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Speaker 1: some of the metaphysics that are at play in spears spiritualism,

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Speaker 1: and already touched on THEO. We already touched on the

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Speaker 1: whole idea of the the human. The physical human is

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Speaker 1: being the larval form of a of a spirit form

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Speaker 1: that continues to evolve. Right, But Spears metaphysics actually played

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Speaker 1: into the supposed mechanics of this machine. Yes, um, he

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Speaker 1: said that the mind has three functions, the human mind

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Speaker 1: three functions. It receives, stores, and transmits spiritual energy. H

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Speaker 1: And this thought energy is not generated in the mind,

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Speaker 1: so that it's it's not coming out of the meat

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Speaker 1: inside your head, but rather it's broadcast into our solar

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Speaker 1: system by a cosmic God, and then the Sun acts

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Speaker 1: as a lens to direct this divine signal down to Earth,

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Speaker 1: where it collects, of course in north polar reservoirs, and

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Speaker 1: then it dissipates astound to the human minds across the Earth. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we're sort of like receivers or repeaters of this

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Speaker 1: cosmic signal coming from God, the electricity of God's love

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Speaker 1: that has channeled through the lens of the Sun. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and notice all of these technological scientific metaphors that are

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Speaker 1: used in the creation of of of of of a

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Speaker 1: cosmology for the unseen. Right. So what was this machine actually, Well,

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Speaker 1: in mundane terms, it was a table with a bunch

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Speaker 1: of pieces attached to it. Yes, if you were introduced

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Speaker 1: to this electrical messiah, I dare say you would be

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Speaker 1: disappointed because it is not the large robot Jesus that

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Speaker 1: you wanted to be. Right, So Spear would continually get

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Speaker 1: new messages from the spirits, constantly updating the plans for

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Speaker 1: the machine, and all of his supporters gathered in this

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Speaker 1: place I mentioned earlier, the High Rock Tower in Lynn, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: and worked for months on this from the summer of

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three and into eighteen fifty four, constantly making

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Speaker 1: additions to the machine, changing things based on the spirit specifications. Basically,

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Speaker 1: there was like a metal stalk uh in some ways.

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Speaker 1: I think it was said to have resembled across a

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Speaker 1: cruciform in nature, but it also it had metal parts

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Speaker 1: extending out to the sides and then these dangling balls

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Speaker 1: and antennae of various types. So it's sort of like

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Speaker 1: a strange metal Christmas tree cross type object on a

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Speaker 1: dining room table. Yes, And the descriptions that we were

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Speaker 1: reading about it, they were kind of like all over

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Speaker 1: the place in terms of what was it supposed to do,

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Speaker 1: like is it, what is it? What is it physically

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Speaker 1: supposed to do? What is it sort of metaphorically supposed

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Speaker 1: to do? Because it it was described as a sacramental presence,

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Speaker 1: a holy force field generator, a gay way to the

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Speaker 1: spirit realm uh. So it's kind of like this mechanical

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Speaker 1: symbolic body that's going to channel the free energy of

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Speaker 1: the universe or you know, God's love that radio radiates

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Speaker 1: out from the cosmic center. It's a north pole aligned

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Speaker 1: aerial antenna to receive electrical spirit energy. It's um and

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Speaker 1: then on top of all this again he's he's open

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Speaker 1: mic night for the spirits for his committees that are speaking.

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Speaker 1: So when he drops back into just good old John Boy,

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Speaker 1: he'll he's kind of ambivalent about it at times. He's

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Speaker 1: kind of like, Oh, I don't know anything about technology.

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Speaker 1: Is that what those guys are telling you? Okay, that

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Speaker 1: sounds right, But he had some very enthusiastic supporters who

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Speaker 1: were there to tell him, no, John, it's great, we're

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Speaker 1: working on it. But the compound matters further. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: simply going to be a sort of like a repeater

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Speaker 1: or receiver, collector and retransmitter of God's electrical psychic energy.

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Speaker 1: It was also going to be a perpetual motion machine,

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Speaker 1: something that uh, apparently the science at the time believed

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Speaker 1: could not exist. That's still pretty much considered to be right.

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Speaker 1: There's no thing is perpetual motion machine. Motion always sort

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Speaker 1: of gets lost to entropy transformed into heat. But they

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Speaker 1: wanted to create a perpetual motion machine or quote a

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Speaker 1: self moving machine, right, self moving in the same way

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Speaker 1: that that God was perceived as being self moving and

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Speaker 1: potentially in the same sense that a spirit with free

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Speaker 1: will is considered to be a self moving soul by

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Speaker 1: some interpretations. Right, So they wanted this piece of technology,

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Speaker 1: this new motor, to be not just an effect but

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Speaker 1: also a cause in itself, and in that way it

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Speaker 1: would be kind of like creating a new man or

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Speaker 1: a new God. Yes, but also in gets kind of

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Speaker 1: complicated because it's like, in a sense it's it's also

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Speaker 1: just about the idea of it should inspire everyone, right, right,

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Speaker 1: But then they also you do expect the thing to

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Speaker 1: do something into work, right, so that they clearly thought

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Speaker 1: that it would have some major significance in transforming the world,

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Speaker 1: in ushering in some kind of s schatological event. They

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Speaker 1: thought of it as as a sort of like transition

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Speaker 1: to the end times, though not necessarily the end times

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Speaker 1: in terms of the apocalyptic imagery we often think of,

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Speaker 1: or anything negative. They thought of it as like the

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Speaker 1: new Age, you know, the new heavens and the new Earth.

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Speaker 1: Everything changed, transformed, the apotheosis, things brought up out of

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Speaker 1: munday and existence into the new realm of life. And

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Speaker 1: kind of a sense too that it it is that

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Speaker 1: spear that we're talking about earlier that angel expere that

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Speaker 1: reveals truth. But the truth that it would supposedly reveal

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Speaker 1: would be the the importance the power of spiritualism and

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Speaker 1: the and the reality of this uh, this these metaphysics

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Speaker 1: that John has been uh revealing to his followers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: now the story doesn't in there. Actually, I very much

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Speaker 1: recommend this book. I mentioned earlier the remarkable life of

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Speaker 1: John Murray spear agitator for the Spirit Land, because they

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Speaker 1: continued to try experiments to get this thing to work.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately it did not usher in this eschatological event um,

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Speaker 1: but that they tried to imbue it with personal magnetism

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Speaker 1: to get it to turn on, so that they had

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Speaker 1: this belief sort of tried to mesmerism and things that

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Speaker 1: people had these sort of spirit essences. Then they'd have

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Speaker 1: certain pairs of people of particular types try to transmit

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Speaker 1: their personal or psychic energy to the machine to get

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Speaker 1: it to animate and come to life. They gave it

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Speaker 1: a ritual birthing ceremony with a human mother. That did

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Speaker 1: not go well with some of the town's folk, who

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Speaker 1: found that a moral outrage, and then uh sort of

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Speaker 1: took up arms against the machine. Uh, there's a whole

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Speaker 1: story of sort of how this machine was received, but

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Speaker 1: it also was received sort of as an embarrassment. And

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Speaker 1: I think this is one of the reasons John Murray

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Speaker 1: Spear is not as well remembered in history as he

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Speaker 1: might have been, because I think a lot of the

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Speaker 1: other radical reformers of the time, we're like, uh, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how much we want to be associated with

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Speaker 1: Mr Spear, Right, Yeah, I mean I can define definitely

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Speaker 1: see it because ultimately the thing did not work. The

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Speaker 1: thing did not It didn't need any of the more

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Speaker 1: elaborate other worldly expectations for the thing, and it didn't.

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Speaker 1: It didn't even really meet like the bare threshold required

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Speaker 1: to impress the people who poured their lives into it. Sure,

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Speaker 1: But another thing that I think is worth mentioning is

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Speaker 1: that this kind of thinking isn't quite as obscure as

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Speaker 1: it would seem to us, because there were thoughts back

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Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century about the perhaps borderline supernatural or

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Speaker 1: psychic psychically significant power of electricity. That's true, Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: back in the nineteenth century, Uh, electricity had a noble

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Speaker 1: you haven't if not a divine reputation to the extent

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Speaker 1: that members of the scientific community protested the idea of

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Speaker 1: the electric chair as a degradation of both electricity and

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Speaker 1: the scientific breakthroughs that made electrocuting a criminal are possible.

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Speaker 1: So there was sort of like a new a G

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Speaker 1: paradigm laid on top of the idea of electrical technology. Yes,

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Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take a quick break, and

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Speaker 1: when we come back, we are going to move forward

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Speaker 1: in time and discuss some more um convergences of technology

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Speaker 1: and religion. All right, we're back. We're discussing religion now

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Speaker 1: and in the age of science, but also in the

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Speaker 1: age of science fiction, in the age of space, and

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Speaker 1: in the age of UFOs. Right, So this has got

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Speaker 1: to be one of the most obvious places that religion

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Speaker 1: could go when it's changed by technology. Aliens exactly right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to believe because in so many ways,

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Speaker 1: I can't remember who I heard make this point, but

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Speaker 1: but it's something I heard someone say a long time ago,

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Speaker 1: which was the idea that if you explained our idea

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Speaker 1: of what aliens are two ancient people's, they wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: really make a distinction between what we're talking about when

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Speaker 1: we say aliens and their concepts of God's we have

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Speaker 1: this distinction between okay, natural aliens, that's you know, standard

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Speaker 1: natural phenomenon and supernatural entities. But they didn't necessarily make

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Speaker 1: that distinction that aliens to them would be oh yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: So they they're very powerful beings from a place up

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Speaker 1: above and they can travel down to Earth if they want,

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Speaker 1: and you know we're powerless to oppose them. Yeah. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: an alien is a supernatural entity that is described and

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Speaker 1: wrapped up in in in in the keepings of science,

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Speaker 1: in the traditions of science, so that it it makes

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Speaker 1: at least, uh, it makes some level of scientific sense

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Speaker 1: instead of non scientific. And if you look back through time,

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Speaker 1: like any anytime someone is dealt with hallucinations, anytime someone

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Speaker 1: has dealt with sleep paralysis or some other encounter. You know,

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Speaker 1: what was once an encounter with fairies in the woods,

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Speaker 1: which what was once an assault by demons or or

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Speaker 1: an encounter with ghosts, uh, increasingly become became in the

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Speaker 1: past few decades an encounter with aliens or UFOs. Right,

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Speaker 1: because that's the cultural script that we can fall back

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Speaker 1: on for the unexplained, and that essentially the supernatural perfectly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: aliens have become the new otherworldly organism, and this has

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Speaker 1: translated into actual religious movements. The main one I want

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Speaker 1: to talk about is Railianism. Yes, so had you heard

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Speaker 1: anything much about Relianism before this? I had never done

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Speaker 1: a deep dive into Alianism. But of course you the

401
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: the end up. They end up coming up anytime you

402
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 1: look in at cloning in particular, and then you know

403
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Speaker 1: they pop up here and there with their various sort

404
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Speaker 1: of eye catching protests and whatnot. Yes, they're fond of like, uh,

405
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Speaker 1: demonstrations that involve nudity, but also like inflatable flying saucers

406
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Speaker 1: and stuff like that sometimes. But okay, so what are

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00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: they so. Ralianism or Rayalism or the International Raylian Movement

408
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen seventy three or seventy four. I

409
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: think I've seen seventy four, but could be seventy three

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Speaker 1: by its chief profit Riyal or rail Royal born Claude Vorilon,

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Speaker 1: and Vorlon introduces his own life in his book by saying,

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Speaker 1: ever since I was nine years old, I've had but

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Speaker 1: one passion motor racing. So Harry, you've got your your

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Speaker 1: technological You're in already. But the Raelians believe in a

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Speaker 1: branch of intelligent design, the idea that human life was created.

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Speaker 1: It didn't, you know, evolve from innerent matter, but that

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Speaker 1: it was created in a conscious act of creation. But

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Speaker 1: they believe in the kind of intelligent design that most

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Speaker 1: intelligent design advocates like to skip over, which is the

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Speaker 1: notion that life was engineered not by supernatural god or gods,

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Speaker 1: but by a race of extraterrestrial scientists right there called

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Speaker 1: the Elohim. So, well, what does this word mean? You

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00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: might have heard it before. Eloheim is a word that

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Speaker 1: appears in the Hebrew Bible, and in a literal sense,

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Speaker 1: it's the Hebrew plural word for gods or deities, so

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Speaker 1: it can be used to refer to groups of lesser

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Speaker 1: supernatural entities like angels or pagan gods. Those are all eloheim,

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Speaker 1: but it can also be translated to refer to the

429
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 1: singular God of Israel. So one of the names of

430
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:30,240
Speaker 1: God used in the Hebrew Bible is Eloheim, and in

431
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: English translations that's usually the word God with the capital G.

432
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: The root of Eloheim seems to be l which is

433
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: an older Canaanite word, and that was l was the

434
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, but also a generic

435
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: word just meaning god, like a god, which also appears

436
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: in the Bible as a title for God, though less often.

437
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: So how did all this come together? What started this event? Well,

438
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,199
Speaker 1: Ryle tells the story in in his own book. So

439
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 1: he says, in nineteen three, he was out motoring, you know,

440
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: because he has a passion for motor racing, out in France,

441
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 1: so to speak, and he stopped at a volcano that

442
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 1: was overlooking Claremont Ferrand in central southern France, and he

443
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 1: parked his car and got out to sort of like

444
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 1: walk and jog around the volcanic crater. And there he

445
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: saw an aerial vehicle coming toward him, and at first,

446
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:29,719
Speaker 1: he says, he thought it was a helicopter, but then

447
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 1: he noticed it was completely silent, and then he realized

448
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: it was a flying saucer. He says, it was about

449
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: seven meters in diameter two point five meters in heights, so,

450
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: you know, kind of modest as far as flying saucers go.

451
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: And a stairway descends out of the bottom of it,

452
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: and a being comes out to meet him, and he says,

453
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 1: at first he thought it was a child because it

454
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,360
Speaker 1: was only four ft tall. He says, his eyes were

455
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: slightly almond shaped, his hair was black and long, and

456
00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: he had a small black beard. I liked, there's facial

457
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: hair with these aliens, so so often they don't get

458
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: to rock the facial hair exactly. Yeah, they're they're way

459
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: too smooth. Usually it's kind of strange. But anyway, this

460
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: being proceeded to have a conversation with Brilon, informing him

461
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: that he had visited Earth many times before and that

462
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: he had chosen Vrillon specifically to speak to on that day,

463
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 1: and it told him that the alien told him to

464
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: come back the next day to bring his Bible and

465
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: something to take notes with, and so then it instructed

466
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: him on many truths about the origins of life on

467
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: Earth and the real meanings of stories in the Bible.

468
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 1: And then, of course Vrillon later under the name Ral

469
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 1: published books on the subject and founded the Riley and

470
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: or Rileyan movement. So the main basic ideas that life

471
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: on Earth was created by a group of extraterrestrial scientists

472
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: and then a laboratory, yes, and that we were created

473
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 1: in the image of those scientists, and so their beliefs

474
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: in general, have a lot in common at the various

475
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,199
Speaker 1: like ancient astronauts theories. If you ever watched any of

476
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: those TV shows where it's like, what happened? How do

477
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,480
Speaker 1: they build the pyramids? Aliens? Yeah, I mean, basically it

478
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: comes down to the fact that you can take any

479
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: ancient text that deals with supernatural entities interacting with humanity,

480
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 1: and you can easily reread, reinterpret any of them as

481
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 1: humans dealing with extraterrestrials. And it's it's often a really

482
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: you know, fun imaginative exercise because it turns everything in

483
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 1: its head, it puts things in a modern perspective, and

484
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: then and you know, you know, ultimately we're talking about

485
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: the exact same scenario. So that kind of reinterpretation you

486
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: to see throughout ancient astronaut thinking, right. So yeah, Ryal

487
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: explains in in his book Intelligent Design, Message from the

488
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: Designers how these beings explained to him that like the

489
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: narrative traditions of Judaism and Christianity are all actually misrememberings

490
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 1: or misinterpretations of ancient interactions with these extraterrestrial creatures. The

491
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: Eloheam and their technology. I'm going to pick my favorite

492
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:00,959
Speaker 1: example to site, which is this is a section from

493
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 1: the book about how the Ark of the Covenant is

494
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: actually a nuclear powered space radio makes perfect things to me.

495
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: And so he says, telepathy is a means of communication

496
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: between the creators and human beings, was only possible when

497
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: the Eloheim were in proximity to the Earth. When they

498
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: were on their distant planet or elsewhere, they could not

499
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: communicate in this way. For this reason, they set up

500
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: a transmitter receiver which was transported in the Ark of God,

501
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: an apparatus containing its own atomic powered cell. This is

502
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: why in the first Book of Samuel, chapters five and six,

503
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: when the Philistines stole the Arc, their idle dagon lay

504
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: face down on the ground nearby as a result of

505
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 1: an electrical discharge caused by their clumsy mishandling of it.

506
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: They also suffered radiation burns from the dangerous radioactive materials.

507
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 1: And he quotes First Samuel five six and smote them

508
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: with im rods. That worried emmerrods, I think is generally

509
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: interpreted to mean some kind of like hemorrhoid or tumor uh.

510
00:29:57,920 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: And so this is I don't know, I'd say that's

511
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: a pretty clever interpretation of that. I mean, I I

512
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: kind of doubt many biblical scholars would give much credence

513
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: to it. But uh no, I think that's a that's

514
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,479
Speaker 1: a wonderful uh you know, overlay of science and science

515
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: fiction over you know, a magical object from uh, from

516
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 1: from a from an older time. I mean, you see

517
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: this even outside of Christian and Hebraic tradition, with people

518
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: interpreting some of the like super weapons that the gods

519
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: give characters in the Hindu epic, the Mahabarata, where they

520
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: have like essentially you know, crazy powerful god weapons that

521
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: they utilize, and some uh, some people like to look

522
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: back at those and say, oh, well, these were atomic weapons,

523
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: these were laser weapons, these were flying machines. And of

524
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: course the Alians don't just have technological explanations for the past.

525
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: They also are a thoroughly technological religion in terms of

526
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:51,959
Speaker 1: their ethic for the future, like what they say should

527
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: be happening in society. Just one example is that the

528
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 1: Alians tend to be very in favor of human cloning.

529
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: That's not something that's true of most religions. As far

530
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 1: as yeah, they altered the embrace and advocate human cloning

531
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: as a as a necessary technology for the advancement of

532
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: the species. Yeah. And in fact, in two thousand two,

533
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: the Ralians claimed to have cloned a human being. Yeah.

534
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: This is probably where a lot of people have heard

535
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: of the Raliance before. From this claim, there was a

536
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: media storm. More precisely, not so much that the Ralians

537
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: claimed to have cloned a human being, but they were

538
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: involved in the publicity of this event. So a doctor

539
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: Bridget Boyselier, I hope I'm saying that right. It was

540
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: a a Raelian bishop and she claimed that her company,

541
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: an organization called Clone Aid not to be confused with

542
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: clonus uh and not to be confused with Clone Aid.

543
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: The Clone Benefit Concert, which was a company originally founded

544
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: in an earlier incarnation by Royal himself, had successfully cloned

545
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: an American woman and produced a healthy baby clone named Eve.

546
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: And media reports at the time were really optical, and

547
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, no real evidence that

548
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: this is true has ever surfaced. So a lot of

549
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: people thought it was just a publicity stunt for the church,

550
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 1: but they maintained that they had successfully been the first

551
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: to to clone a healthy human baby, and whatever you

552
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,719
Speaker 1: think of that story. The Ralians typically remain very supportive

553
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: of human cloning research. Yeah, and they continue to claim

554
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: to have really advanced cloning technology, if not at their disposal,

555
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 1: then like within grasp right, like they I read that

556
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: they claim that their scientists are close to being able

557
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: to transfer someone's mind into a new body, essentially the

558
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: kind of re sleeving of human consciousness that one encounters

559
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: and say, Richard K. Morgan science fiction, So you could

560
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: live forever because here you've cloned the body and then boop,

561
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: just transfer your your mind into the new body and

562
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: flush the old one. Right. Well, this is always a

563
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: big problem we've talked about when we've talked about trans

564
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: humanist ideas on the other podcast I work on, or

565
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: thinking that this is always something that occurs to me.

566
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: People seem to be discussing the idea of digital immortality

567
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: without answering the question of like, Okay, maybe you could

568
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: make a copy of your brain, of your memories or

569
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: something inside a computer, but how do you become that computer?

570
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: How do you transfer your experience to that machine? Yeah,

571
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:25,239
Speaker 1: it gets existentially mucky really fast, because you end up

572
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: just coming against the same old problem that we don't

573
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: really have a good graph on what human consciousness is.

574
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: We have this we run into this whole blind brain

575
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: scenario where we can't really perceive what's going on. Yeah,

576
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: it seems to me the much easier thing would be

577
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,479
Speaker 1: it's like you make a copy of yourself and then

578
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: you die, and then there's a copy of you. Yea,

579
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: which is terrifying, but but also you know, that's it's

580
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: it's it's it's also yeah, a form of immortality that

581
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: that lines up with our scientific understanding of how we work. Sure, Yeah,

582
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: I say, with the reorganism, you do get this overall

583
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: sense of science and futurism as articles of the faith. Um,

584
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: And it's you know, it's it's easy to discuss a

585
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: faithful of UFOs cloning and weird sexuality is ridiculous, Uh,

586
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: even as we cling to these ancient models and traditions

587
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: that again involved angels coming down from above, bodily resurrection,

588
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 1: physical immortality, and also lots of weird sexuality as well. Well,

589
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,399
Speaker 1: I feel like that's that ties into that that's sort

590
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: of like abhorrence of the new thing that I was

591
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 1: talking about there. You know the fact that that we

592
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: find the presence of too much technology and our religious

593
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: rights and in our religious holy places as kind of

594
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: like a somehow vaguely blasphemous or crass or or it

595
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: just doesn't feel right. And I can totally see this

596
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 1: parallel when you look at the beliefs of the Rillyans,

597
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: I see a whole lot of parallels with a lot

598
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: of ancient religions. And I wonder if one of the

599
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: only major differences in my attitude towards it as just

600
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: that it's new. Yeah, you see that all. I mean,

601
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: even if we were talking about it, we're kind of

602
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: having fun with the concept. But with some of the

603
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: concepts they were, you know, they bring up such as,

604
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the idea that I think Satan

605
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:17,320
Speaker 1: was Aralian, not araliance. Satan was Elohim from the Elohim

606
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: home planet that was opposed to creating new life. And

607
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 1: then Lucifer is another one that is involved in the

608
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,880
Speaker 1: the generation of life here on Earth and also had

609
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: a role in creating the dinosaurs. Like all of that,

610
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: I mean, it can't help but left because it's it's

611
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 1: also kind of hysterical in its own way, but it's

612
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: not really that different from anything that exists in any

613
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: ancient religion. It's just we're more willing to buy into

614
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: some weird, outlandish story that was written down by some

615
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: dude if that dude lived, you know, five hundred years

616
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: ago rather than fifty years ago. Right, we just naturally

617
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: assigned more authority to the ancient regime. Now, in discussing

618
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: religion and technology in the modern day, we and not

619
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:05,399
Speaker 1: help but discuss the Church of Scientology a little bit. Right. Well,

620
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: I mean, this is another religion, not just of the

621
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: current technological age, but it does have technology infused all

622
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: throughout its practices. So one of the things that would

623
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 1: be pretty obvious is the E meter. We can come

624
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 1: back to that in a minute. But the first thing

625
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 1: that actually made me think of Scientology as a technological religion,

626
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 1: or at least something that has technology deeply embedded in

627
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 1: its ideology is literally the use of the word technology. See,

628
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: I've noticed in interviews like televised interviews and things that

629
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 1: I've seen with some representatives of the Church of Scientology

630
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 1: that they use the word technology when what they're talking

631
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: about are the beliefs and practices of Scientology. Um, So

632
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: that kind of doesn't give with how we usually use

633
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: the word technology, Like I was saying, it's usually a machine, right,

634
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: A technology is usually a mechanism, and they're talking about

635
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 1: it more as in like how a doctrine can be

636
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: a technolog ology, Yeah, or even you can think of

637
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 1: it in terms, I guess of a blueprint, right, I

638
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,959
Speaker 1: have a blueprint for a steam engine. Sure, steam engine

639
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 1: is a technology, but also the blueprint is is a

640
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: technology in itself because it tells you how did the

641
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: process by which you create this thing? And that's ultimately

642
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: what they're they're offering their followers, right A a blueprint

643
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: to become this better engine totally. Yeah, so I can

644
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: see it like that it is in in the dictionary

645
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: definition since the technology perhaps like it is a at

646
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: least an application of what they believe to be scientific

647
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 1: knowledge to a practical purpose. Yeah. So you see mention

648
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: of the dionetic spiritual healing technology of study technology. And

649
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: they also have their Religious Technology Center which aims to

650
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: quote protect the public from a misapplication of the technology

651
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 1: and to see that the religious technologies of dionetics and

652
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: scientology remain in proper hands and are properly ministered. So

653
00:37:57,239 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: it's like the f D A of the technologies of

654
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,239
Speaker 1: science oology. Yeah, you know, in in terms of or

655
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 1: so certainly the the division of scientology concerned with with

656
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 1: maintaining those copyrights and those patents. Sure. Yeah. But then

657
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:13,800
Speaker 1: of course there is actually within scientology in their actual

658
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: practices a device that you've probably heard of, the E meter.

659
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 1: It's an electrical device that they use in what is

660
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: called auditing. Yeah, I mean, it's very much. I mean

661
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 1: I would be tempted to make a comparison between the

662
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: role of the E meter with say, the role of

663
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 1: a of a chalice in in a Roman Catholic tradition, right,

664
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: the you need for the sacred right of a communion. Uh.

665
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: The use of the E meter uh in auditing is

666
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: essentially a sacred right. Okay, So what is auditing and

667
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 1: what does the E meter actually do? Yeah, the E

668
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: meter is a real thing, and its origins uh lay

669
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 1: outside of scientology. Actually, it is an electro psychometer. Come on, Robert,

670
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: it's a psychometer. Okay, electro psychometer if you will, uh,

671
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: you know, Tomato the motto, And this is a device

672
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 1: for displaying and or recording the electrodermal activity or the

673
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: e d A of a human being. It's actually one

674
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 1: of the factors covered in a standard polygraph test as

675
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: well as in scientific studies regarding human emotions. So again,

676
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:21,320
Speaker 1: the E meter is not a technology that exists solely

677
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: within the world of scientology. It's one of the components

678
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:28,879
Speaker 1: of a polygraph, right, But science scientiotists have been using

679
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: it as an auditing tool. Um. And they have their

680
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: own patents for their own emeter devices that they continue

681
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: to to update. UM. Now, what is auditing. That's an

682
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: entire that's an entire conversation in and of itself, But

683
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,839
Speaker 1: essentially you have an auditor that is a meeting with

684
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 1: a member of the faith and they are hooking them

685
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 1: up to the E meter to record these uh these

686
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: reactions in the dermist basically their emotional reaction to stimuli, words, phrases, etcetera.

687
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: And the Church of Scientology it's self describes auditing uh

688
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: as this. They say the goal of auditing is to

689
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: restore being, this and ability, and this is accomplished by

690
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 1: one helping individuals rid themselves of any spiritual disabilities and

691
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: to increasing spiritual abilities. Yeah, this is interesting. I mean

692
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,399
Speaker 1: it seems to me that I certainly not being all

693
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:22,319
Speaker 1: that familiar with the practice. Can't say exactly how it's used,

694
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: but it seems like a rough analogy too, if you

695
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 1: were to hook yourself up to a polygraph test when

696
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: you go in for a Catholic confession. Yeah, that's kind

697
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 1: of the vibe I I'm getting off of it as

698
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: as well, that it's you know, it's it's about this

699
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: individual meeting with you to to audit you, to to

700
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: to to discuss and figure out your sort of emotional

701
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: your psychic state, right, and to do that, you know,

702
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 1: they'll throw out some words and see if those words

703
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: trouble you or you know what kind of an emotional

704
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 1: resonance they create in your body. And so in this

705
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: we we have a wonderful example of a a modern

706
00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: religion that is using modern technology, that has adapted modern

707
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: technology for its sacred rights and observances. Yeah. Now, again,

708
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 1: scientology is a subject unto itself, and maybe when we

709
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: should come back to in a future episode, but we

710
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:13,360
Speaker 1: mainly just wanted to focus on the the use of

711
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: the e meater here. Yeah, and also I think the

712
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: general attitude towards the idea of technology and what role

713
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,840
Speaker 1: it plays in the religion because they're the word seems

714
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: to be held up in a positive light. It's it's

715
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: something that's reacting against this thing we've been talking about,

716
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: like the profanity of technology, technology being this kind of

717
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: like new fangled, unbeautiful thing that that should be kept

718
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 1: out of the sacred sphere of religion. These are ideologies

719
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: that are actually really about intentionally bringing technology in. It's

720
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 1: not incidental, it's not intruding on the religion. It's a

721
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,320
Speaker 1: core part of it. And I think this should finally

722
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: bring us to the idea of the singularity. Ah. Yes,

723
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: it always comes back to the singularity, right, Well, I

724
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: mean this is a popular topic among weirdos like us

725
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: and the singularity. If I'm sure you've probably heard of

726
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: it before, but just in case you haven't, what's the

727
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: general idea of the singularity. It's kind of like the

728
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: purpose of the new motor. It's somewhat vague, but but

729
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: it's a general point in human evolution where we sort

730
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:28,319
Speaker 1: of achieve a level of technological sophistication, where suddenly technology

731
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 1: advances so rapidly that we cannot keep up with it

732
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: that it revolutionizes and changes human nature. A lot of

733
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: times it's associated with the sort of a moment of

734
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:43,440
Speaker 1: transition to being transhumanist, like where human biology merges with

735
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 1: technology and you get this new breed of humanity that's

736
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 1: like cyborg basically, that's ultimately uplifted and transformed to a

737
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 1: status of an almost godlike power by their technology. Yeah,

738
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: kind of a point where you stop talking about, oh,

739
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,280
Speaker 1: this is human the human race, and they have technology,

740
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 1: but rather the two or one or perhaps even the

741
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 1: biological aspect of the species is secondary to the technological presence. Right.

742
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:13,839
Speaker 1: So one of the big names and singularity thinking would

743
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:16,840
Speaker 1: be Ray Kers. While he's someone who has been very

744
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 1: positive about this idea, who has had a lot of

745
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: interesting and good things to say about it. Uh, he

746
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: sort of popularized the notion of some of these transhumanist

747
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,840
Speaker 1: notions in a book called The Age of Spiritual Machines

748
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: and then also in a book called The Singularity Is

749
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 1: Near and I Think curse. While and at least some

750
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: supporters of the idea of the singularity would disavow the

751
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: idea that singularity thinking is religious in nature, despite the

752
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: fact that the phrase spiritual machines, Why do you bok

753
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 1: that that that's your argument, But there are some critics

754
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: and observers who do like to attribute sort of aspects

755
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 1: of being a religion to singularity thinking. And one of

756
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: those is the is the interesting author and technologist Jarren Lanier.

757
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: So Jarren Lanier, for many years has been a big

758
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 1: name in sort of technology circles. He's known as sort

759
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: of like the guy behind virtual reality, and he's often

760
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: described as sort of a genius polymath and just a

761
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 1: big thinker, you know, he has lots of big ideas

762
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: about the future and and how we should handle it.

763
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: And he's for a long time been a critic of

764
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: singularity thinking. And a lot of these critics of singularity

765
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:35,399
Speaker 1: thinking point out that there are uncomfortably religious seeming aspects

766
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: of thinking that we're entering an age where artificial intelligence

767
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 1: and technology is going to enter this transcendental level. I mean,

768
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: if you think about it, the idea of transforming humans

769
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: into a higher state of existence is, you know, in

770
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, kind of like the end times

771
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: beliefs of many religions. You might think about it as

772
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,879
Speaker 1: a parallel to sort of like the rapture and evangelical

773
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: Christianity or someth thing where people are sort of uplifted

774
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,440
Speaker 1: to a higher state of existence reborn into like a newer,

775
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: better flesh kind of a situation. Yeah. And also you

776
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: could think about it as in some ways treating technology

777
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:16,479
Speaker 1: truly like a god. That it is on one hand,

778
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: something that we're creating, but on the other hand, it

779
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,879
Speaker 1: is a force that is kind of unstoppable and at

780
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: some point beyond our comprehension that comes in and imposes

781
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: its will on us. Its will is hopefully benevolent. But

782
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: you can get opposing viewpoints about that from many other

783
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: people who are worried about the the advances in artificial

784
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,879
Speaker 1: intelligence and what they'll mean for human life. But yeah,

785
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting critique in an interesting way

786
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 1: of looking at at singularitarianism as it might be is

787
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: this a religion? And if so, what does it mean

788
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: for all the people, especially all the people who are

789
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:57,919
Speaker 1: power players in Silicon Valley who are subscribers to this notion. Yeah,

790
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 1: because it's hard. It's it's ultimately about human technology, uh,

791
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: becoming godlike, and then even by extension, the possibility that

792
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 1: we create artificial intelligence that is essentially God. And then

793
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: of course the question is what kind of God if

794
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:15,760
Speaker 1: we create it? Because if we look at the models

795
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: of of the of the divine that we see in

796
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: our myths and religions that they tend to you know,

797
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 1: sometimes they're rather benevolent, but a lot of times they're

798
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 1: moody and petty and destructive and uh and not always

799
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:32,760
Speaker 1: a friend to the little man. Right, Well, very often

800
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 1: they're selectively benevolent. Right. They might be benevolent to one

801
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 1: group and malevolent to another. Yeah, and and they're not

802
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: opposed to having sex with us in the form of

803
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 1: various animals. So yeah, we have to think about that. Well,

804
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: we really have to hope that our that our robot

805
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 1: overlords do not take the Greek myths if their inspiration,

806
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:53,720
Speaker 1: and the Greeks, the Greek gods tend to be about

807
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: the worst because there they tend to be the pettiest

808
00:46:56,239 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 1: and the most carnal I find. But but yeah, do

809
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: we end up looking at a benevolent vision of this

810
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 1: or a more diabolical and I tend to I tend

811
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: to follow the the the E. N. M. Banks culture

812
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 1: uh series approach, where you have kind of a benevolent

813
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: to ai force. It becomes in a way the guardians

814
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 1: of humanity, but also the the ruling power of humanity. Yeah,

815
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 1: I've on my other podcast a lot of Hymdenhut about

816
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: you know what, what I really think about the idea

817
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 1: of transcendental artificial intelligence and trans humanism and stuff. In

818
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: the end, I guess I've read enough persuasive stuff in

819
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: both ways that I can't really say what I think

820
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 1: it would truly be like in reality, though I can

821
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: certainly see why it would take on a spiritual dimension

822
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:48,840
Speaker 1: in the minds of many people. Yeah, I always I

823
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: always come back to there's one quote in uh Gibson's

824
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:57,240
Speaker 1: neurom Answer in which someone comments that, you know, for ages,

825
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 1: we believed in making packs with devils and d hmans,

826
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,839
Speaker 1: and it was impossible until we made it possible through

827
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 1: technology in the creation of AIS that you can enter

828
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 1: into bargains with it, as occurs in the book. And

829
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 1: uh and that's that's kind of part and partial to

830
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 1: some of the singularity ideas, where you know, it's at

831
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: least when we think of them in terms of religion,

832
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 1: that technology begins to make possible things that were previously

833
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 1: purely supernatural and from a scientific perspective non existent, such

834
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: as the afterlife. If we've talked about you know the

835
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 1: possibilities of digitizing human consciousness and the human experience, and

836
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 1: placing that digital consciousness within a virtual world. It becomes

837
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:41,719
Speaker 1: conceivable to have a virtual heaven, of virtual hell, of

838
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: virtual purgatory in which to file away your your the

839
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 1: minds of believers after their bodily death. Sure well, I

840
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 1: mean definitely people like rakerswill have envisioned a digital immortality

841
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 1: or some form of technologically enabled immortality. And if you

842
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: actually could achieve that, I'm skept tickle of that, especially

843
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 1: because of like, how could you even be sure with

844
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: the consciousness transfer problem? How could you ever know that

845
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: that technology was successful? You know what I mean? Like

846
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: to say, you create a computer that claims to be

847
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,760
Speaker 1: a copy of somebody and then that person's body dies

848
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: and uh and their their computer copy continues to live

849
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 1: on saying oh, yes, I had continuous consciousness. How do

850
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 1: you know if that's true? Yeah? And then and then

851
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: you get into a whole sort of black mirror area

852
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: of trying to di forigret how you're supposed to treat

853
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: this thing. Um, you know is if it's if it's

854
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: not just completely happy all the time, then are you

855
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: I mean, what kind of monstrous thing have you done

856
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:43,839
Speaker 1: here and then again? So we're imagining digital immortality as

857
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 1: being a sort of embodiment of heaven. But what if

858
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 1: you didn't like your digital immortality. What if you didn't

859
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 1: like your digital immortality and then you were unable to die,

860
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,399
Speaker 1: You'd be like the sort of the immortal wanderer from

861
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 1: Various Deaths, right where you just sort of roaming across

862
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 1: the digital countryside, hoping that one day the divine forces,

863
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 1: the ai s or whatever you will, will give you

864
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: the gift of death so you can just have sweet oblivion. Man.

865
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: So that William Gibson quote you had is still sticking

866
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,319
Speaker 1: with me. I think that's really interesting. Yeah. I keep

867
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 1: going back to the the uh, like we have to

868
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,719
Speaker 1: invent the devil before we could sell our soul to him. Yeah,

869
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,239
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, the virtual afterlife ideas come up

870
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 1: in a number of short stories. I've read that the

871
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: first example was supposedly American sci fi writer Frederick Pole

872
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:33,400
Speaker 1: in a short story title The Tunnel under the World

873
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: from fifty was the first to really deal with this,

874
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: but one that I loved from a few years back.

875
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:41,600
Speaker 1: It was one of the culture novels by Ian and

876
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,320
Speaker 1: Banks I mentioned earlier his novel Surface Detail, which deals

877
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 1: in large part with a virtual war over the existence

878
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 1: of virtual hells. So there are various planets, various species

879
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 1: and people's that can that to have faiths that maintain

880
00:50:55,880 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 1: virtual hells for believers that we're edge to be morally failing,

881
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: and so they're you know, digital realms of torment and horror.

882
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 1: And you have lived plenty of living individuals and some

883
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: digital individuals who say that is completely awful. You should

884
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 1: not have that. In the same way that you have

885
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 1: plenty of living people today is say that theology of

886
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: hell itself is kind of a horrible idea and should

887
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: be you know, we should weigh l we should lay

888
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: waste to that as well. And so in this book

889
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 1: by Banks, this virtual war over their existence of in

890
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 1: which spills out into an actual real war in the universe,

891
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,280
Speaker 1: and in very very fascinating ways, that is a truly

892
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 1: fascinating idea. I'd like to read that book now. It's good.

893
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 1: I highly recommend uh the works of the late H. N. M. Banks.

894
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 1: Good great stuff, great science fiction that's you know, concerned

895
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: with where technology is taking us. But also you know,

896
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:52,280
Speaker 1: some of the the philosophical existential problems of the current times.

897
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: All right, So there you have it, uh the end

898
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 1: of our two parter on techno religion, the convergence of

899
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: technology and religion, from the earliest prayer wheels to the

900
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: distant possibility of a singularity birth God. This has been

901
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: a wild ride. Thank you for having me on for this,

902
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:13,359
Speaker 1: Robert Hey, Hey, thank you, thank you for joining me. Hey.

903
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you want to check out more episodes

904
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over to

905
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:19,439
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where you'll

906
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:21,879
Speaker 1: find all the podcast episodes. You'll find videos who find

907
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:24,480
Speaker 1: blog post links out to social media accounts like our

908
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: Facebook and our Twitter and our tumbler and hey. On

909
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: the landing pages for these two episodes, you'll find links

910
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,359
Speaker 1: out to some of the materials we've discussed here, such

911
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,240
Speaker 1: as that book The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear.

912
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:38,760
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us about

913
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 1: any strange stories you've had about the interaction of technology

914
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,400
Speaker 1: and religion, how you use technology and your religious practices,

915
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 1: or how you've seen people use it in there's right

916
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 1: to us that blow the mind. At how Stuff Works

917
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.

918
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:00,959
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works? Dot com? Did you could

919
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:02,279
Speaker 1: beat you? Pier