The July issue of Wired has a big article on Technopagans...thought
I'd post a couple paragraphs and see what people think.  Does it seem
to folks that Paganism is more common among cyberfolks than among the
general US population?  Do you think Wired's analysis fits?
 
  .... "Pesce is also a technopagan, a participant in a small but vital
  subculture of digital savants who keep one foot in the emerging
  technosphere and one foot in the wild and woolly world of Paganism.
  Several decades old, Paganism is an anarchic, earthy, celebratory
  spiritual movement that attempts to reboot the magic, myths, and gods
  of Europe's pre-Christian people.  Pagans come in many flavors -
  goddess-worshippers, ceremonial magicians, witches, Radical Fairies.
  Though hard figures are difficult to find, estimates generally peg
  their numbers in the US at 100,000 to 300,000.  They are almost
  exclusively white folks drawn from bohemian and middle-class
  enclaves.
 
  "A Startling number of Pagans work and play in technical fields, as
  sysops, computer programmers, and network engineers.  On the surface,
  technopagans like Pesce embody quite a contradiction: they are
  Dionysian nature worshippers who embrace the Apollonian artifice of
  logical machines.  But Pagans are also magic users, and they know
  that the Western magical tradition has more to give a wired world than
  the occasional product name or the background material for yet
  another hack-and-slash game.  Magic is the science of the
  imagination, the art of engineering consciousness and discovering the
  virtual forces that connect the body-mind with the physical world.
  And technopagans suspect that these occult Old Ways can provide some
  handy tools and tactics in our dizzying digital environment of
  intelligent agents, visual databases, and online MUDs and MOOs.
 
  "'Both cyberspace and magical space are purely manifest in the
  imagination,' Pesce says as he sips java at a creperie in San
  Francisco's Mission disctrict.  'Both spaces are entirely constructed
  by your thoughts and beliefs."

25 responses total.

The novel I've composed in my head but haven't written down yet
is also "purely manifest in the imagination."  That is, cyberspace
and magical space may share that category, but the category itself
includes too many things to be especially useful in this context.
This is just another self-congratulatory "aren't we hip" piece that
doesn't relfect any reality beyond the preposterous self-images
of the interviewer and the interviewee.  What effect does the writer
expect to produce in the reader with the image of the subject "sipping
java at a creperie in San Francisco's Mission district"?  I mean, 
that gives the game completely away, doesn't it?

To answer the question, I know more Pagans with technical computer-
oriented jobs than non-Pagans.  But that works, since I happen to know
more Pagans than non-Pagans overall.
Many Pagans have access to the InterNet, but then again most don't.
I think, from what I've seen, is that the correlation between Paganism
and technical orientation is probably about 0.0.  :)

I can't judge, I don't have a broad enough sample, but *most* of the
pagan-folk I know are at least a bit computer-literate and many are
technoids.  Correlates more with being of the "professional class" than
anything else, I suspect.
NOt a bad article, not dangerous or severely skewed, doesn't really say
much about what we are or who, and sort of works to bring paganfolk more
into the mainstream/comprehensible, yet the language is a bit condescending
and makes us look really flakey.  Oh well, could be worse- could be 
paranoid.

Most of the AA Pagan folk I know are computer-literate.
Most of the Lansing Pagan folk I know aren't or are only passingly.

Which probably says more about Ann Arbor than about paganism...

I think the main issue is that pagans who are very intensely
into computers have a much different view of their paganism
than non-technical folks do.  I've met a fair number of pagans
(mostly women, not criticizing, just an observation) who don't
like techhie stuff, or are afraid of it.  And they tie it in
with their paganism - "We should get rid of the machines and go
back to a pastoral existence worshipping the gods", etc.

Techno-pagans, on the other hand, aren't about to throw their
computers in the dustbin because of their spirituality.  They
have to find a way to integrate the modern with the ancient.
Rather than simply rejecting everything that's happened in the
last several centuries, they have to forge a new way of
looking at paganism, and a new way of looking at high-tech
gadgets.

Well, there's my piece anyway.

The ADF line is "cautiously technophilic".  I like that.  There are so
many amazing similarities between the laws of physics and the laws of
magic (no shit, man- same bloody universe, eh?), and more so with the
advent of quantum theory and chaos theory.  On the other hand, it's pretty
sad to see folks in this supposed "nature religion" who can't stir themselves
to get out into the woods, can't function without TV and microwave, wear
makeup at festivals, and generally are quite disconnected from the natural
world. There's a place between ludites and wire-heads somewhere, I should
think.

I'd like to think that *I* am in that place, but I don't get out into the wild
enough. ;{

I must admit that this summer has been good for me in breaking my connection
to 'stuff'.  I'm out in several thousand acres of forest.  Without radio
or TV <except the turkey vultures>  and limited access to a computer.
It's been a learnign experince, and i've really loved it.
<That was total drift, i'm sorry :)  >

No, Val, that's not "total drift".  You raise a good point; that sometimes
we need to be forced by circumstances to get out of our cocoons and experience.
Best way to learn about what's "real".

"And then I found that the items produced by this 
overcontrolled, unnatural, and basically falsely based society 
performed not only the functions for which they were designed, 
but as invisible chains, binding me to the system that had 
born them..."
 
From the defense of Sybok...written by..well...me...
 
and now back to your regularly scheduled discussion, already 
in progress...
 

Sybok?  As in, that guy from the fifth Star Trek movie?

I never knew there were so many other pagans out there until I started
grexing.  I live in a small town, where the primary religions are Christianity
and Baptist, so I thought my friends and I were a small minority.  Then I
started talking to other people on here, and it feels much better.  I'm able
to be myself a LOT more.  In fact, some people I work with were getting down
on me yesterday for my religion.  Anyways...I agree that many pagans use
systems like this because I have noticed that we tend to be more open-minded
individuals, therefore grabbing up new technology to explore and experiment
with.

Birdlady, I'm sorry to hear that people have been down on 
you because of your religion.  It could be that paganism is 
unfamiliar to them, so your choice of it makes you seem a 
bit eccentric in their eyes.  I would think that being a 
pagan in a small town where you're surrounded by Baptists 
would require a huge amount of patience on your part, plus a 
sense of humor that never lets you down.  I hope your 
coworkers come around eventually.  

Anyway, although I still don't agree with the article quoted 
in #0, if connecting with other pagans on grex lets you be 
yourself, then that could be the simplest explanation for 
the link between paganism and cyberspace.  If you lack like-
minded people in your daily life, you can find an army of 
them on a system like grex.  There's never been a more 
effective way for people of *whatever* viewpoint to find 
company and support.  

Kami, seeing city pagans who seldom make it out to the woods 
would make me sad, too.  (I'm not sure using TVs and 
microwaves or wearing makeup at festivals are in quite the 
same category, though.)  I guess the only thing to say is 
that things change, people change, but everybody has to 
start somewhere.  I doubt if many Christians *ever* quite 
get the hang of this love-your-enemies business, which is at 
the heart of their religion.  But still, having it in front 
of me, and knowing that's how I'm expected to behave, is 
healthy for me, I think.

Thank you, Michael.  I already have a good sense of humor, if not a bit
twisted, and it *has* helped me put up with "silly mortals".  =)  I also agree
that it's sad the few pagans have spent a considerable amount of time in true
nature.  Getting out on your own in the forest for a few days just to *think*
and retreat is one of the most relaxing, cleansing experiences a person can
use.  I love city life, but I just feel so much calmer when surrounded by
trees and nature's orchestra.  <smile>

Don't worry, MD, I have a microwave too...<g>  Seriously- I"m not putting
down folks who live in the real world, just those who are so dependent on
these conveniences that they are disconnected from  the reality of where
food comes from, that it is heat which cooks it, i.e. *fire*, not to
mention when the sun rises and sets or what phase the moon is in.  We CAN
be cognizant, even while living in climate-controled urban environments.

sorry for the lateness of this response...
Yes, Sybok, the guy in that 5th star trek film...
The published version is in the works...

Sybok was cool, even if a bit misguided.

I don't believe that he was misguided.  Perhaps this is best discussed
in another forum.  Any interested in Vulcan philosophy (Surakian, Sybokian
or else please write me at 62667@ef.ef.maricopa.edu)

How 'bout I just E-mail you from here?

Starwolf,
 Emailing me on this system actually isn't as good of an idea.  My system
is very slow through telnet so getting mail here is almost impossibly lagged.
my address at school (62667@ef.ev.maricopa.edu) is easier for me to access.
However, I plan to create my own web-page with much of my writings in 
about a month, it will also give me a better e-mail address to focus
on this and other topics.

You culd just give me your *real* mailing address....

Starwolf,
        My new address is shaival@netzone.com

most of the pagan folk I know are computer folk--namely grexers who i've bumped
into here

Interesting, Orinoco- I've found a slightly wider cross section. Currently,
I do know pagan folk who are otherwise pretty "mundane", but not many. 
In general, most of my SCA friends, fannish friends, computer friends, and
even people I meet at renn faires and art fairs and the like, tend to be
pagan or pagan-friendly.  Heck, even my horse-back-riding teacher practices
Native American spirituality.  I guess it's in who/what you look for...

any "techno pagans" still reading this conference? what's new?

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