Is there a hack for enlightenment?

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October 19, 2021

Latest Updates Spirit Tech

Vox’s Sigal Samuel talks with scholars and authors Wesley Wildman and Kate Stockly about their book, Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering. They discuss high-tech tools like brain stimulation and neurofeedback-guided meditation that purport to enrich our spiritual lives, what possible risks they may pose to our psyches, and the ethical implications of technology-induced shortcuts to transformative meditative states. They also talk about whether such spiritual experiences are authentic rather than simulated, and whether brain-based spirit tech might help humans evolve as a species.

References

Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering by Wesley Wildman and Kate Stockly (Macmillan; 2021)

SEMA (Sonication Enhanced Mindful Awareness) Lab, University of Arizona Center for Consciousness Studies (Dr. Jay Sanguinetti & Shinzen Young, co-directors)

VR Church; Bishop D.J. Soto

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# ethics and technology # Kate Stockly # meditation # neurofeedback # neurostimulation # psychedelics # spirit tech # spiritual technology # spirituality # technology # virtual reality # Wesley Wildman

Wildman

CMAC’s approach is innovative, it’s risky and ultimately it might not work. But this approach does promise breakthrough change, allowing us to test before we invest in new interventions. We use these techniques routinely when we design cars, bridges and factories. And speaking for myself, a change skeptic, I finally feel I’m telling myself the truth about real-world change. I’ll keep up the rhythm of small-change activities. And I’ll make a very precise, limited and deliberate move on the big-change stage through CMAC.

Wesley Wildman
Executive Director

Teehan

After two (intense) days with the people at CMAC, going through the process of translating my hypothesis about religion and empathy into the language of computer modeling, it all began to make sense … Because of this method, we will actually be able to bring some data into a debate that would otherwise remain largely in speculation … It forced me to formulate my ideas in such precise and concrete terms (so they could be coded for) that I came away with a better understanding of my own theory.

John Teehan, Ph.D.
Hofstra University

Bacon

CMAC is a great environment when you are in a transitional stage of your early career and deciding what type of career path to pursue. There is such a wide variety of projects going on at one time, and even if you are assigned to primarily work on just one, there is frequently the opportunity to contribute to multiple projects. And in doing so, you get to use your skillset in areas outside your area of expertise, and also expand your skillset within your main area with an interdisciplinary team.

Rachel Bacon
Postdoctoral Fellow

Gore

Each member of the team was capable of synthesizing that multi-disciplinary knowledge into a single response to a complex problem statement. The realization was humbling and reshaped my view of what interdisciplinary work can be and how I pursue it.

Ross Gore, Ph.D.
Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center