Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering

I recently read a book entitled Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering by Kate J. Stockly and Wesley J. Wildman. It was a thrilling read on the merging of biohacking technologies, spirituality, neurotheology, and much more.

Technology now has the ability to modify and control the spiritual experience. This book is a journey through the high-tech aids for psychological growth that are changing the world while exploring safety, authenticity, and ethics. Of course, technology is already helping to manage health, sleep, relationships, and finances, so it’s no surprise that technological aids for the spiritual journey would be the next frontier. From apps that help you pray or meditate, to cybernauts seeking the fast track, to nirvana through magnetic brain stimulation, this is the brink of the most transformative revolution in the practice of religion: an era in which the power of “spirit tech” can be harnessed to deepen your experience of the divine.

Spirit tech products are rapidly improving in sophistication and power, and ordinary people need a trustworthy guide. Through their research and insider access to the top innovators and early adopters, Kate Stockly and Wesley Wildman take you deep inside an evolving world with Spirit Tech. The book is the definitive guide to the fascinating world of innovations for personal transformation, spiritual growth, and pushing the boundaries of human nature. When you read Spirit Tech, you'll...

...find out how increasingly popular “wearables” work on your brain, promising a shortcut to transformative meditative states...

...meet the inventor of the “God Helmet,” who developed a tool to increase psychic skills and overcome fear, sadness, and anger...

...visit churches that use ayahuasca as their sacrament and explore the booming industry of psychedelic tourism...

...journey to a mansion in the heart of Silicon Valley where a group of scientists and entrepreneurs are working feverishly to bring brain-based spirit tech applications to the masses, and...

...discover a research team who achieved brain-to-brain communication between individuals thousands of miles apart, harnessing neurofeedback techniques to sync and share emotions among group members.

Kate Stockly is an academic researcher specializing in the scientific study of religion and women’s studies in religion. Kate’s first book, High On God: How Megachurches Won the Heart of America (co-authored with James K. Wellman, Jr. and Katie Corcoran; Oxford 2020), looks closely at the affective and emotional dynamics animating evangelical megachurches. Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Engineering Enlightenment is Kate's second book. Kate also analyzes gender dynamics in religion and spirituality from a bio-psycho-social perspective. Putting the critical humanities—especially feminist materialism and affect theory—into conversation with the biological sciences, she theorizes how gender and sex interact with spiritual and religious expression and experience.

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