Davis, E. (1993). Techgnosis: Magic, Memory, and the Angels of Information. South Atlantic Quarterly, 92(4), 585-616
(The following attempts to summarize Davis’ ideas. Of course, in any summation, there is a risk of diminishing the richness of ideas by oversimplying or glossing over important concepts. Apologies for any such loss, as well as for the oversimplification of the concepts of hermetics, and the belief system of Gnosticism.)
In “Techgnosis: Magic, Memory, and the Angels of Information” Davis weaves together Hermeticism, Gnosticism, magic and mysticism, and historical and contemporary texts, to provide a platform for a deeper understanding of current concepts of interfaces and cyberspace in an information age. Davis superimposes the notion of information on the “vast arcana of esoteric, religious and mythological traditions” as he proposes that we can better understand contemporary concepts by seeing their deep connections with past patterns.
Davis posits that a new dimension, a conceptual space has /is being created by the world of digital information that harkens back to centuries old concepts embedded in hermetics and Gnosticism. To help illustrate the contemporary echoes of the historical, Davis introduces (among other things) the mythologies of information found in William Gibson’s concept of cyberspace, Vernor Vinge’s Other Plane, and Philip K. Dicks’ concept of VALIS. He suggests that these concepts are more than fantasy; as an example, Gibson’s concept of cyberspace has entered into our collective psyche.
Echoes of current vast information systems hearken back to hermetics. Hermeticism, a philosophical and spiritual belief system that integrates the art of memory, has particular historical associations with magical operations, and connections with demonics (read spiritual entity) cryptography, and Gnostic cosmology. The main source of Hermeticism is the Corpus Hemeticum, a “collection of wisdom literature”. Davis explains that the Hermetica was divided into two sections:
- “Popular Hermeticism” – astrology, alchemy, and the occult arts
- “Erudite Hermeticism” – a Gnostic philosophy that emphasizes the ability of humans to discover within themselves the mystical knowledge of god and the cosmos.
The texts emphasize two different modes of Gnosis: optimist and pessimist. Ultimately, whatever the mode one believed to be truer, the goal was to connect with the divine (god and the celestial realm) through knowing all – having all the information of the universe. This was what could or would awaken the spark within that connected humanity to god and the celestial. The difference between the two “nodes” was how it could be achieved, and what challenges one had to overcome to achieve it. Either way, the key was the aquisition, and containment of information.
Part of the Gnostic belief system was the desire to contain all knowledge, to be able to know, or access all information, as information was power, and allowed one to comprehend god. This was especially true for those defined as magicians or mystics. However, in order for a person to be able to hold vast amounts of information, the information needed to be highly organized. An art of organizing memory emerged. These systems could be described as “imaginative spaces”, virtual storehouses in the mind, where information was highly categorized and organized so that through a series of steps, one could access what one needed. One example of this in action was demonstrated by Seneca who “could hear a list of two thousand names and spit them back in order”. There were various methods used by people to develop their mnemonic art. Medieval Neo-Platonist Lull created a complex system of keeping knowledge within one’s mind using a mental system of wheels within wheels that could create “endless combinations of concepts”. Lulls’ work later fed into the development of the computer programming language COBOL. A Renaissance genius, Giordano, later combined Lull’s interlocking wheels system with a dense iconography of spiritual/celestial objects and entities”. An underlying premise of the work of these last two men was that one could indeed know all – all that existed in the external world could be contained in the internal consciousness. In these examples Davis is showing the link between the impulses of magic (the art of capturing/using/knowing/understanding “supernatural” or celestial forces/energies) and the “scientific drive towards technological mastery”.
Davis also refers to Augustine, who shares an understanding of what it is like to be able to create a “virtual space” for storing memory. Davis compares Augustine’s descriptions of this space to Gibson’s concept of cyberspace – a vast inner space to keep memory. Davis then provides additional reference points through history where people have described concepts of mental space that are echoed in our current understandings of the vast repositories of information/data/knowledge contained in the intangible place of cyberspace. Davis explores Gibson’s Neuromancer as an allegory of “the technologically driven information economy of global capitalism”, and leads the reader to an understanding of Gibson’s concept of cyberspace as more than a virtual database; it is instead a cosmos unto itself. Davis also juxtaposes the process of computer interface with the concept of allegory, and provides examples in the form of the fantasy text based game “Adventure”, and Dante’s underworld in the Inferno. In addition, Vinge’s novella True Names combines the magical, allegory, and interface with cryptography, and contends that the magic spells permeating the work are “not mere metaphors for encryption schemes – that there is a link between Hermeticism and secret codes and unnatural languages”. In True Names and Steganographia, Davis continues to explore the relationship between mystic cryptography, the drive for universal knowledge, and religious texts.
The Elizabethan Dr. John Dee, a great English magus, is introduced and described as typifying the hermetic pattern of information addiction. Dee was influenced by Cornelius Agrippa, who described three types of the magic – natural, mathematical, and theological. The last of these, of which Stenographia was an example, was considered the most difficult and dangerous. Dee believed that if he could use the theological magic to invoke the archangels, powers, and principalities of the celestial zone, he would be lead to divine wisdom. Dee was perceived to be a pious man who was motivated by the Gnostic desire for revelation. Yet, he was also the first to apply cryptographic dimension of theological magic to the espionage he was involved in the England.
Davis introduces Aleister Crowley’s perspective that it doesn’t matter or not if the “magic” actually existed or not. Crowley instead focuses on the vast hermetic complexity of all the systems and the manner in which they “were created by projecting systematic techniques of numerology and cryptography into a kind of free space of mystical abstraction”. The resultant hermetic complexity space “mirrored the immensity of divine wisdom and directed the magicians’ mind towards a “divine change of state”.
Davis clearly articulates that “the temptation to compare the representation of these super celestial realms with the complexity of cyberspace is intellectually suspect because rational mathematics, network architectures, and programming codes are so technically distinct from the mystical mathematics, celestial architectures, and demonic codes of angel magic”. However, he does acknowledge that “space is complexity space—any information system, when dense and rigorous enough, takes on a kind of self-organizational coherence which resonates with other systems of symbolic complexity”.
Davis refers to “angel magic” as presenting a “hermetic image of information space”. He proposes that, as he defines them, angels “are the original image of artificial intelligences – not the sentient AIs of SF, but the text-based expert systems, independent software objects, and audio-visual interface agents we are so keen to develop, passionless entities made of intelligent light”. Davis then continues the celestial being metaphor by introducing the concept of demons to represent software objects that operate autonomously. He refers to designer Alan Kay who proposes that in order for us to take advantage of the increasingly complexity of computer processes, there must be a “qualitative jump” from the manipulation of tools towards the management of agents, which Kay defines as ‘autonomous processes that can be successfully communicated with’”.
Davis indicates that Gnosis, the seeking of divine knowledge and universal memory was what motivated the magus. However, in addition to the Gnostic emphasis on memory, there was also a shift in focussing on a “virtual encyclopedia” to a desire to touch of the core of one’s being. One can connect with god through intense “wisdom” and knowledge which awakens the “spark” within that connect humans to god.
To further illustrate the link between Gnosticism and the emergence of the contemporary relationships we have vast virtual knowledge repositories and cyberspace, Davis introduces the “Hymn of the Pearl” a Gnostic allegory of redemption; in story the hero is provided with “magic information” which is closely intertwined with the concepts of codes and information processing, and ultimately with the igniting of the “spark”. Davis argues that Gnosticism, in its obsession with simulacra and coded messages, its resistance to orthodox authority, and emphasis on spiritual autonomy anticipates what now is understood as cyber culture. Davis also suggests that more of Philip K. Dick’s writings reflect understanding of a theological image of living information space, and that Gnostic information is both a space and “a being”. The sum of all knowledge, coupled with technology, has become an example of artificial life or a virus. Finally, Davis posits that the elements of the New Age cultural paradigm, which are not so “new”, laid much of the groundwork for what is called cyber culture, and that computers have become the latest way to expand one’s consciousness.