The Death of Spirituality. Fixed ideas about the essential
spirit or nature of man will be completely abandoned as an
Emotional Technology becomes more refined. Drugs, obscure
sexualities, faddism, strange entertainments, and material
sensationalism are a preliminary groping toward this end.
Chemicals, electronics, and surgery will only tend to enslave.
Gnosis, the Alphabet of Desire, and other magical methods
tend to liberate.
The Death of Superstition. Prejudice against the possibility of
the occult or supernatural will give away in the face of a
developing Magical Technology. Telepathy, telekinesis, mind
influence, hypnosis, fascination, and charisma will be
systematically examined, refined, and exploited as methods of
control. We may see magicians working behind barbed wire
and in underground cells also.
The Death of Identity. Ideas about a person's place in society,
his role, lifestyle, and ego qualities will lose their hold as the
cohesive forces in society disintegrate. Subcultural values will
proliferate to such a bewildering extent that a whole new class
of professionals will arise to control them. Such a
Transmutation Technology will deal in fashions, in ways of
being. Lifestyle consultants will become the new priests of our
civilizations. They will be the new magicians.
The Death of Belief. We will abandon all fixed ideas about what
is absolute or valuable and what constitutes morality as a
Psychological Technology develops. Techniques of belief and
behavior modification in the military, in psychiatry, in places
of detention, in propaganda, in the schools and in the media
will become so sophisticated that truth will become a matter
of who creates it. Reality will become magical.
The Death of Ideology. Ideas about what form human
aspiration should take will give way to a science of the
preservation of the control mechanism — government and its
agencies. These may become global or semi-global, but their
primary concern will become preservation of the government,
for or against, the people. Primitive cybernetics will mushroom
into a Political Technology. Governments will be provided
with the choice of either accommodating themselves to coordinating
proliferating human variety or seeking to reduce that
variety by repressive measures.
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[–] ardvarcus ago (edited ago)
Spirituality hasn't died. What is moribund is conventional Christianity among white Christians. Unconventional Christianity is booming. So is conventional Christianity among non-white Christians. As for spirituality itself, it is enjoying greater popularity than ever as disillusioned white Christians search for spiritual meaning in their lives.
Superstition hasn't died. If anything, as Christianity suffers a setback among white Christians, superstition is growing in strength. It illustrates the universal truth that man needs the supernatural in his life. Take it away in one form, and it will be grasped for in another form. Take away religious belief, and you see an upsurge in superstition.
Conventional self-identity is indeed under attack from the leftist "progressives" who have infected Western societies. This has indeed given rise to alternative identities -- we see this in body modification, tattooing, trans-gender, even homosexual self-identification.
Belief is not dying, only conventional beliefs, which have come under sustained attack from the leftists, who are seeking to destroy Western culture and indeed, Western civilization itself. But as much as old beliefs are attacked, new beliefs spring up. The need to believe is as strong in human nature at it ever was.
Ideology is becoming a life ring to which confused, adrift human beings cling for their lives. We see extreme leftist ideologies being eagerly accepted in spite of their lack of rationality, and in spite of their destructive and poisonous natures.