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

by Wesley J. Wildman, Kate J. Stockly

Featuring a Foreword by Mikey Siegel, founder of Consciousness Hacking.

Technology can now control the spiritual experience. This is a journey through the high-tech aids for psychological growth that are changing our world, while exploring the safety, authenticity and ethics of this new world.

We already rely on technology to manage our health, sleep, relationships, and finances, so it’s no surprise that we’re turning to technological aids for the spiritual journey. From apps that help us pray or meditate, to cybernauts seeking the fast track to nirvana through magnetic brain stimulation, we are on the brink of the most transformative revolution in the practice of religion: an era in which we harness the power of “spirit tech” to deepen our experience of the divine.

Spirit tech products are rapidly improving in sophistication and power, and ordinary people need a trustworthy guide. Through their own research and insiders’ access to the top innovators and early adopters, Wesley J. Wildman and Kate J. Stockly take you deep inside an evolving world:

- 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.
- 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.

Spirit Tech offers readers a compelling glimpse into the future and is the definitive guide to the fascinating world of new innovations for personal transformation, spiritual growth, and pushing the boundaries of human nature.

Genres: Science, Psychology, Nonfiction, Meditation, Spirituality, Religion, Technology

400 pages, Hardcover

First published May 18, 2021

About the author

Wesley J. Wildman was raised in a quiet corner of Australia, fell in love with universities, and became a professor in the United States. Dr. Wildman has been writing about philosophy, religion, and spirituality for thirty years. He is Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics and of Computing and Data Sciences at Boston University, as well as Professor II in the Institute for Global Development and Planning at the University of Agder in Norway. He is also executive director of Just Horizons Alliance and Chief Scientist of the Center for Mind and Culture, a nonprofit organization dedicated to non-partisan research on such complex social problems as social integration of immigrants and refugees, religious self-radicalization, spiraling suicide rates, and illegal child trafficking. Dr. Wildman is a well-published nonfiction writer, with titles such as Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering (with Kate Stockly; St. Martin’s Press, 2021) and Effing the Ineffable: Existential Mumblings at the Limits of Language (SUNY Press, 2018). The Winding Way Home (Wildhouse Publications, 2023), is his first novel.

Reviews

[Live Forever or Die Trying · Rating 4 out of 5]

Talk about a book right up my alley, Spirit Tech is all about a newly emerging, and understudied field, the intersection between spirituality and technological augmentation.

Both “spirituality” and “Technology” have pretty broad definitions within this book. For example on the spiritual side we learn about fast tracking the goals of meditation, triggering mystical experiences through magnetic stimulation, and VR churches. On the Technology side of things we are looking at nuerofeedback, “God Helmets” and use of psychedelic drugs.

Spirit Tech is not a self-help book, in my opinion it serves better as a survey of brand new area of research and provides jumping off points for important questions.

To provide an example from their chapter on nuerofeedback. Is using a nuerofeedback technology to attain “enlightenment” in 2 years unethical when other people without this tech require 20 years to do so? Is this even the same enlightenment? Does doing so in this way undermine or appropriate the heritage or rituals surrounding this religion and culture?

If the goal of the authors was to start the conversation about the usefulness and ethics surrounding spirit tech I think they truly succeeded.

Although it is not marketed as a self help book I still came away with a wish list of items that I hope to buy in the near future, namely the muse headband to aid in my meditation practice.

In my opinion this book is a perfect read for surveying the landscape of this space. However if you are looking for more information on any one of these given topics and you already hold a summary understanding then you may want to go elsewhere as many topics as covered somewhat briefly.

[Lucretia Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

It is a very academic book. It took focused concentration and determination to get through it, and I feel I need to continue studying it to understand it fully. I'm a good reader. This is a new branch of science with as many factors to study as there are human brain cells. I'd love the same information given in laymen's terms, how it can help me, the patient. I sent both my doctors the link to the book.

Though challenging, I appreciate this area of research so much. In this book are many things I look forward to exploring. I'm very glad that scientists are looking at consciousness and spiritualism as a valid and practical space for scientific inquiry, and that there are many tools and devices to help us become our best, most brilliant selves.

I will also say to the future reader, if it seems like a very long book, the chapters portion ends at about 57% through. There are appendixes, table of contents, footnotes, evidence, a list of other books on all the topics mentioned.

The author did more than their due diligence. Thank you so much.

[morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

i have never been so sleepy in my life #snoozefest

[wade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some people will love this book but I am not one of them. It is a cutting edge look at methods one might use to connect more deeply with one's inner self. This includes various forms of brain stimulation such as machines that zap the brain with waves, virtual reality devices and in the final chapters drugs primarily natural but some manufactured (LSD). The authors' thesis is that these are things that help people cope with personal issues and allow people to get the benefits of years of meditation in much less time. I am a very well adjusted and I see this stuff as a waste of time for the most part.

[JDK1962 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much reliance on anecdote, and I have no interest in pharmaceuticals (medicine doesn't even seem to have a great handle on anti-depressants yet, and they've been around decades). If you look at product reviews for the tech they do go into depth on (e.g., the Muse headband), consensus seems to be that they're nowhere near ready for prime-time as reliable consumer products. My thinking in reading this is that maybe there's something there, but it's going to be 10-30 years before there's sufficient understanding, and reliable consumer tech to take advantage of that understanding. I hope I'm wrong and that it comes sooner, but I'll not hold my breath (I'll just observe it till then).

[Greg B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book blew my hair back! I was unaware of how much progress has been made at the intersection of technology and spirituality, and what is coming very soon. It's wonderful to see technology finally being used to truly enhance our well-being. For me personally, I will gladly accept all the help, techniques, and technology I can get :)

This book is much needed guide book for the brave new world of "spirit tech." Right now, it's the wild west out there for spirit tech. This book helps to evaluate new spirit tech, what it means, and how to avoid potential pitfalls.

[Linda Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technology is making great strides, improving everything… or is it? I don’t know about you but I have a little trouble welcoming technology into my spiritual life. I don’t mind the research, it’s the application of that research that gives me pause. If you want to catch up to the latest ideas and gadgetry being promoted for the spiritual realm, check out this very informative book by two experts on the topic. I’ll leave you to make up your own mind about the efficacy and appropriateness of this new wave of technological “growth.”

I met this book at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA

[Luis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first few chapters on Neurotech were great. I found the chapter on VR to be completely irrelevant and unnecessarily long. The next chapter on psychedelics seemed insufficiently academic. They also fail to credit Dr. Carl A.P. Ruck, who coined the term “Entheogen”, which they use extensively throughout the book.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

All I can say is, it's about f-ing time. Finally, at last, technology has taken aim at the very root of suffering and happiness. It's more than about time.

[Dove · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone entering psychology or mental health

Psychology during Freud‘s life was a creative field inspired by religion. since then, it has been hijacked by statistics. Turning the field into a science has defaulted conclusions to western biases like individualism and now systemically puts the blame on individuals for their psychological well-being despite all evidence that shows the contrary is true. Besides drugs, psychological treatment has not advanced since Freud. Those drugs are, for the most part, used to pacify traumatized people.

The premise of subversive schools of psychology, such as positive psychology, acknowledges that the field has adapted only to focus on illness and how to blame it on people instead of focusing on well-being and how to build it into society. Religious studies, on the other hand, is often an exceptionally flexible inter-disciplinary space. It allows students to think out of the box and introduced real solutions to real problems such as those presented in this book.

This book introduces what psychology imagines it is: an attempt at a holistic understanding of and a result-driven approach to improving people’s mental health. This book proves that undermined academic fields such as religious studies have a lot to offer. They are being suppressed by well-connected, highly profitable fields built to brainwash people to comply in the workplace. The system leaves humanities and Liberal studies major’s scrambling to find their way through the workplace while majors like economics, psychology, and finance are fast-tracked to maintaining the powers that be.

This book is provocative. The idea that the meta-verse could serve a spiritual function feels intuitively wrong. It feels like we’re abandoning reality, but this book showed me that isn’t always the case and that this idea is ableist. The definitions and methodologies used are brilliant and creative. The technologies mentioned must be brought to market immediately. If they don’t, it’s probably because it makes more money to give SSRIs to kids.

[Kristil Rabideau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but I'm waiting for something more expansive...