The web site myblessingcircle.com is launching as a self-described “Peer-to-Peer Anonymous Blessing Community.”

“Blessing-receivers are invited to upload a photograph or symbolic image and/or short bio of themselves, specify a particular spiritual/religious tradition they turn to for support, as well as request blessings focused on a particular theme or issue.

Blessing-givers can review pending requests, and select one that “calls to them.” Neither the giver nor the receiver would be identified by name or email.

All blessing messages will be “peer reviewed” before delivery. Truly inappropriate messages will be flagged for immediate removal, and the giver will lose their membership rights.”

My research this summer has been focused on NRMs. Most recently, I’ve been looking at Neopaganism. This includes the general new age-isms, the 2012 movement, some UFO religions, Druids, ÁsatrĂș, Ceremonial Magick and Wicca (in no particular order).

Many of these NRMs reside at an intersection of religion and technology. Witchvox, a “neopagan news/networking” web site, lists “Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner” by Scott Cunningham as the “Top Choice” book on Wicca for all age groups based on member voting. One of Cunningham’s follow up books discusses how Wiccan magic is a kind of technology, comparing magic to an operation on a calculator:

“Disbelief also isn’t a satisfactory reason for magical secrecy. The disbelief of others has as much effect on magic as does an unschooled person’s doubt that a calculator can add 2 and 2 to equal 4. The calculator will work, regardless of the observer’s doubt. So, too, will magic.

There are other possible reasons why the calculator won’t perform this simple operation: faulty microchips; low battery power or a lack of batteries; an operator who pushes the incorrect buttons, or a button turned off. Still, observer’s disbelief alone can’t be the case. The same is true of magic. Properly performed, magic will be effective. If energy is raised within the body, programmed with intent, and projected toward its goal with the proper force and visualization, it will be effective.”

From “Living Wicca,” Scott Cunningham

It’s time to develop a reasoned argument for the rights of spirituality.

This is free-writing in this post, a list of ideas:

* Spirituality is a right.

* In the mode of historical pursuits of social justice struggle a new cafeteria-style liberation theology must be written.

* All states of consciousness, even those which do not directly obviously produce capital, must be allowed, protected and encouraged.

I read Meditations on the Indranet (Erik Davis) for the first time today. I say this as though I should have read it earlier because I ran across the text online while doing research for my work on mapping the Temples of Cyborgism and just didn’t have time to read it. When Davis talks about comparing the net of Indra to the internet he concedes it isn’t as vast, and then says “But our world’s humble digital net is the first technological expression of this magical metaphor.” I was reminded of a quote he recounts in another text Magic, Memory and the Angels of Information:

One of the most compelling snares is the use of the term metaphor to describe a correspondence between what the users see on the screen and how they should think about what they are manipulating … There are clear connotations to the stage, theatrics, magic—all of which give much stronger hints as to the direction to be followed. For example, the screen as ‘paper to be marked on’ is a metaphor that suggests pencils, brushes, and typewriting….Should we transfer the paper metaphor so perfectly that the screen is as hard as paper to erase and change? Clearly not. If it is to be like magical paper, then it is the magical part that is all important…
—Alan Kay, “User Interface: A Personal View“