Trance: from Magic to Technology

Trance: from Magic to Technology PDF

Author: Dennis R. Wier

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2006-05-01

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1888428392

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book describes a new model for trance as well as practical techniques to analyse and design trances. Writing from his personal experience, Wier suggests that some of these ideas might represent new practical precision tools for psychologists as well as for those who work with the occult. Practical suggestions for meditators, yogis, witches and others are included to deepen trance and to increase the trance force as well as techniques to terminate a trance. Pathological trance and trance abuse are also described with suggestions on how they may be recognized and prevented.

The Magic of Technology

The Magic of Technology PDF

Author: Alf Hornborg

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-10-20

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1000686825

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book examines our understanding of technology and suggests that machines are counterfeit organisms that seem to replace human bodies but are ultimately means of displacing workloads and environmental loads beyond our horizon. It emphasises that technology is not the politically neutral revelation of natural principles that we tend to think, but largely a means of accumulating, through physically asymmetric exchange, the material means of harnessing natural forces to reinforce social relations of power. Alf Hornborg reflects on how our cultural illusions about technology appeared in history and how they continue to stand in the way of visions for an equal and sustainable world. He argues for a critical reconceptualisation of modern technology as an institution for redistributing human time, resources, and risks in world society. The book highlights a need to think of world trade in other terms than money and raises fundamental questions about the role of human-artifact relations in organising human societies. It will be of interest to a range of scholars working in anthropology, sociology, economics, development studies, and the philosophy of technology.

Technology as Magic

Technology as Magic PDF

Author: Richard Stivers

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2001-08-01

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780826413673

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

What gives the mass media, particularly advertising and television, their extraordinary power over our lives, so that even the most jaded and sophisticated among us are troubled and fascinated by their allure? The secret, according to Richard Stivers, in this brilliant new book, lies in the curious relationship between technology and magic. Stivers argues the two are now related to one another in such a way that each has taken on important characteristics of the other. His contention is that our expectations for technology have become magical to the point that they have generated a multitude of imitation technologies that function as magical practices. These imitation technologies flourish in the fields of psychology, management administration, and the mass media, and their paramount purpose in human adjustment and control. Advertising and television programs, in particular, contain the key magical rituals of our civilization.In a fascinating analysis of television programming, Stivers shows how various genres--news, sports, game shows, soap operas, sitcoms, etc.--have their distinct mythological symbols. Through dramatized information, they symbolically connect consumer goods and services to desired outcomes--the utopian goals of success, happiness, and health--thus enveloping technology, both real and imitation, in a magical cocoon.

Technology as Magic

Technology as Magic PDF

Author: Richard Stivers

Publisher:

Published:

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781501340451

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Stivers argues that our expectations of technology in society have led to the generation of a multitude of imitation technologies that function as magical practices once did.

The Magic of Computer Science

The Magic of Computer Science PDF

Author: DONALD. KOSSMANN

Publisher:

Published: 2021-05

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9783728140555

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

We are living in the era of digital transformation. Computers are rapidly becoming the most important tool for companies, science, society, and indeed our everyday life. We all need a basic understanding of Computer Science to make sense of the world, to make decisions, and to improve our lives. This book gives an intuitive introduction to the foundations and main concepts of Computer Science. It describes the basic ideas of solving problems with algorithms, modern data-driven approaches, and artificial intelligence (AI). It also provides many examples that require no background in technology.

Too Much Magic

Too Much Magic PDF

Author: James Howard Kunstler

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2012-06-19

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 0802194389

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The author of The Long Emergency explains why technology can’t solve all our problems, and how excessive optimism can endanger our future. The Long Emergency quickly became a grassroots hit, offering a shocking vision of our post-oil future and capturing the attention of environmentalists and business leaders alike. As discussion about our dependence on fossil fuels and our dysfunctional financial and government institutions continues, the author returns with Too Much Magic—evaluating what has changed and what has not, and what direction we need to take in this post-financial-crisis world. “Too much magic” is what James Howard Kunstler sees in the bright utopian visions of the future dreamed up by optimistic souls who believe technology will solve all our problems. Their visions remind him of the flying cars and robot maids that were the dominant images of the future in the 1950s. Kunstler’s image of the future is much more sober. With vision, clarity of thought, and a pragmatic worldview, Kunstler argues that the time for magical thinking and hoping for miracles is over—and the time to begin preparing for the long emergency has begun. “A sharp critic of energy-sucking, big-box landscapes.” —Winnipeg Free Press

The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture

The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture PDF

Author: Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 9780801483318

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A comprehensive account of the influence of occult beliefs and doctrines on intellectual and cultural life in twentieth-century Russia.

Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillo's Novels

Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillo's Novels PDF

Author: Randy Laist

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781433108419

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

More than any other major American author, Don DeLillo has examined the manner in which contemporary American consciousness has been shaped by the historically unique incursion into daily life of information, military, and consumer technologies. In DeLillo's fictions, technological apparatuses are not merely set-pieces in the characters' environments, nor merely tools to move the plot along, they are sites of mystery and magic, whirlpools of space-time, and convex mirrors of identity. Television sets, filmic images, automobiles, airplanes, telephones, computers, and nuclear bombs are not simply objects in the world for DeLillo's characters; they are psychological phenomena that shape the possibilities for action, influence the nature of perception, and incorporate themselves into the fabric of memory and identity. DeLillo is a phenomenologist of the contemporary technoscape and an ecologist of our new kind of natural habitat. Through a close reading of four DeLillo novels, Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillo's Novels examines the variety of modes in which DeLillo's fictions illustrate the technologically mediated confluence of his human subjects and the field of cultural objects in which they discover themselves. The model of interactionism between human beings and technological instruments that is implicit in DeLillo's writing suggests significant applications both to the study of other contemporary novelists as well as to contemporary cultural studies.

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes