Stephan Collina
Spirituality in Homo Technica
Updated: Oct 9, 2020
Spirituality is too often dealt with in treatises, lectures, sermons, novels or other creative works as something deeply mysterious, difficult for ordinary people to comprehend, and the preserve of sages, mystics and priests. This is nonsense: the universal energy that pervades all things is accessible to all, however we wish to perceive it. Indeed the very notion that some people are better equipped for a spiritual life is itself a non sequitur: such egotism makes genuine spiritual experience more difficult for those claiming special abilities not easier, since their own ego gets in the way.
Different peoples and traditions give this energy various names: Source, Universal, God or Gods, Almighty, Vibrations etc etc and often choose to access it via ceremonies and techniques varying from prayer to meditation to Reiki. They may experience it differently but they are all referring to the same energy. It’s also understandable that we, as humans, frequently attach a human image to the energy.

When spirituality is discussed it usually is part of seeking purpose or meaning. That is, something broader than access to universal energy. This is a misunderstanding. If you begin with the presumption that we are spiritual beings whose physical lives make up only a small part of their being, and this ‘being’ is indivisible from all other beings whether seemingly separated by time or space, we approach closer to the truth.
We are all born with an innate ability to communicate with this energy. In the story it is accessed very quickly and easily by Peter through meditation, something you can confirm relatively easily through the same practice. It may be quick, or take months or years to achieve but, once you understand how to reach there, your old understanding of the goal of meditation being ‘peace of mind’ is put firmly in its place.
It is often claimed that mental capabilities such as intuition, foresight, clairvoyance, clairsentience, and so on are spiritual in nature and arrived at because of an extended and difficult spiritual practice. Such claims often describe or make a connection to entities that lie beyond our sensory perception: past lives, or ancestors, or a ‘spirit world’, or Akashic records, and so on. In some form or another all of these are claims to superior knowledge, for service of which a charge is often levied either directly or indirectly, and which may get in the way of genuine spiritual progress. In fact we can all access these abilities anytime we wish to, and view them within any of those modalities that we prefer. As Peter demonstrates, the most direct access is gained through meditation, provided that we remove or at least suspend judgment upon any limiting, pre-existing beliefs.
So with that background, what are genuinely spiritual abilities? The book contends that the above capabilities are NOT spiritual, in the sense that they are accessible to us without any connection to the Divine, whether we see ourselves as a part of that divinity (monism) or separate from it (dualism, which implies a separate Divine being). However, to access these abilities does require a conscious connection to our sub-conscious minds, which in turn means a connection to the universal Energy. This is true since our sub-conscious minds are our connection to that Energy. In the story it is the slightly mysterious Maureen character who first explains this to Peter. By accessing our subconscious minds through meditation, we are able to use that connection for each of those four abilities, as well as others.
In an accessible story form, Homo Technica shows that faculties we currently and mistakenly believe are spiritual (such as intuition, precognition, even telepathy) are no such thing, but may well in future be obtained through implanted biotech devices. At the same time, the tale is intended to make us realise that what differentiates us from ‘machines’, is both our morality (‘good’ and ‘bad’) and our spirituality, our ability to connect with the Divine. I conjecture elsewhere that the ability to distinguish good and bad may be something that future machines can still do, but there remains a difference between distinguishing and comprehending.
I hope you enjoy reading the book. You can purchase the Amazon (Kindle or print) versions via the Publications page of this website. And please do review the story or communicate with me and others on the subjects above via one of the social media channels also available via this website.