Observing the contemporary epistemic shift in the relationship between spirituality and technics, should we interpret this shift as signaling a spiritual crisis (as suggested by Bernard Stiegler) or a comeback of spiritual sensibilities? Or, as William James would argue, the sacred impulse simply reorients rather than vanishes in new epochs? What if these terms were never mutually exclusive, but always interwoven in an ongoing dialogue that has been reshaped with modern technology and media?

Esoteric Media emerges from the urge(ncy) of tackling such kinds of questions by challenging the prevailing narrative that dis-enchantment and de-sacralization are what largely defines current modes of thought, knowledge and experience. As George Bataille stated, “the more a culture denies myth, the more insistent the myth becomes in hidden, subterranean forms. Myth is never absent from life; it simply reappears in new forms, more deeply rooted in unconscious structures" (Bataille 1988 [1943], p. 132).

Today, the assumption that the triumph of technological rationality has condemned the spiritual imagination to the trash heap of history is increasingly being challenged. As Erik Davis argues in his book TechGnosis, myth, magic, and mysticism permeate the history of technology and have merged into the fabric of contemporary technoculture.

Esoteric Media refers to forms of media and modes of mediation that engage with occult dimensions of experience. This concept challenges the mainstream assumption that modern media are purely secular, materialist and rational, suggesting instead that contemporary media can serve as conduits for esoteric knowledge and spiritual exploration. By examining the ways in which digital, cinematic, and other media channels mediate not only information but also affective and spiritual states, Esoteric Media highlights how these platforms facilitate access to symbolic, mythic, and quasi-mystical realms of thought. In this sense, Esoteric Media emerges from the need to understand the spiritual or sacred elements that persist within modern media systems, operating beneath or alongside their visible functions.

Working as a thinking hub, this reading group aims to inquire into modern processes of world-making [‘worlding’] (Heidegger, Deleuze, Haraway, Stengers) as related to different ‘esoteric’ practices of thought-action, in the attempt to challenge western worldviews conceiving (technical) reality and its spiritual rhythms as disjointed parts. In other words, the manifestation of technicity (Simondon) and that of sacrality (Mircea Eliade) are to be resituated as processes and networks (re-)founding the world, jointly and similarly. Such a quest goes beyond the mere exploration of mythical figures (the mystic, the shaman, or the prophet) and religious or mystical traditions (alchemy, astrology, or Hermeticism), since we are not only interested in understanding esoteric media as a fixed category, but also, by flipping it around, in navigating the esoteric affordances that media withhold at large – be them images, films, generative AI, or other techno-aesthetic mediations.

The first session will be held on Monday, January 20, 15.00–17.00 (UvA,  BG1 1.12). To participate send an email to: s.gelao@uva.nl; a.vudka@uva.nl

The reading materials for the first meeting would be: 

• Hui, Yuk. 2016. "Cosmos, Cosmology, and Cosmotechnics". In The Question Concerning Technology in China: An Essay in Cosmotechnics. Falmouth: Urbanomic.
• Hui, Yuk. 2024. "Apropos Technophany." Technophany: A Journal for Philosophy and Technology 1 (2): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.54195/technophany.18533.

The idea is to decide on the following meetings and related contents together with the group so as to better gauge and steer potential interests and availabilities. Please, let us know if you need any further information from us.