What on a breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging

truth, for the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

More than a few folks from theologian John Calvin, the philosopher William James, to French

theologian and historian Louis Auguste Sabatier, have noted that man is an incurably religious

creature, in other words, religions native to the human heart.

The best way to understand the rejection of the supernatural is as a quirk of Western

secularism.

One that ultimately cannot survive the human longing for transcendence and communion

with the supernatural, no matter how far our technology advances.

Evidence for this is currently on display, endorsement, Germany, and a bizarre art exhibition

called Technoschomenism.

It was recently highlighted in the New York Times, in an article titled Space Pagons and

Smartphone Witches, where tech meets mysticism.

Josie Thaddeus Jones describes this exhibition, which features the work of twelve artists

and collectives as an exploration of the, quote, connections between technology and

esoteric ancestral belief systems.

Visitors are welcomed by quotations from a French piece called Cyber Witches Manifesto,

which urges readers, among other things, to quote, use smartphones and tarot cards to

connect to spirits.

And manufacture, do it yourself, devices to listen to invisible worlds.

Sometimes identifies this exhibition as an example of the rising interest in pagan and

occult practices among the so-called spiritual but not religious westerners.

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