M.J. Rose

I have been born more times than anybody except Krishna.
– Mark Twain

What use is an afterlife when we have a heaven right here on earth where we float disembodied and live forever as digital code? Are we already being downloaded into immortality in cyberspace?

The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet by Margaret Wertheim is a comprehensive investigation into the idea of virtual reality as a return to the medieval concept of non-physical space (like the “virtual” realms of heaven and hell), and about the possibility of interpreting computer technology in traditionally religious terms. Whether there is a conclusion to be made on this mysterious and intriguing subject remains to be seen. Can one compare the afterlife to cyberspace who has not actually been to heaven or hell? Perhaps only those of us who recall past lives or who have experienced near-death are truly qualified to ponder this subject…

(Amazon reviews)
In Pythagoras’ Trousers, science writer and feminist Margaret Wertheim took an astute look at the social and cultural history of physics. She explored how the development of physics became intertwined with the rising power of institutionalized religion, and how both of these predominantly masculine pursuits have influenced women’s ability to join the physics community. Now she has turned her attention to virtual reality, looking at similarities between how we view it today and how art and religion was viewed in medieval times. Her assertion is that rather than carrying us forward into new and fabulous other worlds, virtual reality is actually carrying us backwards–to essentially medieval dreams. Beginning with the medieval view, with its definition of the world as spiritual space, Wertheim traces the emergence of modern physics’ emphasis on physical space. She then presents her thesis: that cyberspace, which is an outgrowth of modern science, posits the existence of a genuine yet immaterial world in which people are invited to commune in a nonbodily fashion, just as medieval theology brought intangible souls together in heaven. The perfect realm awaits, we are told, not behind the pearly gates but the electronic gateways labeled .com and .net. How did we get from seeing ourselves in soul space (the world of Dante and the late medievals) to seeing ourselves as purely in body space (the world of Newton and Einstein)? This crucial transition and the new shift propelled by the Internet are convincingly described in this challenging book.

Buy the book on Amazon.

Read more about Wertheim’s compelling new book in a Salon.com article: Is the Internet the new heaven?

Remember a Previous Life? Maybe You Have a Bad Memory.
Familiarity with an idea makes some people more likely to forget where it came from—and confuse fact with fiction…

According to a University of Netherlands study, it seems that if you have past life memories that what you actually have is a memory error that causes you to be more likely than others to misremember the source of any given piece of information. Does this mean that people with past life recollections are also more likely to “remember” UFO abductions?

Read the article in Scientific American.