Scientific Progress, Spirituality, and the Devil

Energy, field, magnetism, consciousness etc., are not words that we hear just in the area of science, but they are very much used in spiritual discourses today. Spiritual narratives often blame science that it has not yet arrived at the true meaning of these terms.

It is at the same time scientific progress and technological advancement boast of knowledge and rationality, we also see the extreme form of religiosity and most absurd forms of superstitions. The phenomenon is not new. 

We know that any social or cultural change bring a struggle till the system gradually adapts to it. It is not an apparent harm that threatens, but it is the whole question of placing ourselves somewhere in the 'new' world (eg., industrial world or computer age today). The feeling of insecurity and existential perplexity form a sense of displacement from the living reality. The question of uncertainty and inability to adjust to a new situation make a feeling of a suspicious presence in the world which alters the normal or traditional patterns. It is also the time a fascination to narrations involving devils and multiple forms of witchcraft begin to rise. Because, the calculations and patterns in magic seem to parallel the scientific rationale. The devil and the vampires give a personified figure to our own fears and shattered self.

Time  to time we have historical contexts when the human capacities find helpless, and cannot even name what really happens (it could be some phenomena, or cultural conflicts of values, morals and systems). This unnamable and undesired reality may appear in various forms according to different contexts. We seem to have 'identified' the source when we blame it on the 'devil.' But what happens here is that we escape from our responsibility to 'identify' the human, socio-cultural dimensions that create the situation.

God, society, and grace together need to approach these patterns of the 'devil.' Only a mature faithful community can stand against the apparent crisis it faces. Instead, manipulative leaders tend to form a pseudo religiosity and false images of spirituality. They might interpret the crisis in a very meaningful manner, but cannot solve because they often do not attempt to understand it other than describing them in their own fictitious forms of  palatable beliefs. We might attempt to condemn and expel the devil, but at the same time within the frames of pseudo-religiosity we chain ourselves to 'good' magic which are easy tools to escape the crisis.

Only in ways we can find an encounter between ourselves and God in the new phase of cultural and social changes, we gracefully face the newness (apparently a crisis). Until then we wander chasing and cursing the devil.

What is suggested here is to analyse our times and changes with the tools of history and cultural hermeneutics. Then, we can spiritualise them in our approach of the issue in a life of grace.

It may be interesting to do a brief study on the witchcraft in early modern Europe, witch hunting, and we will be surprised to know that it was more related to immature ways of religion to deal with the then 'scientific' language and method and religious adaptation.
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Please see also Romanticising the Demons