selective spiritual technophobia: why mystics and scientists are both getting AI wrong

Why are so many spiritual teachers and thinkers panicking about AI? Some are calling it demonic, while others say it’s the Antichrist, but almost no one is asking the deeper questions about how AI actually reflects the human psyche and what that reflection can do to us.

This episode breaks down the real risks of using AI for inner work. We look at how it can speed up psychological and spiritual insight, but also how that speed can cause confusion, obsession, and mental disorganization when used without care. We compare it to old methods of divination (like tarot, dream interpretation, and scrying) and explain why AI is a mirror with more reach and power than anything that came before it.

We also explore why it makes no sense to debate whether AI is conscious when we don’t even understand what consciousness is. We touch on suppressed research around psychic experiences, non-local awareness, and how modern science still can’t explain how thoughts work, let alone where they come from. And most importantly, we talk about how many of the people warning about AI are ignoring the deeper history of fear around new tools. Electricity, printing presses, and even early computers were all once described as evil. This is a pattern and like patterns tend to do… It’s all repeating again.

TOPICS COVERED:

• Why AI affects the psyche differently than older spiritual tools

• What no one is saying about the link between AI and “mental breakdowns” or “ChatGPT-induced spiritual psychosis”

• Why debates about AI consciousness miss the point entirely

• How human therapists and spiritual leaders also distort truth (and oftentimes more harmfully than AI does)

• What psychic hygiene means in the digital age

• How old mystical beliefs can be updated instead of abandoned

• Why we need more builders in this space who think symbolically and act with integrity

You’ll hear about research that most people don’t know exists. I also share why I’ve decided to build something new in this space. An AI tool created with spiritual fluency, user respect, and real ethical care. The team is already in place, and I’ll be revealing much more soon. If you found value in this conversation, share it. This is the episode I most want people to hear right now.

MENTIONED REFERENCES:

• Duncan Trussell’s interview with Blake Lemoine (engineer who believes Google created a sentient AI)

• My episode on “psychic hygiene in the age of AI”

• “will AI set you free or control your mind? (psychiatry, mental health, and the machine age)”

• The Telepathy Tapes podcast

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