Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

240Demonic Texts and Textual Demonstranscendence of nature and of crude beginnings, the availability of all thingspleasurable and cultured.” 163“We will all become angels, and for eternity!” one enthusiastic writerclaimed. “Highly unstable, hermaphrodite angels, unforgettable in terms ofcomputer memory.” 164 The Platonic dream, however, is based on dualism,and it is interesting to analyse how Neuromancer addresses and employs thecontradictions and conflicts inherent in such a vision. The use of mythicalnarratives and symbolism is an outstanding feature of Neuromancer, but itdoes not endorse the man-machine interface uncritically: the euphoria of increasedpossibilities is interwoven with the fears of merging with the other,of losing one’s identity – the essential threats towards one’s self. The cyberspacecowboy, Case, may agree with the Church Fathers that the flesh is theprison of soul, but the narrative does not stop here: this is the startingpoint. 165 The impurity and defectiveness of the body haunts this “disembodied”story from the beginning. Case has stolen from his (criminal) employers,and they paid him back by maiming his nervous system with a “wartimeRussian mycotoxin.” 166 Afterwards, Case is unable to see or travel into cyberspaceany more, the implication being that the “talent” of Case hadsomehow been a part of his nervous system. The “cyberspace deck” that heuses is not enough in itself: the real roots of cyberspace are in the experientialand visionary capacities of the human body and mind.In a seminal article tracing the demonic and occult roots of cyberspace,“Techgnosis, Magic, Memory, and The Angels of Information” (1994), ErikDavis finds parallels and contacts between the postmodern “cult of information”and hermetic tradition – the mnemonic techniques (visualising a spacefor things to be remembered), demonic cryptography, and Gnostic cosmology.167 The magi of the past spent their time attempting to have communicationswith “daemons” (any spirits from the lower ones to the archangels andplanetary rulers), trying to find out their “true names” and to reach gnosis.This divine information “in-forms” by transforming the subject of knowledge;in immediate transcendence, the subject “knows God” and realises the(previously hidden) unity with divinity. 168 According to Davies, the 1960sBay Area culture that laid the groundwork for much of current “cyberculture”saw computers as “the latest and the greatest tools available for the163 Michael Benedikt, “Introduction”; see also Michael Heim, “The Erotic Ontology ofCyberspace”; Marcos Novak, “Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace” (Benedikt 1991, 1-25, 59-80, 225-54; quotation from page 15).164 Nicole Stenger, “Mind Is a Leaking Rainbow” (ibid., 52).165 The metaphor of body as prison is common in Patristic writings; St. Paul likenedbody to an “earthen vessel” (2 Cor. 4:7) and asked “Who will deliver me from this bodyof death?” (Rom. 7:24). See also Jerome 1963, 136 (“As long as we are imprisoned withinthis frail little body”…) and the discussion on transmigration of souls by Tertullian (“Onthe Soul”; Tertullianus 1985, 262).166N, 12.167 Davis 1994, 31.168See also Pagels 1981, 143-69.