Neuromatic

John Lardas Modern is professor of religious studies at Franklin & Marshall College. He is the author of The Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs and Secularism in Antebellum America, the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press.

• Prologue: Already GoneIntroductionSaturationApproaching the Neuromatic (with a Short Engineering Aside)Blurred LinesCybernetics and the Question of ReligionCybernetic Theses of SecularizationPoetics Synaptic Gap: Measuring Religion I. Thinking about Cognitive Scientists Thinking about ReligionFalse PositivesThe Cognitive Science of ReligionThe Hyperactive Agency Detection DeviceDistinguishing Marks on a ScreenBreaking the SpellNorthamptonJonathan Edwards, Hyperactive Agency DetectorDetecting the Life of the BrainAgents like UsCheap Tricks Synaptic Gap: The Information of History II. Neither Matter nor Spirit: Toward a Genealogy of InformationHard ProblemsNeuromatic Piety: An OverviewEther and the Permeation of the InterspacesEmanuel Swedenborg, NeuroscientistGhosts of SwedenborgMental Slavery and the Invention of SpiritualityThe Diakka and Their Earthly VictimsThe Mediomaniacal Origins of American NeurologyPrehistories of ElectroencephalographyBrain Waves and Tremulating InformationBiofeedback and the Experience of CorrespondenceThe Ontology of InformationConcluding Thoughts on Perceptronium Synaptic Gap: Too Much Too Soon III. Imagining the NeuromaticCrash and BurnOpening Scene from a Cybernetic DemimondeElective AffinitiesThe Mechanics of MediumshipImages of an OracleThought Dictated in the Absence of All ControlCut-UpsFrom Voodoo Death to VirologyEngrams and AuditingPast Lives of the Neuromatic BrainExteriorizationBreak Through in Grey Room Synaptic Gap: White Machinery IV. Histories of Electric Shock Therapy circa 1978Of Systems, Sex, and Secular ConversionMoral Treatment and Heads That Differ in ShapeGendered Electricity in the Neuromatic GrooveThe Operationalization of Napa State Insane AsylumPatients’ RightsThe Shaving of Leonard Frank’s BeardElectric Love TherapyThe Business of MarriageThe Union of All Contradictory IdeasI Watch TV, I Watch TVLive from Napa State Synaptic Gap: Belief MoleculesConclusion: The Elementary Forms of Neuromatic LifeTotemic SystemsBig ScienceArtificial IntelligenceIndex

"Neuromatic is a fascinating exploration of the intertwined histories of religion and the brain. More than anything, it raises the question of the nature of belief — whether we can know the unknowable through these shadows that we chase around the cave of the skull."