This article talks about the new collaboration between Facebook and select religious communities. One has to wonder, based on Facebook’s history, how they intend to use these partnerships to shape the future of religious experience.

The Church of Facebook is set to capture the human soul in silicon. On July 25, the New York Times reported that since 2017 the social media giant has quietly cultivated exclusive partnerships with select religious communities. As always, money is involved.

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While Facebook’s ultimate goals remain sealed behind non-disclosure agreements, the Times article does hint at things to come: “The company aims to become the virtual home for religious community…”

“The partnerships reveal how Big Tech and religion are converging,” the Times continues. “Facebook is shaping the future of religious experience itself, as it has done for political and social life.”

In other words, ultra-mod spiritual centers will be blessed by mass data extraction, algorithmic polarization, and censorship of theological “misinformation.”…

The Church of Facebook is just one part of a much broader vision. Three days before the Times article appeared, The Verge published an in-depth interview with founder Mark Zuckerberg about his ambition to “bring the metaverse to life.” The term refers to the evolution of 24/7 screentime into a warped synthesis of physical reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, and virtual reality…

In his Verge interview, Zuckerberg describes the Metaverse as an “embodied internet” — “the holy grail of social interactions” — where we can work, play, and enjoy a “sense of presence” alongside teleporting holograms…

According to Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, it will also be a spiritual endeavor. “Faith organizations and social media are a natural fit because fundamentally both are about connection,” she told the Times…

Imagine a synagogue where a holographic burning bush recites the Decalogue, or a cathedral where saint icons speak to you directly…With 3 billion users worldwide — and zero sense of sacred boundaries — Facebook is poised to lead this spiritual revolution…

It’s true that with enough hyperbole, anything can be described as a “religion.”…But this is not hyperbole: Technology has become a religion.

If you look at the personalities behind techno-fetishism, they frequently describe digital culture in spiritual terms. Smart devices produce all the miracles promised by religion…

In Francis Bacon’s unfinished 1626 novel “The New Atlantis,” he describes a technocratic utopia with “perspective-houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations. … We procure means [to] represent things near as afar off; and things afar off as near.” The pioneering scientist warns of vivid mechanical “illusions” that could be presented as “miracles.”…

Striking a dissonant note, in 1976 the first Apple computer went on sale for $666.66. Despite…Steve Wozniak’s insistence that it was just a fluke, the numeric symbolism has dark resonance…You don’t have to be superstitious to appreciate the mythical implications. When I visited the famous Apple Museum in Prague, Czech Republic, a large decal on the front window read: “Three apples changed the world. The first tempted Eve, the second inspired Newton, and the third was offered to the world half-eaten by Steve Jobs.”

…In 1988, Timothy Leary published his classic essay “Digital Polytheism: Load and Run High-tech Paganism.” The High Priest of LSD explicitly describes the personal computer in terms of ritual magic: “Today, digital alchemists have at their command tools of a precision and power unimagined by their predecessors.”

“Computer screens ARE magical mirrors, presenting alternate realities at varying degrees of abstraction on command (invocation). Aleister Crowley defined magick as ‘the art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with our will,’” Leary wrote.

It’s a curious fact that, like many techno-fetishists, Leary was as obsessed with Crowleyan “magick” as he was with psychedelics and cybernetics. In fact, his essay opens with Crowley’s catchy little ditty:

We place no reliance

On virgin or pigeon;

Our Method is Science,

Our Aim is Religion…

Incidentally, both Microsoft and Facebook are among the many partners at the XR Association who’ve joined forces to manifest the Metaverse in our daily lives …Google, Sony, and HTC are also leaders in the effort. “Immersive technology will play a vital role in America’s drive to Build Back Better,” the XRA website promises…

While citizens bicker over vaccine mandates and debt ceilings, Big Tech is crafting a parallel universe for a new breed of humans to inhabit….

What are your thoughts about the new collaboration between Big Tech and religion? Share below!

(Excerpted from The Federalist. Article by Joe Allen. Photo Credit: Amanda-Dalbjorn/Unsplash).