The Digital Tower of Babylon
What do you Worship?
Mysticism Goes Digital
Lately I’ve noticed something strange: the “new age” friends reading Gene Keys and Rudolf Steiner sound almost identical to the Silicon Valley transhumanists. One group talks about Gaia and techno-demons; the other dreams of cracking DNA and curing death. But at root, both are telling a myth about salvation.
On one side, the myth says: humanity is the problem. We’ve poisoned the earth, multiplied too much, and need to shrink back into harmony with the organic whole. On the other, the myth says: humanity is the solution. With AI, biotech, and sheer ingenuity, we can undo the damage of Eden and restore paradise through knowledge.
Different symbols, different priests, same longing. The collision between these two mysticisms—Gaia and Transhuman Eden—might be the most important dialectic of our time.
“Jeffrey Epstein had key card access to both the Mathematics and Biology departments at Harvard University. We know that he was a math teacher at Dalton, and apparently a kind of financial alchemist, but what about biology? The Harvard biology division to which he had key card access was specifically the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED), where he was even given his own office space known as “Jeffrey’s Office.” According to an official Harvard University report on the matter, he visited the building more than 40 times between 2010 and 2018, in other words for a decade after he was first prosecuted in 2008. Those familiar with his interest in this domain have said that Epstein was focused on evolutionary theory and genetic engineering. Epstein was fascinated with eugenics and selective breeding. Lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a fellow Jew, has said that Epstein’s ideas in this area reminded him of Nazi Eugenics programs.”
Credit:
The New Age Mythos: Gaia and the Techno-Demons
The Gene Keys, Steiner, and similar movements share a powerful appeal: they make the spiritual tangible by linking cosmic destiny to our DNA, our relationship with the Earth, and our inner work of “awakening.” For many, this feels like an antidote to the cold materialism of modern science.
The story is compelling. The Earth itself is alive — Gaia, a mother we’ve neglected. Humanity, however, is not her crowning glory but her greatest mistake. The modern world, with its machines, cities, and digital webs, is seen as the infestation of “techno-demons” who pull us away from the organic harmony of the natural order. The solution, then, is not progress but repentance: fewer people, less ambition, a return to simplicity, and dissolving into the great Whole.
In politics, this vision finds its echo in sustainability agendas and climate “safety” programs. The message is the same: you are the problem. If we just reduce ourselves — our numbers, our consumption, our very presence — we might be welcomed back into Gaia’s embrace.
There is real truth here. We are called to stewardship, and human pride has wounded creation. But hidden beneath the ecological concern is a darker logic: salvation through subtraction, redemption by erasing humanity. This is why, for all its mystical beauty, the Gaia myth is profoundly anti-Christian. It forgets that God made humanity in His image — and called it good.
Credit: Peter Paul Rubens David Slaying Goliath (click the image to be taken to the source material)
The Techno-Mystical Mythos: Transhuman Eden
If the New Age mythos sees humanity as the problem, the Transhuman mythos sees humanity as the solution. Thinkers from Francis Bacon to René Girard, and more recently Peter Thiel, frame technology not as a curse but as a calling. Bacon wrote of using knowledge to “repair the Fall” — to earn our way back into Eden by undoing the damage wrought by Adam and Eve.
This is the seed of the modern scientific project. It says: through disciplined inquiry and invention, we can cure disease, banish scarcity, extend life, and ultimately heal the brokenness of creation. The transhumanist imagination pushes this to the limit — merging AI, genetics, and biotechnology into a vision of paradise restored.
There is something recognizably Christian about this impulse. Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, healing the sick — these are not alien to the Gospel. They are its very heartbeat. So why wouldn’t we use AI’s abundance or genetic breakthroughs to fulfill that calling?
But there is also danger. When salvation is sought through cracking God’s design rather than aligning with it, technology can slip from stewardship into idolatry. The dream of Transhuman Eden risks becoming another Tower of Babel, promising life but leading to domination.
And so, we are caught between two rival mysticisms: one that wants to erase humanity, and one that wants to perfect it.
Genesis 22
Abraham Tested
22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.”
In his most recent white paper, the philosopher and mathematician Robert Edward Grant explains his novel take on simulation theory, claiming that the hero’s journey is much more than a structure for crafting stories. The human experience, he claims, is a “blockchain-based social AI spiritual life simulation”, where participants follow the archetypal structure of the hero’s journey in order to “learn about consciousness, emotional states and the nature of authentic love.” If we accept this hypothesis, astrological tools such as the Gene Keys take on a new dimension of utility for navigating life.
Describing the hero’s journey, which entails the call to adventure, the quest and a return, Campbell identifies different character archetypes in The Hero With A Thousand Faces,. These archetypes are expanded upon in the Gene Keys to describe individual blueprints of what Kabbalah calls tikkuns, our soul’s corrections in this lifetime. Developed by author and channeler Richard Rudd, the Gene Keys combine elements of Human Design, Kabbalah, tarot and the astrological zodiac with the Chinese I Ching and the structure of the human genome sequence. The resulting system mirrors the hero’s journey in many ways, beginning with the expansion on Campbell’s concept of archetypes. There are 64 Gene Keys, matching the 64 hexagrams in the I Ching and the 64 codons of the human genetic code.
Every Gene Key sequence, based on our time and place of birth, contains a life, love and prosperity path known respectively as the Activation, Venus and Pearl Sequences. Each path, in turn, has four archetypal keys describing our tikkun by way of a shadow state we must transmute through a corresponding gift. We all have our own way of moving from the shadow to the gift frequency, represented by different lines in our profile. Each state of being is an attitude, and Rudd contends that rather than our DNA dictating how our lives unfold, our attitudes tell our DNA what kind of person we want to become. The first of the 64 Gene Key archetypes is called ‘From Entropy to Syntropy,’ and it has the shadow frequency of entropy transmuted through the gift of freshness leading to the transcendence state of beauty, which is called the siddhi.
The Collision: Gaia vs. Eden
The stage is set for a clash of mythologies. On one side stands the Gaia myth — humanity as the planetary parasite, the blight to be reduced or erased for the Earth to heal. On the other side stands the Transhuman Eden — humanity as the redeemer of creation, destined to harness knowledge and technology to restore paradise.
These visions are not merely abstract philosophies. They shape policy, economics, and culture right now. Agenda 2030 and its language of “sustainability” channels the Gaia myth, insisting on limits, reductions, and safety through constraint. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley dream of AI-driven abundance and bio-hacked immortality channels the Eden myth, aiming to conquer death and scarcity with machines and code.
Both claim to be salvific. Both promise safety, healing, and a better future. Yet both are incomplete. The Gaia myth denies the goodness of humanity. The Eden myth risks denying the goodness of God. One despairs of man, the other forgets grace.
In the collision of these mythologies, we see a distorted mirror of the Christian story — a drama of Fall, redemption, and restoration, but with the Author written out.
Isaiah 52
52 Awake, awake, Zion,
clothe yourself with strength!
Put on your garments of splendor,
Jerusalem, the holy city.
The uncircumcised and defiled
will not enter you again.
2 Shake off your dust;
rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem.
Free yourself from the chains on your neck,
Daughter Zion, now a captive.
3 For this is what the Lord says:
“You were sold for nothing,
and without money you will be redeemed.”
4 For this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“At first my people went down to Egypt to live;
lately, Assyria has oppressed them.
5 “And now what do I have here?” declares the Lord.
“For my people have been taken away for nothing,
and those who rule them mock,[a]”
declares the Lord.
“And all day long
my name is constantly blasphemed.
6 Therefore my people will know my name;
therefore in that day they will know
that it is I who foretold it.
Yes, it is I.”
7 How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;
together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion,
they will see it with their own eyes.
9 Burst into songs of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord will lay bare his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see
the salvation of our God.
11 Depart, depart, go out from there!
Touch no unclean thing!
Come out from it and be pure,
you who carry the articles of the Lord’s house.
12 But you will not leave in haste
or go in flight;
for the Lord will go before you,
the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
The Suffering and Glory of the Servant
13 See, my servant will act wisely[b];
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him[c]—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,[d]
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Colossians 2:11-12
11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh[a] was put off when you were circumcised by[b] Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Section 5: The Christian Resolution — Logos and True Eden
Both Gaia and Eden myths circle around truths but distort them in opposite directions. Gaia reminds us of creation’s fragility, but denies humanity’s dignity. Transhuman Eden honours human ingenuity, but forgets that salvation is not earned. Each offers fragments of the Christian story, but without the centre.
Christianity does not erase humanity, nor does it enthrone humanity. Instead, it grounds humanity in the Logos — the Word through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together. In Christ, the Earth is not abandoned to ruin, nor is it saved by our machines. It is reconciled through the cross and promised renewal in the resurrection.
This is the true Eden: not a paradise we construct by subtraction or invention, but one we receive by grace. The Christian resolution affirms stewardship without despair, innovation without idolatry. It tells us that our destiny is not extinction or self-deification, but communion with God.
And this is precisely where today’s debates about AI, biotech, and ecology point — to the question of whether we will trust our own mythic projects, or return to the Logos who alone makes sense of the story.
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Next Movement: Nick Land Enters the Room
At this point, the conversation is no longer abstract. Recently, Tucker Carlson hosted a fascinating discussion with Conrad Flynn, where they traced many of these same threads: Gaia’s anti-human mysticism, Silicon Valley’s transhuman dream, and the specter of technological apocalypse.
What startled their audience, however, was not the rhetoric itself — it was Nick Land’s response. Land, the philosopher who inspired much of this discourse, listened to the conversation and, rather than dismissing it as misrepresentation, conceded something surprising: they were over the target. Even if embellished, he admitted, the analysis had captured truths about the trajectory of his own ideas that he himself had not fully considered.
This moment of candid humility stunned his cohosts — the father of accelerationism pausing to reflect, acknowledging that perhaps others had seen implications he had missed.
John 14:6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.