8 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 3 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 7 goal. For this reason, cyber-spiritual experience with no further knowledge can only constitute one segment of spiritual life, a segment that cannot replace shaman spirituality or whichever other traditional spirituality. We could think hypothetically about a direct connection between technologies and human’s nervous system. We could imagine irritation of some centres of nervous system, which would result in visions similar to mystical experience. However, would this experience mean a valuable progression on the spiritual path? Will it be strong enough to introduce changes in life? Will it prevent the bad inclinations in us and replace them with high moral standards without which everything would fall back to the old ways? In traditional spiritual traditions, we speak about a whole complex of methods that work with mind and body, not just the spiritual experience itself. For example, Buddhist meditation works heavily with concentration – such as concentration on breathing or certain point in the body, which can trigger changes in the nervous system or, in case of Tantrayāna, energy that will broaden consciousness and mediate extraordinary experience. Yet, also here knowledge and wisdom are necessary for these experiences to integrate into one’s life, and equally important is the virtue of meditation – so that the path is not interrupted. Therefore, if technology-triggered experience started one’s spiritual path, there would have to be also other aspects of spiritual life, such as eager work on oneself, improving self-knowledge, eliminating bad inclinations, meditation and similar. This is the reason why we believe that technologically triggered spiritual experience can at most be merely accompanying or perhaps stimulating phenomenon in the whole context of spiritual and religious life. 5 Conclusions With new kinds of media emerging, we can expect also changes and transformations in religions simply because we express ourselves and communicate through media. Traditional religions, such as Christian religion, grew upon spoken and written words. Spoken words influenced depth, transcendence and the sense of present time, while written words aimed at precision of expressions and thoughts, linearity of time and visual perspective. In context of Christian religion, there has always been a constant tension between these two forms of media, which is reflected in conflict between belief and logical mind, or theology and philosophy. New digital media, such as the Internet or videogames, will also be anything but neutral towards religion, they will influence it in certain ways of thinking, imagination, feeling, but also actions. The Internet, through its great multilateral possibilities in gathering information will favour non-linear thinking in religion, thinking that is realised almost immediately and characterised by domination of images. Different platforms of the Internet, for example social networks, can offer a place for virtual religious community. All of this is, much stronger and with greater immersion in the cyberspace, present in videogames, concretely in the videogame that is the object of our study –World of Warcraft. Together with R. Geraci and J. Vallikatt we admit that videogames can transfer a spiritual experience or perhaps saturate needs of a hypermodern man. We may even suppose that new religious forms will be developed in the cyberspace of digital media. Here, we see some possibilities for religion to evolve in the cyberspace of digital media. However, there is still a boundary for every virtual religion – the human’s body. In the first case, the so-called external limitation, the body is totally irreplaceably for example in Christian ritual of baptism, or mediation in mindful breathing in Buddhism. In the second case, the so-called internal limitation, which is still more or less a matter of science-fiction, we have the problem of connecting modern technologies with human’s body. We will probably see some more experiments in here and it is possible that some partial success will be achieved in, for example, intense experiencing of spiritual visions, feeling of no time-flow and total immersion into sacred spheres. Yet, it is still questionable whether new cyber-spirituality will lead to a religious objective (salvation in Christian religion, freedom in Buddhism) or it will stay, similarly to the case of visual experiencing of the sacred, purely as experience – which is not sufficient according to the traditional approach to religions. Also here, the experience itself would have to be more intense and relatively stable in a wider moral, cognitive and social context if it should be of a mystical value. Mere experience is not enough, it is also necessary to know what kind of experience it is, how much and which way it pushes us on the spiritual path and how to work with it further on. In the worse scenario, cyber-spiritual experience could lead to fixation only on the experience, which could lead to addiction; in the better scenario, it could mean a complement and motivation for real spirituality.
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