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From: susser.PASA@XEROX.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Paratechnomysticism
Message-ID: <12201@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 16:11:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12201
Posted: Tue Aug  7 16:11:00 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Aug-84 02:10:39 EDT
Lines: 21

On the subject of paratechnomysticism, A. E. vanVogt has a fairly new
book out called COMPUTERWORLD.  The book is set in a future where the
USA (or moral equivalant thereof) is largely controlled by a vast,
central computer with something on the order of eighteen billion
peripherals.  The entire book is written from the computer's point of
view, which is presented very believably. 

The paratechnomysticsm comes in when the computer is fitted with
peripherals that allow it to monitor what I would call people's "auras",
but what vanVogt refferred to as "bio-magnetic energies".  In response,
a group of scientific mystics arises, protesting that the computer is
actually draining these energies, much to tthe detriment of everybody's
life force.  The mystics use the computer's manipulation of these
bio-magnetic energies to increase their own power and find a really
nifty conclusion to the story.

I don't know if this is the kind of paratechnomysticism you were looking
for, but I would reccommend it as an entertaining story (if you can
ignore the gaping holes in vanVogt's knowledge of computer science).

-- Josh Susser