UFOs, AI, and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny | Mary Harrington and D.W. Pasulka

Subscribe to Socrates in the City @socratesinthecity Interested in attending a Socrates in the City event? Sign up for our newsletter https://socratesinthecity.com/sign-up/ In this episode of Socrates Dialogues with Mary Harrington, she is joined by D.W. Pasulka, professor of religious studies and author of American Cosmic and Encounters, to explore her newest book "The Others: UFOs, AI, and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny" and the strange and often overlooked relationship between religion, technology, and the uncanny. The conversation moves from her academic journey—from studying purgatory and Marian visions to investigating modern technological developments and the cultural phenomenon of UFOs—raising the provocative possibility that what we once understood as religious visions may now be interpreted through the language of technology. Drawing on René Girard's work on religion, violence, and human imitation, Pasulka reaches even further back to Plato and Socrates, whose ancient questions about perception, knowledge, and reality seem remarkably prescient in an age increasingly shaped by technological spaces. The two explore the implications of Plato’s Cave, which describes a world in which shadows could be mistaken for reality—who are the modern puppet masters, and what happens when the technologies shaping our “cave” are increasingly invisible, immersive, and powerful? Are we still watching shadows on the wall, or have we begun to build the cave ourselves? 0:00 Introducing Diana Pasulka 2:14 From Catholic History and Purgatory to UFOs 9:05 Arthur C. Clarke and the Ancient Aliens Counter-Religion 13:06 René Girard and the Scapegoat Mechanism 18:06 Social Media as Industrialized Scapegoating 22:10 Have We Already Passed the Singularity? 23:24 Donna Haraway, Cyborgs, and Implanted Memories 29:08 Socrates, Plato, and the Critique of Writing 37:35 Technologies of the Soul and Whether AI Can Reach the Divine 40:57 The Lost Tradition of the Spiritual Senses 49:52 How Print Burned the Memory Palaces 52:56 Will the Digital Age Revive or Destroy Our Inner Senses? 59:43 Is the Internet a Place? Egregores and Managed Spaces 1:05:53 Plato's Cave and the Puppet Masters 1:10:44 Is There a "There There"? Moral Realism and Hope