The Soul of Cyberspace

In this exceptional book, Zaleski, PW editor-at-large and author, with Tracy Cochran, of Transformations, sets out to catalogue the myriad uses of the Internet by proponents of various religions. Interweaving interviews and personal experience, Zaleski explores many key religion sites on the Internet, such as those of the Jewish Chabad Lubavitch, the CyberMuslim Information Collective, the Vatican, Zen Mountain Monastery and the Hindu Students Council. Each chapter focuses on one religion and provides a very useful, descriptive list of sites related to it. Zaleski has also included candid interviews with John Perry Barlow, cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; virtual reality guru Jaron Lanier; and Mark Pesce, co-creator of Virtual Reality Markup Language. Woven into the interviews are Zaleski's trenchant observations about religion and cyberspace, which make thoughtful use of the scientific theories of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, and the religious theories of Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin. The author doggedly pursues the differences both he and his interviewees perceive between virtual reality and natural reality. Zaleski's key questions revolve around the degree to which virtual reality may be said to have a soul, and the answers he provides reveal both the promises and the pitfalls of virtual reality technology. The freshness of Zaleski's prose and the nimbleness of his intellect make this book an invaluable record of a personal foray into the world of the ""digerati,"" who are transforming the nature of reality. (July)