Who Will Tame the Giants?
Scandinavian Journal for Leadership & Theology January 19, 2023 Lars Öberg
Tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter function as modern-day 'principalities and powers' in a Pauline sense, shaping how people perceive and interact with the world. Users who live within these digital frameworks become participating members of the giants' bodies, influenced by their telos. As people access the world through these placeless platforms, their existence becomes more disembodied, accelerating a shift toward a less embodied and more polytheistic worldview. The concept of egregore, or shared thought-form, is introduced to discuss whether these online principalities can be exorcised or redeemed. Online activists attempt to manipulate egregores through 'meme-magic,' but any church-led exorcism risks excarnation by participating in the tech giants' hollow bodies.