The Politics of Consciousness and Immersive Media: An Integrative Review

Awe-inspiring experiences and aesthetic rituals can produce deep shifts in how people know the world, and these shifts often intersect with power structures. Examining cases from Amazonian shamanic rituals to ancient Egyptian temple arts, Surrealist dream experiments, transpersonal psychology, and science-fiction cyberculture reveals a common thread: a 'politics of consciousness' in which altered states and symbolic systems shape individual and collective worldviews, entwining spiritual mythos, realpolitik, and sociotechnical imaginaries. Sacred art-ritual ecologies and modern media techniques serve as architectures of transformation. Technologically mediated awe can both elevate and undermine human freedom. Rituals of awe function as tools of epistemic change and sites of political contestation over the human spirit.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Awe-inspiring experiences and aesthetic rituals can induce profound epistemic transformations while also intersecting with structures of power. This review examines diverse case studies – from Amazonian shamanic rituals to ancient Egyptian temple arts, Surrealist dream experiments, transpersonal psychology, and science-fiction cyberculture – to understand how designed experiences of awe and immersion can transform or define knowledge and agency. Across these domains, we see a common thread: “politics of consciousness” – the way altered states and symbolic systems affect individual and collective worldviews – entwines with both spiritual mythos, realpolitik (the exercise of power), and sociotechnical imaginaries. We highlight examples of how sacred art-ritual ecologies and modern media techniques serve as architectures of transformation, allude to the distinctions of individual, community and corporate liminoid experiences, and then explore how technologically-mediated awe can both elevate and undermine human freedom. The goal is to elucidate how rituals of awe – including emerging immersive media – function as both tools of epistemic change and sites of political contestation over the human spirit.