​A Civilization of Spiritual Dementia: Building Hell on Earth with High Technology

​About 20 years ago, while browsing the "Sci-Fi" section of a bookstore, I stumbled upon a novel titled After the End. The author’s name, Yuri Mamleev, meant nothing to me at the time, but flipping through a few pages, I noticed the quality of the prose, and the plot reminded me of the popular "portal fantasy" genre.

​On the very first evening, I realized I hadn't picked up science fiction, but something far more unexpected. Later, I learned that Mamleev is considered the founder of a very specific genre: metaphysical realism. Translated into many languages and a member of dozens of PEN Clubs, his work only began to be published in Russia during Perestroika. In his books, the stakes are not on starships, lasers, or masers, but on the energies of subtle worlds, souls, and the power of thought. And if there is one thing his books have in abundance, it is thought.

​It so happened that quite recently I was discussing the insights of Mo Gawdat, one of the fathers of AI. In his speech, I was struck by the phrase that humanity's problems are the result of human stupidity, not intelligence. It felt strangely familiar, and for several days I tried to remember where I had heard it before. Now I remember. It was Mamleev, in that very first book of his. Re-reading it now, I see our contemporary world, hauntingly similar to his description:

​"...By the middle of the 20th century, humanity had grown extraordinarily stupid. In the civilization that set the tone, the majority of people had almost completely lost any real understanding of the world they lived in. They came to believe that the physical world was the only reality and that nothing else existed. While in reality, they were surrounded by numerous parallel and, ultimately, higher worlds. They stupidly and holistically trusted the so-called scientific worldview—totalitarian and absurd—which elevated the data of its private sciences to the level of reality as a whole, including its spiritual side. It had nothing to do with concrete science..."

​"...The history of your period is comical to the point of a puppet-like tragedy. You flew to the Moon, to the planets, and found only a dead desert. In short, you were looking in the wrong direction. And the greed, malice, and thirst for dominance over others—even vampires would envy that. Endless wars, meaningless 'high technologies,' but the greed and worship of money—unbelievable."

​"...The masses grew utterly dull from all the political fictions and illusions; they were sometimes successfully manipulated, with television, sports, drugs, sexual perversions, and the nature of work acting as a kind of paradoxical cocktail. The population gradually began to turn into beast-robots."

​"Forgive me, not everyone, of course. But on the whole—an idiotic dominance of materialism and the power of money. And the wars, the ambitions? Such a din, such a noise! They created enough atomic bombs to fill the entire planetary system! Some grew fat while others starved; some were bombed while others triumphed... In a word, progressive destruction century after century."

​"...But far fewer people realized the worst thing this vulgar and rational civilization brought. Specifically: it became a giant supplier of human souls to hell, a factory of hell for insignificant souls and other lower states in particular."

​"This civilization was doomed because at its core lay human stupidity and greed."

​"...The civilization of the 20th century boasted of its intellectualism... But it was the intellectualism of rats."

​"...Religion and culture turned into a farce. Literature wasn't banned, but it was mostly at a juvenile level. There was no mention of any former depth. Money became a deity, the yardstick of a human being."

​"...The people were held in a trap of total indifference to anything that didn't bring in money. Everything seemed permitted, but everything turned into a parody. God, paradise, hell, love, death, art—everything, absolutely everything became a parody. People became victims of this civilization."

​"...The end of the world will come, but it will last forever..."

​"...In the 20th century, a civilization of spiritual dementia was already ripening across the Earth..."

​Written half a century ago, yet its relevance has only grown. The sense of the meaninglessness of human existence as a species has become too prominent to ignore.

​“While we were upgrading our machines, we were downgrading ourselves.” (Tristan Harris)

​“Does humanity want to go to the stars, or will it continue to consume its future in satiety and comfort?” (Qi Yue)

​“...people are idiots. They’ve made a lot of mistakes: they invented dog costumes, the position of advertising manager, and things like the iPhone, getting nothing in return but a sour aftertaste. But if we had developed science, explored the Moon, Mars, Venus... who knows what the world would be like then? Humanity was given the chance to roam the cosmos, but it wants to engage in consumption—drinking beer and watching TV series.” (Ray Bradbury)

​One could cite many other quotes, but it is too late; time has run out. What was once a warning today sounds like a final diagnosis. Naturally, no one is interested, and for a very simple reason. The spiritual vacuum that finally swallowed the planet in the 20th century produced a powerful side effect: when a person loses connection with higher meanings (metaphysics), they inevitably simplify to the level of basic reactions: food, sleep, entertainment.

​Therefore, today the intellectual collapse of institutions is becoming the norm. The situation is terrifying. In themselves, simple-minded people are not dangerous; they might even evoke a smirk, like the characters in Mike Judge’s film Idiocracy. The trouble is that the "spiritually demented" have ascended to rule over them—and that is no laughing matter. This is an aggressive, active void that is building hell on earth using high technologies. That is far more frightening.