Paper short abstract:

By drawing on related literature and through an exercise in symmetrical anthropology, I discuss whether and how transhumanism (broadly understood as future making projects which aim at radically changing the human condition through high technology) can be seen as a modern form of transfiguration.

Paper long abstract:

Attempts to overcome the human condition through self-enhancement by encountering and affiliating with an unknown-wished-other, whose multiple revolutionary forces one seeks to instrumentalize with the help of appropriate materials, rituals and techniques, have been documented in diverse places and times since antiquity. One of the names given to this pursuit was transfiguration. Despite its associations with Christianity, transfiguration can be understood also as an archetype (relatable to that of the saviour) found in diverse religious traditions and systems, like in ancient religions of Egypt, Iran and in Buddhism (see e.g. Eliade’s ‘History of Religious Ideas’). Would it also not be the case to speak of transfiguration when one takes a closer look at contemporary evolutionist transhumanist movements in techno-scientific societies? For instance, does the ongoing (biomedical and non-biomedical) turning of aging into a disease to be overcome through applied reason and by further advancing science and technology share common fears and longings with those found in Zarathustra’s pursuit to ‘cure existence’ through sacrifice, or in the struggles for immortality undertaken by Buddhists through Yoga and by Christians through baptism?

In this paper, I reflect on transhumanism, which I here broadly understand as the set of future making projects which aim at revolutionarily changing the human condition through rational reason and yet to come technologies (Huberman 2021), in light of transfiguration as analytical tool. By drawing on related literature and through an exercise in symmetrical anthropology, I discuss whether and how transhumanism can be seen as a modern form of transfiguration.