Is the accelerating evolution of science and technology our greatest hope or our worst nightmare? Are we heading toward a techno-utopian future where the internet, iPhones, and nanomachines will liberate humanity once and for all from the bonds of survival and inconvenience? Or is it all just techno-hype, distracting us from our spiritual depths and moving us ever more rapidly toward some kind of apocalyptic dystopia?

Stephen Vedro says it’s neither. And in his recent book, Digital Dharma: A User’s Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Infosphere, he lays out an integral vision for the future that sees the evolution of technology and the evolution of consciousness as two equally important sides of the same coin.

In this Unbound audio, WIE’s Carter Phipps speaks to Vedro about why he thinks that the spirituality of the future will be one that finds a way to embrace the rapid technological change that is increasingly shaping our lives as we move deeper into the twenty-first century. Drawing upon the ideas of a rich array of thinkers, including Ken Wilber, Don Beck, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Vedro describes how technologies native to each stage in human history, from the printing press to television to the world wide web, have simultaneously molded—and been molded by—developments within society, culture, and consciousness.

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