Comment by ctrlp

Warmed over esotericism. Ficino, Mirandola, some others, were picking up an esoteric tradition dating back thousands of years. The neoplatonism, kabbalah, magic... it's all of a kind. The common thread being that all is one, that man is God, that the body is a prison, that we are properly seeking a return to the godhead from which we came, and that this can be achieved through transcendental practices. It's the same gnostic heresies that the early church was contending with and has roots in Persian mystical religions that are very, very old. I would argue that it is the dominant religious vibe of many Christians today and is the belief system that we might call "spiritual" today. It's also the same basic idea of progressive liberation theology (both religious and secular varieties) including transhumanism.