From Cyberhenge to the Age of the Algorithm: Magic and Technology Twenty Years Later

Abstract: Twenty years after the publication of Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet, Douglas Cowan's core insight remains valuable: the Internet is not just a venue for religious activity, but a medium that facilitates both religious bricolage and spiritual expression. As digital technologies have evolved from static websites and email lists into immersive platforms, mobile interfaces, and most recently, generative AI systems, Cowan's concept of "open-source religion" provides a useful theoretical framework for exploring how digital magical practices have evolved over the last two decades. From virtual temples to digital divination tools, the "open-source" paradigm reveals how magical practitioners hack, remix, and redeploy spiritual systems in digital spaces. And from Discord servers to AI familiars, digital technologies serve as both infrastructure and interlocutor, echoing and extending Cowan's vision of religion-as-open-source, as practitioners reconfigure systems both online and off, in real time.