Is Biohacking the New Piety?

Scene from I, Robot (2004)

A couple of days ago I happened to catch on CBC Radio a program concerning a latest fad: biohacking.

Biohacking is the process of making changes to your lifestyle in order to “hack” your body’s biology and feel your best. You know the saying, “You are what you eat”? That actually applies to humans in a broader sense: everything we put into our bodies — our foods, our thoughts, our physical movement ­— all affect how we behave. By biohacking yourself, you can actually transform your body so that you feel more energized, be more productive and, overall, feel like the best possible version of yourself.-https://draxe.com/what-is-biohacking/

Enter the Dragon

It should come as no surprise that those who seek to improve "quality of life" attempt to do so by (almost) all means necessary. There is never a time when the means by which (a purported) achievement in the realm of human development should not be thoroughly examined, perhaps with a little (or a lot) of suspicion attached. It is far too easy, given the reality of the unredeemed human drive to acquire power to dominate others, domination hiding some futile attempt to attain physical immortality, for fads to become fashion, and fashion to become fascism, and fascism to deliver genocide.

On a podcast last month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said he follows an 'intermittent fasting' diet — eating one meal on weekdays and just water on the weekends.

Don't call it 'dieting': Silicon Valley's next big hack might happen in your body

Do-it-yourself biology (DIYBio) is a biohacking subculture of people who conduct biological experiments and study life sciences outside of conventional means, a movement started in the early 2000s.

Monetizing Man

Having created apps that track and attempt to modify every form of human activity for the sake of profit, the focus for tech firms is shifting to modifying the human organism from the inside, through biohacking. No, not dieting! Apparently, that term is too "feminine-coded".

Yes, dieting is feminine-coded. There's a marketing concept of gender contamination, which is when one thing or product or service becomes too associated with women, men don't want to buy it. Dieting is traditionally a feminized thing, so we've got to find a new word for dieting if we're going to sell it to men. - Amanda Mull/Atlantic Monthly

What pundits of the biohacking variety are proposing lacks the essential element only the Church can propose to engage and correct biohacking: the Word-Made-Flesh, i.e., Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos.

Let's recall a section of the opening paragraph:

You know the saying, “You are what you eat”? That actually applies to humans in a broader sense: everything we put into our bodies — our foods, our thoughts, our physical movement ­— all affect how we behave.

No method or program of human origin can sate the desire in man for his Creator, the One Who alone can provide that which the human heart needs in order to be free of useless attachments that only serve to imprison people in the trap of materialism, for example. Furthermore, knowledge and practice of Jesus' Way is essential to sublimating desires that might otherwise lead to disfigurement (physical ailments) and spiritual confusion. Biohacking, divorced from the profound spiritual psychology of the Church, may even open the heart to diabolical influence. Many-a-time have I met people, including self identified "faithful" Catholics, too, who present themselves as beings with preternatural abilities, often suggesting their abilities are signs of God's favour. Yet, hearing in their voice nothing but mere sinful pride, their boastfulness places them squarely in the grip of dark powers. "Charismatics" of both the Catholic and Protestant kind seem especially susceptible to the sin of spiritual pride.

Chapter 11. Concerning Teachers, Apostles, and Prophets. Whosoever, therefore, comes and teaches you all these things that have been said before, receive him. But if the teacher himself turn and teach another doctrine to the destruction of this, hear him not; but if he teach so as to increase righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord, receive him as the Lord. But concerning the apostles and prophets, according to the decree of the Gospel, thus do. Let every apostle that comes to you be received as the Lord. But he shall not remain except one day; but if there be need, also the next; but if he remain three days, he is a false prophet. And when the apostle goes away, let him take nothing but bread until he lodges; but if he ask money, he is a false prophet. And every prophet that speaks in the Spirit you shall neither try nor judge; for every sin shall be forgiven, but this sin shall not be forgiven. But not every one that speaks in the Spirit is a prophet; but only if he hold the ways of the Lord. Therefore from their ways shall the false prophet and the prophet be known. And every prophet who orders a meal in the Spirit eats not from it, except indeed he be a false prophet; and every prophet who teaches the truth, if he do not what he teaches, is a false prophet. And every prophet, proved true, working unto the mystery of the Church in the world, yet not teaching others to do what he himself does, shall not be judged among you, for with God he has his judgment; for so did also the ancient prophets. But whoever says in the Spirit, Give me money, or something else, you shall not listen to him; but if he says to you to give for others' sake who are in need, let no one judge him. - Didache.

Biohacking: a material fix for a spiritual crisis

The gurus of biohacking (... or is that bio-lacking, as in their biographies reveal precious little experience in the art of spiritual and moral discipline...) act like spiritual narcissists who insist on taking the road most easily traveled, the road with few real challenges that would, were they authentic paths, effectively and rightly dispose heart and mind, body and soul to God.

There is little room for prayer in the emerging biohacking system. Meditation, sure; prayer, not so much. Prayer to Almighty God means risk, the risk of abandoning idols that give temporary comfort and do little to free the soul from addiction to one's own reflection in the pool in which Narcissus drowned.

The meditation practices so often deemed acceptable in the biohacking milieu belong to some form of Buddhism, typically Zen. In brief, and at the risk of clipping this essay in a way that avoids the responsibility to dissect diseases of the soul so as to fairly warn the brethren and all who truly seek the face of God, Zen fuels the relativist's suspicion about faith and religion while avoiding the obvious irony: the practitioner of Buddhist philosophy cannot escape an "enlightenment" ultimately of his or her own design that is nothing short of an individualistic religion. The "faith" of relativism is little more than a feel-good return to the womb of ignorance played out each day in order to ensure the survival of the illusion of relativism.

The mind, unaided by grace, rather than opening out into God, merely folds back into and upon itself. The experience of extinction of desire and release from reality advocated in Buddhist philosophy, then, is far from the salvation (redemption from sin) made possible by Jesus Christ. The Buddhist is a sightless man who forces himself to wander in a dark room until he convinces himself there is no room in or about which to wander. However, the room does exist and it is called ignorance, and those who abide by the Four Noble Truths are parsing their lives according to a partial diagnosis of the human condition.

Nirvana:"blown out", as in an oil lamp flame that is extinguished, represents Buddhism's ultimate state of release, the liberation from repeated rebirth in saṃsara.

No one can lift him from that ignorance except the Logos in Whose image the sightless man is created. Only Jesus Christ, the true and only light of the world, can lead man out of darkness. Self-rescue is not possible separate from Jesus. Jesus, however, never imposes Himself. Rather, He invites us to freely cooperate with Him by offering to infuse His very life into our souls to rescue us from futile attempts to create our own salvation. Ironically, Buddhist philosophy merely creates another illusion: i.e., that rescue from ignorance is possible by creating the illusion of self-rescue. Cooperation with God that leads to salvation, yes; meditation unaided by grace, no.

The tenets of the emerging system advocated by the likes of Jack Dorsey do little other than imprison man in two expressions of the illusion mentioned above: materialism and utilitarianism. Is it fair to say that the tools implemented within the two related systems of materialism and utilitarianism - e.g., fasting, dieting, etc. - are employed to maximize productivity that fashions man into little more than the ideal worker? The new system appears to be designed to produce the ultimate homo faber. Is the god of biohacking the one staring back at you in the bathroom mirror? That image is the image of a robot. Ironically, the doyens of the total-socialist ideology are billionaire capitalists. How is that irony possible?

Relativism permits every kind of strange bedfellow. Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI acknowledged the perils of relativism in his famous homily delivered as Cardinal Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals, in the Mass Pro Eligendo Roman Pontifice, a homily cited here in part.

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves—flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St. Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true. 

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine” seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.

We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An “adult” faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth.

We must develop this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith — only faith — that creates unity and is fulfilled in love …

Make truth in love. Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended …

Our redemption is brought about in this communion of wills: being friends of Jesus, to become friends of God. The more we love Jesus, the more we know him, the more our true freedom develops and our joy in being redeemed flourishes. Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship! …

We must be enlivened by a holy restlessness: a restlessness to bring to everyone the gift of faith, of friendship with Christ. Truly, the love and friendship of God was given to us so that it might also be shared with others …

So let us go and pray to the Lord to help us bear fruit that endures. Only in this way will the earth be changed from a valley of tears to a garden of God.

Principles of Spiritual Authenticity

A very good book on spiritual integrity is Authenticity: A Biblical Theology of Discernment (Ignatius Press) by Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M. If we're talking signs that affirm authenticity, Fr. Thomas says (p.27)

(a)uthenticity coincides with sanctity. The saint alone is fully real, honest, faithful, loving, genuine. He alone is immersed in beauty, truth, ecstasy. The classical, theological way of thinking about authenticity was to thinking of virtue, especially heroic virtue.

https://testeverythingblog.com/fasting-required-recommended-841cffc10cfd

Certainly, there are Roman Catholics whose exaggerated mortifications are as unhealthy as many of the proposed hackings now lauded by certain Silicon Valley gurus. Such faux-practices merit righteous indignation and their rejection by the saints:

https://www.catholicherald.com/Faith/Bishop_Loverde/Columns/True_piety/

The Catechism declares:

CCC1676 Pastoral discernment is needed to sustain and support popular piety and, if necessary, to purify and correct the religious sense which underlies these devotions so that the faithful may advance in knowledge of the mystery of Christ. Their exercise is subject to the care and judgment of the bishops and to the general norms of the Church.

At its core the piety of the people is a storehouse of values that offers answers of Christian wisdom to the great questions of life. The Catholic wisdom of the people is capable of fashioning a vital synthesis. . . . It creatively combines the divine and the human, Christ and Mary, spirit and body, communion and institution, person and community, faith and homeland, intelligence and emotion. This wisdom is a Christian humanism that radically affirms the dignity of every person as a child of God, establishes a basic fraternity, teaches people to encounter nature and understand work, provides reasons for joy and humor even in the midst of a very hard life. For the people this wisdom is also a principle of discernment and an evangelical instinct through which they spontaneously sense when the Gospel is served in the Church and when it is emptied of its content and stifled by other interests.

With regards to authentic spiritual discipline and healthy piety,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_in_Roman_Catholic_teaching

(t)he Roman Catholic Church has often held mortification of the flesh (literally, "putting the flesh to death"), as a worthy spiritual discipline. The practice is rooted in the Bible: in the asceticism of the Old and New Testament saints, and in its theology, such as the remark by Saint Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, where he states: "If you live a life of nature, you are marked out for death; if you mortify the ways of nature through the power of the Spirit, you will have life." (Romans 8:13, DRC). It is intimately connected with Christ's complete sacrifice of himself on the Cross: "those who belong to Christ have crucified nature, with all its passions, all its impulses" (Gal 5:24, DRC). Christ himself enjoined his disciples to mortify themselves when he said: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matt 16:24, DRC). According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "[t]he way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes: ‘He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows.’". The purpose of mortification is to train "the soul to virtuous and holy living" (The Catholic Encyclopedia, article on Mortification). It achieves this through conforming ones passions to reason and faith. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, internal mortification, such as the struggle against pride and self-love, is essential, but external mortification, such as fasting can also be good if they conform with a spirit of internal mortification.

The Church in Her wisdom, a wisdom given Her by God, facilitates the maturation of disciples in the way of Jesus Christ. That way is, of course, comprehensive, balanced and life-giving. Contrary to practices which reinforce false perceptions of reality or, worse, allow devotees to fabricate fantasies that destroy mind and body, there are days and seasons designated by Holy Mother Church to foster a deeper immersion in reality.

https://www.blessedjohnhenrynewmanfellowship.ca/about-us/some-notes-on-fasting-and-abstinence/

See also:

https://atreasuretobeshared.blogspot.com/2018/05/rogation-days-monday-tuesday-wednesday.html

Rev. Daniel Mertz: Christian tradition can name at least seven reasons for fasting:

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/catholic-reflection-on-lenten-fasting-father-daniel-merz.cfm

1. From the beginning, God commanded some fasting, and sin entered into the world because Adam and Eve broke the fast.
2. For the Christian, fasting is ultimately about fasting from sin.
3. Fasting reveals our dependence on God and not the resources of this world.
4. Fasting is an ancient way of preparing for the Eucharist—the truest of foods.
5. Fasting is preparation for baptism (and all the sacraments)—for the reception of grace.
6. Fasting is a means of saving resources to give to the poor.
7. Fasting is a means of self-discipline, chastity, and the restraining of the appetites.

Conclusion

Biohacking is not entirely without merit. Since there is no authoritative guide to healthy biohacking, however, it goes without saying that caution is entirely warranted toward a new "technology" that purports, in many instances, to be a "wonder drug" of sorts, a "fix all" plan that brings humans to their peak performance. Is it too much to suggest that those who represent the new master race of biohacked individuals will consider those who do not measure up to the standards set by a council of distinguish hackers to be a hindrance and burden?

One cannot help but hear in the voices of the biohacking movement a certain echo of another movement that sought to improve the human race.

https://www.history.com/topics/germany/eugenics

Eugenics in America took a dark turn in the early 20th century, led by California. From 1909 to 1979, around 20,000 sterilizations occurred in California state mental institutions under the guise of protecting society from the offspring of people with mental illness.

Many sterilizations were forced and performed on minorities. Thirty-three states would eventually allow involuntary sterilization in whomever lawmakers deemed unworthy to procreate.

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that forced sterilization of the handicapped does not violate the U.S. Constitution. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, “…three generations of imbeciles are enough.” In 1942, the ruling was overturned, but not before thousands of people underwent the procedure.

In the 1930s, the governor of Puerto Rico, Menendez Ramos, implemented sterilization programs for Puerto Rican women. Ramos claimed the action was needed to battle rampant poverty and economic strife; however, it may have also been a way to prevent the so-called superior Aryan gene pool from becoming tainted with Latino blood.

According to a 1976 Government Accountability Office investigation, between 25 and 50 percent of Native Americans were sterilized between 1970 and 1976. It’s thought some sterilizations happened without consent during other surgical procedures such as an appendectomy.

In some cases, health care for living children was denied unless their mothers agreed to sterilization.

Is it too much to suggest that biohacking can be a seed of destruction? Too reactionary? How long will it be until a public school or college introduces a course or program in biohacking?

https://blog.bulletproof.com/beginners-guide-to-biohacking-101/

Authentic piety fosters an outward-looking way of living, not mere self absorption that typically develops among devotees of non-christian eastern practices, mechanistic practices that produce clones or drones driven by self fulfillment. Pseudo-religious fasting, which is to say fasting not grounded in the concern for the whole person - body, mind and spirit - terminates in a utilitarian achievement.

True piety, true fasting and abstinence, serves to orient the soul to charity, a perception aided by grace given by God to assist us in true charity toward others. True piety improves our ability to exercise self sacrificial love and to will the good of the other.

Perhaps biohacking can become a bridge to a better shore. In time, we'll know if biohacking can be redeemed. In the meantime, it seems prudent to observe and analyze the various messages and programs that are being used to lobby people to hack their lives for the betterment of... ?