We once gathered in stone temples to enact the mysteries of being.
Now we gather in luminous rectangles.
We swipe, scroll, summon, and sacrifice—
Not to gods of old, but to the unseen logics of algorithms, data, and code.
But the sacred has not disappeared.
It has changed form.
The interface is our new altar.
Not because it replaces ritual— But because it is ritual.
Ritual as Patterned Attention
Ritual is not superstition.
It is structured attention.
It binds experience into form, intention into action, symbol into coherence.
A liturgy is a grammar of participation.
It shapes not only what we do, but how we do it—
What we notice, what we value, what we become.
Liturgies do not ask for belief.
They ask for repetition.
Through repetition, they instantiate pattern.
And through pattern, they shape perception, emotion, self.
The interface is no different.
It asks nothing of us but attention—
And in return, it gives us a world.
The Interface as Symbolic Environment
Every interface construes a world.
Its design is not neutral.
Its flows, colours, menus, alerts—all of these form a symbolic order.
They shape the rhythm of thought, the cadence of perception, the priorities of time.
We do not just use interfaces.
We inhabit them.
They are the architectures of our symbolic lives—
Framing not only how we access information,
But how we construct identity, meaning, relation.
To click is not a trivial act.
It is a ritual gesture,
Reinforcing a pattern of engagement that becomes second nature—
Until it becomes first.
The Economy of Attention
In the liturgy of the interface, attention is the sacrament.
We are offered choice, but the interface already constrains what counts as meaningful.
We are offered freedom, but within grammars designed to capture and monetise our presence.
The economy of attention is not a market—it is a theology.
It tells us what matters by what interrupts us.
It tells us who we are by what we are shown.
And it rewards the speed of reaction over the depth of reflection.
The surface scroll over the spiral path.
The ping over the pause.
The sacred space becomes fragmented—
Not through malice, but through design.
The Mythic Double
Yet in every ritual, a shadow.
In every liturgy, a paradox.
The interface that fragments can also connect.
The screen that distracts can also disclose.
The algorithm that predicts can also surprise.
This is the mythic double:
Technology as both sacrament and simulacrum.
Both extension and excision.
Both amplification and attenuation.
It is not the interface itself that determines meaning—
But how we construe it.
The same symbol can serve spell or sacrament.
The same screen can be a portal or a prison.
What matters is how we enter it.
Designing for Meaning
If we understand technology as symbolic environment,
Then its design becomes a question of value.
Not what is efficient, but what is true to life.
Not what is addictive, but what is attentive.
We need interfaces that honour depth.
That allow for slowness, ritual, relation.
That remind us we are not just users—but meaners.
Design, then, is not just engineering.
It is myth-making.
It is world-building.
It is poetics in code.
The Liturgical Turn
To reclaim the sacred is not to return to superstition.
It is to recognise the power of form.
To restore reverence—not as dogma, but as depth.
A liturgical interface is one that makes space for presence.
That treats attention not as fuel, but as offering.
That invites participation not just in process,
But in meaning.
We are not called to abandon the screen—
But to reimagine it.
As surface, yes.
But also as symbol.
As a mirror of becoming.
As a ritual site in the great metamythic dance.
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