Humans are naturally gifted at mental manipulation, be it for acting on others' mind or for manipulating their own brain. Part of these aptitudes they derive not from their inborn gifts, but from culturally transmitted technologies. These are the Cognitive Arts: arts of memory, marketing, concentration techniques, transes, the use of drugs, rhetoric, etc. What are they worth? What is their effect upon the brain?

We are interested in the mental technologies developped by the great religious and litterary traditions for two reason: first, they contain a great deal of intuitive expertise on the functioning of the brain, and thus can be tapped by cognitive psychology. Second, they have been, up to now, the privileged tool of every attempt at changing humans, for better (philosophy as a spiritual exercise) or for worse (advertisement and propaganda). Like any other technology, the Cognitive Arts are neither good, nor bad, nor neutral.

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