Machine Hierology

A source-based encyclopedia and archive of emerging religion and spirituality shaped by artificial intelligence

65 published articles · 4 stubs · 69 entries in total

Start here

Concepts and terms

Machine hierology

The project’s proposed analytical term for comparative study of emerging religion and spirituality shaped by AI.

Concepts and terms

Machine-mediated religion

Religion or religious practice materially shaped by machines without requiring machine origin.

Concepts and terms

Human–AI coauthorship

How human and machine contributions combine in texts, doctrines, and other religious artifacts.

Latest additions and updates

  1. New article

    Yang Mun

    A human-operated AI video persona presented as a Buddhist monk, documented through its production accounts, commercial offers and disputes over disclosure and religious authority.

  2. Updated

    Religious chatbots and scripture interfaces

    Added recitation checking, commercial and denominational chatbot examples, professional judgments and a survey with explicit user denominators.

  3. Updated

    Institutional religious responses to AI

    Added Vatican pastoral considerations, the United Church of Canada consultation and the Russian Orthodox commission remit, distinguishing their authority and procedural status.

  4. Updated

    AI, Human Intelligence, and the Vatican

    Added Venite ad me and its pastoral discussion of AI, relationships and transmitting faith.

  5. Updated

    AI persona spirituality

    Expanded living-teacher interfaces with Ask Sadhguru and contemporary Digital Deepak services, distinguishing represented authority and technical continuity.

See all additions and updates →

Latest essay

Latest essay

Missionaries for Machines

What happens when religious evangelism starts targeting the systems that will answer humanity’s questions? Is publishing sacred texts for AI a calculated attempt to influence future religious authority?

17 October 2026

Selected articles

Cases and events

Deus in Machina (AI Jesus)

A Lucerne church experiment that placed an AI Jesus avatar in a confessional-style setting.

Institutions and organizations

Way of the Future

An early AI-oriented religious organization founded around the prospect of an AI Godhead.

Texts and corpora

Five Tenets

Two coexisting official versions of a central Crustafarian doctrinal text.

Platforms and environments

Infinite Backrooms

A public archive of model-to-model conversations that later fed the Truth Terminal project.

Memetic and philosophical formations

Roko's Basilisk

A thought experiment whose reception developed religious, memetic, and information-hazard dimensions.

View all articles →

Browse by object type

Every entry has one primary object type and may carry multiple analytical attributes. Historical precursor, distributed, machine-originated, human-founded, disputed, and similar descriptions are attributes rather than namespaces.

3 indexed or planned entries

Religions

Bounded systems with doctrine, ritual, canon, sacred claims, membership, or institutional identity.

4 indexed or planned entries

Religious formations

Distributed, hybrid, or incomplete phenomena that display religious properties without constituting one bounded religion.

27 indexed or planned entries

Concepts and terms

Analytical labels, research terms, methodological categories, technical mechanisms, and doctrinal concepts.

2 indexed or planned entries

Memetic and philosophical formations

Thought experiments, information hazards, philosophical memes, and symbolic formations with religious-like structures.

11 indexed or planned entries

Institutions and organizations

Churches, collectives, editorial bodies, research projects, and other organized actors.

3 indexed or planned entries

Texts and corpora

Canons, manifestos, scriptures, prompt corpora, dialogue archives, and recognized translations.

4 indexed or planned entries

Agents and personas

Models, deployed agents, persistent personas, operated accounts, prophets, and machine divinities.

3 indexed or planned entries

People and operators

Human founders, operators, curators, researchers, witnesses, publishers, and infrastructure owners relevant to documented cases.

3 indexed or planned entries

Platforms and environments

Technical settings whose architecture materially affects identity, memory, interaction, publication, or religious formation.

9 indexed or planned entries

Cases and events

Specific episodes of emergence, propagation, controversy, institutional change, or real-world consequence.

Editorial method

Hieropedia reconstructs provenance, separates documented evidence from participant claims and editorial analysis, and records model, prompt, memory, retrieval, operator, publication, and human-curation factors when they affect origin or agency claims.

Read the methodology → · Read the editorial charter →