[EAS]High(er) Tech Prayers

[pjk]

Subject:   High(er) Tech Prayers

Dear Colleagues -

Further to my ongoing effort to keep you at the cutting edge of
technology and religion (vide the earlier
<http://jove.eng.yale.edu/pipermail/eas-info/2003/000579.html>), I
offer the item below.  
This is course readily extends to other religions, such as automating
novenae in the Roman Catholic Church. Tibetan prayer wheels, however,
could simply be motorized.  --PJK

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(from INNOVATION, 10 September 2003)

SMS PROVIDES SHORTCUT TO PRAYER
Busy Indians are bypassing lengthy queues outside temples during
Bombay's  annual festival for the Hindu god Ganesh and using BPL
Mobile's SMS  (text-messaging) service to have a surrogate say their
prayers for them.  The service costs 51 rupees ($1.10) and BPL says
more than 5,000 people  have taken advantage of the shortcut.
Customers receive a receipt following  the prayer, along with special
offerings and a portrait of Ganesh. "It  helps our subscribers get
some sort of a pious feeling," says BPL chief  operating officer
Krishna Angara. (Reuters 3 Sep 2003)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=581&e=6&u=/nm/20030903/tc_nm/odd_india_sms_dc