Information architecture was one of those really big buzzwords in internet technology a few years back. The term has to do with organizing information into ways that are useful and meaningful for people. Information architects, as a profession, tend to fuse knowledge of design, programming/development, writing and other fields as well. My first real experiences with information architecture came when I started working on small corporate web jobs, and especially when I started teaching web development at a corporation in Baltimore (and also when info architect Mike Lee gave a great lecture on it for one of my classes). The field has changed a lot over the few years, as any information architect would probably tell you. I tend to still like the original definition which Richard Saul Wurman first gave in his 1996 book which popularized the field:

“information architect:

1) the individual who organizes the patterns inherent in data, making the complex clear.

2) a person who creates the structure or map of information which allows others to find their personal paths to knowledge.

3) the emerging 21st century professional occupation addressing the needs of the age focused upon clarity, human understanding, and the science of the organization of information.”

Of those, I especially like the second definition - the one about allowing people to “find their personal paths to knowledge.” That’s pretty much the whole philosophy of my website in a nutshell. Giving people (especially myself, of course) information which might help them decide where they want to go next, in regard to religion, metaphysics, the occult, philosophy… really whatever crosses my path. I think that’s the trick is that I get to simultaneously go down my own paths and maybe carve out some lanes for other people to follow as well.

Anyway, I just remembered Wurman’s definition, because I’m doing more work on my idea about how religions are search engines. They help us to ask questions, and to “find personal paths to knowledge.” And just like in information architecture, they create maps which seek to understand complex patterns, and bring clarity and understanding to people. You could say they are the information architecture of humanity’s experience of the divine.