Naturalistic Paganism

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series.

Spiritual Practices to Make the Natural World a Sacred Object

Modern secular society tends to regard the natural world as something for humans to use.  This “utilitarian creed” is reinforced by an extreme anthropocentrism in which humans constantly imagine that it is all about them–that the world exists solely to satisfy human desire.  They worship the gods of Progress, Economic Growth and Profit, and faith in this trinity has led to a near ecological collapse.  Humans are so asleep to the consequences of this mechanistic conception of nature that we need a revolutionary religion to jolt open our eyes and awaken us to the world we’ve created.  We are born of the earth, live all our days within it and shall ultimately return to it. Read More

This is part 2 of a 3-part series.

Nietzsche and the Dionysian Religion of the Future

As will be seen, Friedrich Nietzsche, the great German writer and thinker of the 19^th century, has shaped this project in numerous ways.  While many people know Nietzsche as the atheistic and nihilistic author of The Anti-Christ, who proclaimed “God is dead”, the truth is that Nietzsche was a deeply spiritual man who prophesied a “new Dionysian religion of the future”.  Nietzsche believed that the death of the Judeo-Christian God was a spiritual event needed for humanity to advance to a higher state of being, a Superman.  The ultimate goal of the “death of God” is not atheism or nihilism, but the “re-evaluation of all values”.  In a sense, the old god must die so that society can take a new form.

A central tenet of Nietzsche’s thought is that the prevailing myths of modernity–progress, reason and moral order–are decadent and are supported by values which are life denying.  Nietzsche first articulated the contrasting pairs Apollo-Dionysus in his book, The Birth of Tragedy.  Dionysus was the Greek god of ecstasy, whose worshipers—the female Maenads and the male Satryrs–celebrated each year on Mount Parnassus, with four days of ecstatic frenzy, filled with dance, trance, entheogenic intoxication and love-making.  Dionysus over time became for Nietzsche a symbol for the affirmation of life. Read More

This is Part 1 of a 3-part series.

Our Ecological Crisis

As I look out upon the world the most pressing problem I see confronting humanity is climate change.  If we do not significantly curb our emissions soon and there is a 4° C rise in the global average temperature, most coral reefs would be killed, the Amazon rainforest would dry up and at least 40% of the world’s species would be doomed to extinction.  Our species and our planet have never faced such an enormous human-made crisis.  Modern industrial civilization, fueled as it is by petrochemicals, has drastically damaged the fragile biosphere that supports all life on this planet

Those of us living through the early 21^st century are experiencing the dying of our planet.  A massive wave of extinctions along with the ubiquitous degradation of diverse ecosystems are killing a significant portion of nature’s abundance and diversity.  While during the last few centuries first Western societies and then increasingly others around the globe (including China, India, Brazil, Japan, etc.) have witnessed an economic experience which has greatly increased the amount of stuff one portion of our populations have, the consequence has been the destruction of our natural world.  Many of us feel that it is not yet too late to avert a total environmental catastrophe.  But it could be very soon.  Indeed, this is a very frightening time to be alive. Read More