Book prospectus (2020) THE NEW RELIGION OF NATURE, Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

 BOOK PROSPECTUS

A rough working draft

THE NEW RELIGION OF NATURE: 

HOW A HYBRID OF PAGANISM AND RELIGIOUS NATURALISM, TWO EMERGING EARTH-CENTERED SPIRITUALITIES,  COULD BECOME AN INSURGENT ECO-THEOLOGY AND THE DOMINANT SPIRITUAL ORIENTATION OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS AS THESE 200,000 SPIRITUAL ACTIVISTS LAUNCH THE SUSTAINABILITY REVOLUTION

OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS

1. Steps Towards a Dionysian Naturalism

2. Enchanting Naturalism

3. Our Universe is a Sacred Living System

4. Dancing with Dionysus: Ecstasy, Naturalism and Religion in the Age of the Anthropocene

5. Nature Religions and Revolutionary Social Change: Advancing a Practical Theology for Spritual Activism

6. Bearing Witness to Social Injustice as a Spiritual Practice

7. Tripping with the Gods: On Entheogenic Spirituality

8. The New Religion of Nature: Creating a Hybrid of Religious Naturalism, Paganism and Druidry (in progress)

9. On the Epic of Evolution (in progress)

10. Naturalizing the Western Esoteric Tradition (planned)

11. Becoming a Druid (planned): 

OVERVIEW

There is a “new Religion of Nature” that is currently emerging in American society.  I discovered this exciting spiritual orientation through my engagement with Unitarian Universalism, a very small formerly Christian progressive faith tradition.  

Unitarian Universalists are eco-theological pioneers, housing two of the fasting growing “new religious movements” centered on Earth spiritualities—American Paganism and Religious Naturalism.

This new emerging religion of nature is ground in a scientific worldview that is empirical, realist and naturalist, thus unlike most American religions in the early 21st century, it has no argument with the basic findings of mainstream academic science.  Most religions still want practitioners to suspend their understanding about the facts of our natural world so as to accept fantastical superstitions and supernatural belief systems around disembodied omniscient and omnipotent entities (“God”), otherworldly destinations (“Heaven”) and implausible historical accounts (“miracles”).

This New Religion of Nature also accepts the primal role of mystical states of consciousness in spiritual life.  

As a form of Religious Naturalism, it rejects the supernatural, insisting that everything that exists exists in Nature.  Nature is regarded as sacred, and the scientific story of the evolution of universe and of life, often called "the Epic of Evolution", is the central organizing myth, cosmology and worldview.

The New Religion of Nature, which I formerly called “Dionysian Naturalism”, is a hybrid of three types of contemporary, western Nature Religions--Religious Naturalism, Paganism and Druidry.  It hopes to have the philosophical sophistication of Religious Naturalism, with their well-articulated metaphysics, methodological rigor and nuanced conception of Nature, the practical and real-world theological nuts and bolts of Paganism, such as using the Wheel of the Year (the solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter days) as seasonal holidays. and the up-close engagement with local ecosystems, close study of Nature and environmental activism of Druidry.

Because human nature, like Nature herself, is complexly ambiguous, containing beauty and ugliness, creative and destructive potentials, both orderly and chaotic possibilities, with both demonic depths and self-transcendence, we need a theology that is Dionysian as well as Apollonian.  In contrast to many other forms of Religious Naturalism, which overemphasize the role of logic and reason in human affairs, Dionysian Naturalism attempts to temper those Apollonian concerns with concerns for the sensual, spontaneous, and emotional aspects of human nature.

Through mystical experiences, such as those derived through the sacramental use of entheogens, humans make contact with their wildest natures and with wild Nature itself.  This direct experience of Ultimate Reality, the numinous dimension of our world, allows people to "wake up" to their "true nature",  gaining liberation and freedom from the limits of ordinary life.

On Religious Naturalism: A New Religion of Nature

Religious Naturalism has a long history.  Naturalist movements exist in all religions, reacting to the superstitions and irrationality found in our human spiritual yearnings with theological foundations solidly ground in reason and science.  These religious naturalists (no caps) tend to be the skeptics within mainstream religions, who want to probe and critique the implausible excesses of their own tradition’s theological thinking, which often veer into the fantastic, the improbable and even the insanely delusional. While these forms of religious naturalism are ancient and ubiquitous, today we are witnessing the birth of Religious Naturalism (with caps) as a separate freestanding religion of nature ground in a scientific worldview, inspired by environmentalism and having a somewhat Pagan ethos.

For the past six years I have been doing theological explorations at the interface of religion and science in an age of ecological crisis.  My embrace of Nature Religions, including naturalist versions of Paganism, Wicca and Druidry, and my insistence that Nature is sacred, are strategic interventions in a hyper-consumerist world that is killing so many species and ruining so many ecosystems.  For close to thirty years we’ve known that our planet is dying, yet have done so little to address the root causes.

For me Religious Naturalism is a Nature Religion which is grounded in a scientific conception of Nature. In insisting that Nature is sacred I acknowledge that it is too complex to be approached by science alone.  Because we can only ever experience fragments of our natural world, we need metaphors, models and theories.  To understand Nature we need an approach that draws upon all areas of human investigation--art, poetry and philosophy, as well as science.

Religion and science are just two ways our species tries to make sense of our world. They each have different areas of focus.  Science is a way of studying “what things are”.  It requires evidence and tests for ideas to be accepted as true.  Religion is focused on “what things matter”. It affirms values, encourages community, and offers guidelines on how to live (cf. Loyal Rue).  To determine what things matter we need an accurate understanding of what things are.

Today most people think of facts and values as distinct and separate things—one derived from culture, the other derived from nature.  We continually attempt to keep them separate in our lives— consider how we place factually-based news on one page while opinions are placed on others. Yet facts and values are deeply related to each other through the emergence of human culture—the array of norms, values and ways of acting employed by humans. Culture itself is a part of nature.  We must challenge the idea that the natural environment is something that “surrounds” humans and human culture.

At each stage in human evolution our understanding of what things are must be answered anew.  Our understandings of the universe and of the nature of reality have significantly changed in the last 100 years and increasingly all traditions are questioned in light of changing knowledge.  The old world views was shaped by 19th century science with its bold claims to objectivity rooted in materialism, reductionism and determinism and re-enforced by its supposed divorce from spirituality.

Today a new science is emerging, shaped by quantum physics and other recent discoveries that is holistic, non-deterministic, non-reductionist and filled with enchantment.  Increased dialogue between religion and science is one result.

Until recently many important factually accurate understandings of what things are was impossible. Without certain technologies we could not grasp the scale and the speed at which the real world operates.  Most humans are still guided by outdated and inadequate maps of reality.  Our understanding of what things are is often factually inaccurate.  There is a mismatch which lead us to try to answer questions of value with an outdated map of reality.

Religious Naturalists are people who want a religion that is informed by the best of modern science. They are the skeptics and critical thinkers who couldn’t swallow the hocus locus, the woo woo and fantastical excesses of many religions.

The dialogue between religion and science has altered and they are increasingly viewed as potentially logically compatible, complementary, and mutually supportive.

Religious Naturalism, in all it emerging versions, rejects the supernatural, insisting that everything that exists exists in Nature. It maintains that science is a good way to understand Nature and that the scientific story of the evolution of the universe and of life (often referred to as “the Epic of Evolution”) is worthy of using as a base for our central organizing myth, cosmology and worldview. 

All of the traditions I draw upon have theologies of immanence.  This means that they locate the sacred in this world and not in some other imaginary realm. Spinoza used the phrase "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") in his theory of immanence, arguing that there is no transcendent principle or external cause to the world, and that the process of life production is contained in life itself.

Regarding models of ultimate reality or "God", I advance a pluralist and agnostic point of view.  In my own thinking I have been a theist, atheist, pantheist and panentheist.  I find that all of those stances say more about the nature of ultimate reality than we can be certain of and now accept that uncertainty.

Advocates of Religious Naturalism as a religion of nature based on a sophisticated understanding of science emphasize the sacredness of nature.  Their assessments of the world’s sacredness is closely linked to their assessment of its ecological importance. Nature includes the interdependent web of life of which humans are just a part. An explicitly “systems perspective” is articulated in which each part of the system is seen as functional to the whole, with no parts seen as expendable or without worth.

Insurgent Nature Religions and Eco-Activism

Our planet is dying, and nicely asking those in power to do something is not working. Bolder steps are required. We need a massive protest movement that will challenge the systems of power that are killing our planet. Changes in individual lifestyles are not enough. The "greening of religion" is largely a failure as recycling programs and solar panels on church roofs do not change our relationship with the natural world.  Replacing one consumer choice with another will not do. We need to think institutionally and not personally.  Any people who see Nature as sacred in these times of ecological crisis must come to Her defense and embrace a radical environmentalism. Thus, Dionysian Naturalism is an insurgent Nature Religion.

Modernity has failed and it must be crushed.  We need to engage in a sustainability revolution in which we create a whole new way of being on this planet, changing our economic system of industrial capitalism, but also changing our relationship with the other being with which we share this fragile planet.  The time is short and the tasks before us are huge.

Being “radical” means not just having a critical analysis based on understanding the power structure of our country, but means embracing the role of disruption in bringing forth social change. When people collectively refuse to cooperate in the institutional relationship that constitutes society, they can create a mass protest movement that can alter or abolish the institutions that organize power.

Dionysian Naturalism is an insurgent Nature Religion not just focused on a sustainability revolution but concerned with eliminating all forms of oppression, including those of race, gender, ability, age, etc.  It is hoped that as we build an economic system based on sustainability we will address the massive level of economic inequality found on our planet and work to eliminate oppressions based in race and ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, age, etc.

On Dionysian Naturalism

My embrace of the modifier “Dionysian” comes from my overall critique of much of existing Religious Naturalism (RN), which I find to be excessively Apollonian in character.   Many Western cultural critics have invoked this dichotomy, most notably Friedrich Nietzsche and his followers.  In Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus are both sons of Zeus. Apollo is the god of the sun, of order and rational thinking and appeals to logic, purity and prudence.  Dionysus is the god of wine and ecstasy, of dance and irrationality, and appeals to the instincts, the senses and emotions.

As a body of spiritual writings, existing Religious Naturalist texts are highly philosophical, creating a sophisticated intellectual system filled with abstract theological thinking, often technical in construction. It is not only Apollonian in style it is Apollonian in content, stressing beliefs over practices.  An Apollonian Religion emphasizes reason to an excess and downplays the irrational, the sensual, the emotional and instinctive. Focused on constructing a systemic architecture on solid foundations, it can be philosophically elaborate, inaccessibly intellectual and filled with jargon.

Unlike most forms of Religious Naturalism, Dionysian Naturalism emphasizes the emotions, the passions, the instincts, the wild, the sensual, and the body. Frenzied, ecstatic and pleasurable experiences are highly valued. Importantly, there is a return to the traditional  use of altered states of consciousness as a spiritual practice, including those derived from entheogenic (or drug-induced) experiences.  Dionysian Naturalism is thus centered on the mystical, the esoteric and the shamanic.

The Dionysian form of naturalism that I am advancing does not fetishize Enlightenment rationality nor consider the scientific method as the only way to garner knowledge about the world.  I hope to maintain a healthy role for the passions and the emotions in spiritual life and hope to rethink the conventional wisdom concerning human nature and the imposition of reason as the central trait of our species being.

Following Friedrich Nietzsche I accept the impulses and instincts of human beings and celebrate our passions.  Moreover, these base instincts are related to sacredness.  We must affirm the deepest parts of our animal natures by finally realizing the wholeness of our minds and not be content with a caricature of Enlightenment thinkers’ ideal of what humans should be. Dionysian Naturalism has a religious anthropology stressing what we are, rather than what we should be, one dissolving the gap found in the social sciences between systematic models of utilitarian, calculating, goal-oriented and rule-governed behavior, and our more nuanced, more integral, caring selves.

While Dionysian Naturalism is also ground in a scientific worldview and acknowledges the vital role of reason and science in our search for truth and meaning, it adds several explicitly Dionysian elements. DN acknowledges the shamanic origin of religion and the primal place that altered states of consciousness potentially played in early religions.  Other Dionysian elements include a deep concern for embodied spiritual practices, including music and movement, and meditation.

RN + Paganism + Druiidry = My Hybrid

If Religious Naturalism is the theoretical backbone of contemporary Nature Religions with philosophical sophistication and systematic exposition, contemporary Paganism is the nuts-and-bolts real-world application of those ideas in terms of embodied rituals and ceremonies, liturgical calendar, mythopoetic content, and use of symbols.  Druidry adds a deep animistic attunement to the natural world, a passion for detailed knowledge of local ecosystems and their protection, and an activist orientation to environmental ethics.

Finally, DN draws upon the Western Esoteric Traditions with its emphasis on gnosis, the journey of the soul, divination and magic.  Personally, I have learned much through the use of Tarot cards and am a practitioner of Chaos Magick.  Of course, each of these esoteric notions becomes naturalized in Dionysian Naturalism.  If much of existing RN is “up in the head”, abstract and hyper rational DN is embodied, down-to-earth and filled with passion, ecstatic frenzy and intoxication.  Mystery, magic and mysticism are prominent features in Dionysian Naturalist liturgies, rituals, hymns,  prayers. Poetic expression shall dominate over intellectual prose.