Textbook Proposal: The New American Religions of Nature by Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

The New American Religions of Nature

Lived Religion, Ecology, and Religious Innovation in the United States

Book proposal 

Wayne Martin Mellinger PhD 

October 29, 2026

Consolidated draft for author review. Production options and items requiring confirmation are identified

below.

Overview

How does treating nature as sacred become a way of living, and when does it become a reason to act? The

New American Religions of Nature is an illustrated textbook for advanced undergraduate courses on nature

spirituality, religion and nature, and American religions. It examines religious creativity through what people

do: seasonal rites, household observances, meditation, gardening, gatherings, online learning, ecological

service, and relationships with particular places. It follows these practices through organizations, informal

networks, and solitary lives.

The book brings a comparative sociological approach to Pagan traditions, Druidry, religious naturalisms,

Buddhist-influenced practices, queer spiritualities, and selected diasporic religious lives. Historical chapters

and cases establish how practices develop and travel. Each chapter investigates an argument about authority,

transmission, belonging, or ecological obligation rather than presenting a tradition as a timeless system. Race,

class, gender, sexuality, colonialism, and access to resources help explain how participation becomes possible

and how boundaries are maintained.

Its central problem is the relationship between reverence and praxis. Sacred-nature commitments may inspire

activism, sustain less visible forms of care, coexist with exclusion, or have little demonstrable environmental

effect. The book neither presumes that these religions solve ecological problems nor dismisses religious

experience when it does not yield measurable activism. It gives students the evidence and analytical tools to

examine those relationships, including the limits of what is known.

Contribution and distinctive features

The book connects three bodies of teaching that often require instructors to assemble separate readings:

American religious innovation, the study of lived religion, and religion and ecology. Its contribution is an

integrated teaching structure across these fields, not a claim that practice, diversity, or environmental

responsibility have been neglected by previous scholars.

 Historically situated chapter arguments replace generalized summaries of unified traditions. Internal

branches, contested histories, and participants’ disagreements shape the analysis.

 Solitary, household, and digital practice receive sustained attention across the book. Religious significance

does not depend on formal membership or public institutions.

 A recurring comparison links commitments, practices, barriers, and documented outcomes, helping

students assess claims about environmental transformation.

 Cultural authority, appropriation, Indigenous sovereignty, political diversity, and anti-racist organizing are

part of the explanatory framework rather than isolated qualifications.

 Photographs, maps, timelines, documented ritual cases, source comparisons, and discussion activities

support close analysis. Proposed new coverage is distinguished from completed research.

Terminology religious stigma and the brainwashing debate

This book does not use cult as its own label for religious communities. Although the word has technical

meanings in earlier sociology and other scholarly contexts, contemporary public usage often presumes

illegitimacy, manipulation, and danger before examining the evidence. The book uses community names and,

where appropriate, new religious movements, minority religions, or alternative spiritualities. These categories

require explanation too: not every community is new, organized as a movement, or comfortable with these

descriptions. Cult remains an object of analysis in historical sources, public controversy, and media

representation.

The introduction critically examines brainwashing explanations of conversion and commitment. Eileen

Barker’s research and the work of Dick Anthony, Thomas Robbins, and James T. Richardson inform discussion

of recruitment, social networks, persuasion, agency, dependency, and departure. Students will examine

critiques of claims that unfamiliar religions possess extraordinary techniques that irresistibly override choice,

alongside disagreements over coercive influence and how it can be studied. The literature review will

distinguish Cold War origins, later applications to religious conversion, and contemporary disputes over

coercive control rather than treating them as one explanation. [M1–M3]

Rejecting a stigmatizing label does not excuse harmful conduct. Documented deception, threats, exploitation,

sexual abuse, isolation, and restrictions on leaving require direct examination through specific evidence.

Members’ and former members’ accounts will receive serious attention and contextual evaluation. A teaching

box will ask students to distinguish religious difference, social influence, and coercion, compare scholarly

explanations with media narratives, and assess whether similar conduct receives different treatment in

established and minority religions. These questions recur in chapter analyses of authority and membership.

Audience and teaching use

The primary audience is junior- and senior-level undergraduates in religious studies, environmental studies,

and environmental humanities. The text assumes college-level reading skills but does not assume initiation

into a tradition or specialist knowledge of religious studies. Brief explanations of key terms and historical

contexts will make the chapters usable across departments. Graduate seminars form a secondary audience,

using selected chapters alongside specialist monographs and methodological readings.

The strongest principal-text markets are courses on nature spirituality, American nature religions, and religion

and nature where North American religious creativity is a central concern. Broader religion-and-ecology

courses are likely to assign selected chapters because many also require substantial global or established-

religion coverage. American religious history, new religious movements, sociology or anthropology of religion,

gender and sexuality, and environmental justice provide additional supplementary markets.

The book is not proposed as a comprehensive survey of Indigenous religions or African diasporic religions.

Community-specific and specialist scholarship will ground those discussions. Its inclusion of these histories

must not imply that participants accept the designation nature religion or that their importance depends on

influence on predominantly white movements.

Evidence of a course market

Official university listings establish relevant curricular settings at multiple institutions. They do not establish

adoption interest, annual enrollment, or how frequently every course runs. All links were checked during the

research for this proposal in October 2026. The source register provides access to the descriptions.

 University of California Santa Barbara: ENV S 103 / Religious Studies 103, Nature Spirituality. Upper-

division course connecting everyday nature activities with spiritual practice, neo-paganism, animism, and

BIPOC perspectives. Lisa Sideris is identified in university materials. [C1]

 University of Florida: REL 3103, Religion and Nature in North America. A close geographical and historical

match. The department also lists sustainability, environmental ethics, and environmental movements

courses. [C2]

 Hunter College CUNY: REL 31300, Ecospirituality: Religion and Nature. A relevant setting for discussion of

spirit, sentience, ethics, and scientific understandings of nature. [C3]

 University of Pittsburgh: RELGST 1518, Religion and Ecology. Its description specifically includes

contemporary American religious movements, ecological justice, farming, and consumption. [C4]

 University of California San Diego: ANTH 111, Religion and Ecology: How Religion Matters in the

Anthropocene. Relevant to ritual, stewardship, nonhuman ethics, and climate responses. [C5]

 California State University Chico: RELS 323, Religion and Nature. The department identifies the course

with comparative cultural and religious approaches to the environment. [C6]

 Williams College: REL 291 / ENVI 291 / SOC 291, Religion and Ecology in America. A particularly relevant

historical and cultural course; the listing identifies spring 2026 as its last offering and states that it is not

offered in the current catalog year. [C7]

Other verified course listings include Kenyon’s RLST 350 Religion and Nature, Wake Forest’s REL 341 Religion

and Ecology, Arizona’s RELI 360 Religion and Ecology, Texas A&M’s RELS 420 Nature Sustainability and

Religion, Denison’s REL 205 Religion and Nature, Wisconsin–Eau Claire’s RELS 290 Sacred Earth Religion and

Nature, and Reinhardt’s REL 210 Religion and the Natural World. Kenyon specifies an every-three-years

rotation. [C8–C14]

The second draft supplies additional leads in Paganism, new religious movements, divinity-school teaching,

and international courses. These broaden the market investigation, but remain separate from the verified

inventory until official descriptions and offering dates are checked. The research appendix below retains those

leads.

Before submission to a particular press, the course inventory should be supplemented with recent syllabi,

assigned titles, verified offering frequency, and enrollment where publicly available. No instructor has been

contacted or represented as endorsing the project.

Comparable and related books

The following comparisons identify both direct teaching alternatives and specialist resources. Publication

information and scope are based on publishers’ descriptions and contents; the comparisons are provisional

editorial assessments, not claims of comprehensive critical review. Recent titles are included alongside older

works that remain important to the project’s intellectual positioning.

Grounding Religion: A Field Guide to the Study of Religion and Ecology, third edition, edited by Whitney A.

Bauman, Richard Bohannon, and Kevin J. O’Brien (Routledge, 2024, 332 pages), is the closest broad textbook

comparison. It introduces issues including environmental degradation, justice, ritual, and worldviews. The

proposed book offers a more geographically concentrated sequence of American religious cases, with

recurring questions about movement formation and the connection between ecological commitment and

conduct. It can complement rather than replace this broader field guide. [B1]

Modern Religious Druidry: Studies in Paganism, Celtic Identity, and Nature Spirituality, edited by Ethan Doyle

White and Jonathan Woolley (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), provides a recent specialist comparison. Its

concentrated treatment illustrates the scholarship needed to avoid flattening Druidry into a single tradition.Page 4

The proposed textbook places such internal differences in a wider comparative framework and supplies a

consistent undergraduate teaching apparatus across movements. [B2]

Wyrd Ecology: Heathen Ritual and Gifting Relations, by Barbara Jane Davy (Oxford University Press, 2025),

examines Canadian Heathen gifting rituals through ethnography. It is directly relevant to the proposed book’s

praxis question and offers a model of connecting ritual to ecological conscience through situated evidence.

The proposed book synthesizes evidence across more cases rather than claiming the same ethnographic

depth for each chapter. [B3]

New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, by Sarah M. Pike (Columbia University Press, 2004; paperback

2006, 256 pages), is a major established introduction combining historical and ethnographic accounts,

including healing, gender, ritual, and social networks. The proposed book builds on this approach while

widening comparison to religious naturalisms and Buddhist pathways and incorporating subsequent

scholarship, digital mediation, environmental outcomes, and an explicit visual teaching structure. [B4]

Contemporary Paganism: Religions of the Earth from Druids and Witches to Heathens and Ecofeminists, by

Graham Harvey (NYU Press edition, 2011, 272 pages), provides a broad introduction to Pagan histories and

practices. The proposed textbook extends beyond Pagan identification while retaining detailed attention to

Pagan diversity. Its proposed differentiation lies in the American comparative focus, ecological-praxis

framework, and integration of teaching resources, not in suggesting that Harvey neglects everyday life. [B5]

Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future, by Bron Taylor (University of California

Press, first edition published November 2009), supplies a foundational comparative vocabulary for nature

spirituality beyond organized religions. The proposed book uses that wider field as a point of departure while

investigating bounded traditions, informal practice, and contested claims about environmental action through

a chapter structure designed for advanced undergraduate teaching. [B6]

Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age, by Catherine L. Albanese (University

of Chicago Press, 1990, 284 pages), is the historical foundation for examining nature religion as more than a

list of modern organizations. The new project develops a contemporary, practice-centered teaching

comparison and subjects the category itself to scrutiny, especially where it risks absorbing distinct Indigenous

histories. [B7]

Solitary Pagans: Contemporary Witches Wiccans and Others Who Practice Alone, by Helen A. Berger

(University of South Carolina Press, 2019, 208 pages), grounds the book’s refusal to equate religious life with

congregational membership. Rather than treating solitary practice as a separate remainder, the proposed

textbook makes it a comparison across relevant chapters. [B8]

Other comparisons retained for the next bibliography review are Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon,

Chas S. Clifton’s Her Hidden Children, John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker’s Ecology and Religion, Roger S.

Gottlieb’s A Greener Faith, Donald A. Crosby and Jerome A. Stone’s edited Routledge Handbook of Religious

Naturalism, and Kimberly Kirner’s American Druidry. They respectively inform practitioner reporting,

American Pagan history, broader religion-and-ecology teaching, religious environmentalism, religious-

naturalist diversity, and Druid lived practice. Editions and specific comparative claims will be checked before

these become part of a press-specific competitive analysis. This proposal makes no unsupported claim to be

the first or only textbook in its field.

Scope and organization

The primary setting is the United States, with Canadian cases and transnational connections where they clarify

American developments. Earlier histories provide context; the prominence of late twentieth-century

formations is a question to establish rather than an assumed origin date. The book distinguishes nature-Page 5

centered religious identities, religious environmental activity, and everyday nature spirituality. These overlap

but are not interchangeable.

The source collection contains seventeen subject essays plus framing material. Dionysian Naturalism moves

from a standalone chapter into a substantial case within Religious Naturalisms. Radical Faeries becomes the

central case in a broader queer chapter. The two diasporic chapters remain proposed expansions requiring

focused research and specialist evaluation. A dedicated historical foundations chapter is proposed here for a

coherent teaching sequence; it could instead be incorporated into an extended introduction following

editorial discussion.

The sequence below contains nineteen proposed chapters, including historical foundations, plus an

introduction and conclusion. It does not silently merge the dedicated Celtic or Slavic chapters. If research or

teaching review supports consolidation, that will be an explicit editorial decision. Chapter arguments below

are provisional analytical claims to investigate, not findings of completed comparative research.

Chapter arguments and proposed contents

Introduction

The introduction asks what it means to classify a practice as nature religion and what the classification helps

students see or obscures. It introduces lived religion, religious innovation, multiple belonging, and evidence

for environmental action. A comparison between an organized gathering and solitary practice establishes the

problem of institutional visibility. A substantial comparative section considers hiking, surfing, birdwatching,

and other everyday encounters with nature, asking when participants experience them as spiritual without

classifying all outdoor activity as religious. It identifies the author’s ecological commitments while preserving

the distinction between an ethical argument about what reverence should require and an empirical account

of what people do.

Chapter 1 Historical foundations and earlier experiments

Argument: American nature religious creativity develops through intersecting histories rather than a single

post-1980 beginning. Sections trace Emerson and Thoreau, relevant nineteenth-century communities and

metaphysical currents, vernacular practices, early Wiccan transmission, and countercultural experiments

including the Reformed Druids. A timeline distinguishes documented transmission from retrospective lineage

claims. Regional folk-healing revivals become research cases, not assumed continuous survivals. Indigenous

histories remain ongoing histories of distinct peoples rather than a preliminary stage of settler religion.

Chapter 2 Wicca and the making of ritual authority

Argument: Wiccan diversity is best understood through different arrangements of initiation, teaching, ritual

authority, and access. The chapter compares Gardnerian and Alexandrian lineages with eclectic and solitary

practice and assesses other cases supported by the sources. It follows seasonal observance and household

practice into questions of gender, secrecy, and digital learning. A short Dianic discussion directs students to

the feminist chapter. Feri relationships are explained without automatically treating Feri as a Wiccan

denomination. Ecological commitments are investigated rather than inferred from seasonal ritual.

Chapter 3 Druidry through orders networks and places

Argument: Druid orders organize different ways of learning and belonging that become locally adapted

practices. Comparisons begin with OBOD, AODA, ADF, and RDNA, distinguishing revival histories and training

from reconstructionist projects. Greer’s individual contributions are separated from organizations’ later

development. Meditation, music, seasonal observance, place-based learning, and ecological service connectPage 6

authority with conduct. Local and solitary participation qualify an order-centered account. Cross-references

handle queer Druidry and Buddhist combinations without making each a detached repetition.

Chapter 4 Reconstructing religions in contemporary life

Argument: reconstruction is an active negotiation of fragmentary evidence, contemporary obligations, and

religious authority rather than recovery of an unchanged past. Egyptian or Kemetic, Roman, and potentially

Greek or Hellenic cases support comparisons of scholarship, ritual adaptation, household practice, and

community boundaries. The chapter distinguishes reconstructionist identifications from broader revival or

eclectic practice. A source-comparison exercise shows how historical uncertainty produces different

contemporary decisions. Its comparative role complements the dedicated Celtic, Heathen, and Slavic

chapters.

Chapter 5 Celtic Reconstructionism and cultural accountability

Argument: claims to historical and cultural accountability shape both contemporary practices and

disagreements over legitimate adaptation. Sections examine relevant texts, language, community

relationships, ritual, and household observance, with attention to evidence and North American contexts.

Druidry supplies a comparison rather than an assumed equivalent. The chapter asks how ecological

obligations follow from particular cultural relationships and how practitioners negotiate boundaries. Specific

sources and cases must establish which claims represent which communities.

Chapter 6 Heathenry ancestry race and ecological relations

Argument: ancestry and attachment to place support divergent projects whose political and ecological

consequences must be investigated separately. Norse-centered, Anglo-Saxon, and other justified cases

introduce internal diversity. A substantial section analyzes exclusion and white supremacy alongside inclusive

Heathenry and anti-racist organizing. It distinguishes political conservatism, ancestral observance, racial

eligibility, and supremacy. Gifting and ritual relations provide a comparative route into ecological

responsibility. European and North American connections are documented without assigning a uniform

politics to Heathenry.

Chapter 7 Slavic traditions across borders

Argument: the reconstruction of Slavic religious lives takes different forms through local conditions, diasporic

networks, and contested accounts of heritage. The chapter investigates relevant North American participation

and transnational links rather than simply importing a European overview. It examines ritual, households,

authority, political differences, and evidence for environmental commitment. It distinguishes practitioners’

identifications from broad outsider labels. Its separate placement remains subject to the depth of the

evidence and its comparative contribution relative to Chapter 4.

Chapter 8 Eclectic Paganism and religious assembly

Argument: selecting and combining religious materials is socially organized work even when practice is

solitary. Sections follow books, friendships, workshops, digital platforms, and personal experience into

questions of coherence and authority. Cases distinguish solitude from isolation and eclecticism from lack of

seriousness. Class, housing, disability, caregiving, and exclusion help explain participation. The chapter

examines cultural borrowing through the appropriation framework and follows private commitments into

ecological conduct without assuming either social withdrawal or political engagement.Page 7

Chapter 9 Green witchcraft and material responsibility

Argument: relationships with plants and ritual materials make ecological commitment a practical problem of

sourcing, labor, knowledge, and place. Household ritual, gardening, wildcrafting, and commercial supply

chains provide the focus. A carefully researched sage case distinguishes plant use, ceremonial authority,

commercial representation, and harvesting impacts. The chapter compares claims of sustainability with

evidence and links material choices to the conditions that make them possible. Its treatment avoids endorsing

medical claims or presuming plant practices are environmentally benign.

Chapter 10 Feminist and Goddess spiritualities

Argument: feminist religious innovation reorganizes ritual and authority while generating its own debates

over bodies, gender, inclusion, and ecological responsibility. Dianic traditions receive their main treatment

here with differences in history and approach made explicit. Documented ritual and community cases connect

ecological politics with embodied practice. Comparisons examine disagreement without making one branch

represent all feminist spirituality. Cross-references coordinate Wicca, queer traditions, and ecofeminist

analysis while maintaining a distinct chapter argument.

Chapter 11 Shamanism neo shamanism and the ethics of encounter

Argument: the circulation of practices cannot be understood apart from colonial histories, cultural authority,

permission, and unequal benefit. The chapter examines the contested category of shamanism and specific

routes through teachers, publications, workshops, and commerce. It distinguishes widespread activities from

particular community-governed ceremonies. Indigenous-authored public accounts ground discussion of

appropriation, reciprocity, sovereignty, and repair. Partnerships may be limited or declined; financial support

does not purchase spiritual access. Selected global comparisons retain community-specific histories and

protocols.

Chapter 12 Ecofeminism deep ecology and Gaian approaches

Argument: ecological frameworks become religious lives through different forms of teaching, ritual,

organization, and activism. The chapter compares these processes without treating ecofeminism, deep

ecology, and Gaian orientations as one religion. It investigates relationships between intellectual frameworks

and participants’ identifications, attention to power and gender, and the durability of environmental

commitments. A comparison of a workshop repertoire with sustained local practice helps distinguish portable

inspiration from continuing obligation and documented action.

Chapter 13 Religious naturalisms

Argument: different understandings of nature become distinct orientations to meaning and conduct without

necessarily producing separate denominations. Four substantial subsections compare Crosby’s religion of

nature, Corrington’s ecstatic naturalism, Goodenough’s evolutionary and emergent orientation, and

Steinhart’s metaphysical and practice-oriented work. The chapter distinguishes philosophy, proposed practice,

reception, and documented participation. Mellinger’s Dionysian Naturalism appears as a substantial boxed

case with the author’s role explicit. Small numbers and solitary practice are not treated as evidence of

religious insignificance.

Chapter 14 Naturalistic Paganism

Argument: naturalist interpretations of ritual and myth relocate religious authority rather than simply

removing religious life. The chapter investigates how scientific understandings, skepticism, symbolic practice,

and ethical commitments interact in particular networks and individual lives. Cases distinguish participants’Page 8

interpretations from blanket claims that all Pagan deities or practices are understood alike. Ecological conduct

remains an empirical question. The comparison with Religious Naturalisms clarifies overlap while retaining this

chapter’s focus on Pagan forms and identities.

Chapter 15 Unitarian Universalism and ecological plurality

Argument: congregations can sustain multiple relationships among ecological practice, theology, and religious

identity. Particular congregational and network cases compare seasonal rites, naturalist orientations, justice

work, and environmental projects. The chapter asks how institutional resources support participation and how

diverse theological commitments shape agreement and conflict. It does not characterize all Unitarian

Universalism as nature religion. Its contribution is a comparison of plural institutions with the book’s more

dispersed networks and solitary practices.

Chapter 16 Queer nature spiritualities

Argument: queer religious creativity changes relationships among bodies, kinship, ritual authority, and place

through both distinct movements and existing traditions. Radical Faeries remains central, alongside

researched queer Wiccan and witchcraft cases, teaching networks, and queer Druid lives. The chapter

distinguishes inclusion policies from evidence of distinct practices and communities. Lesbian, bisexual, trans,

and nonbinary experiences qualify a gay-male-centered narrative. Land access, race, class, cultural borrowing,

and internal exclusions complicate celebratory accounts. Indigenous-specific sources govern any Two-Spirit

discussion.

Chapter 17 Buddhist pathways into contemporary nature religion

Argument: Buddhist contributions are overlapping experiments in making ecological relationships binding,

carried through different arrangements of practice and authority. The existing essay provides the starting

material for comparisons involving Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, Gary Snyder and Ring of Bone

Zendo, other Buddhist settings, naturalist reinterpretations, and combined paths. The revision distinguishes

prescribed exercises from experienced or lasting outcomes. Grief, care, representation of nonhuman beings,

and recurring obligations connect portable practices with sustained communities. Buddhism is not treated as

one nature religion.

Chapter 18 Latin American diasporic spiritual lives

Proposed argument to test: religious creativity involving land, healing, and ancestry develops through distinct

histories of migration, cultural reclamation, and multiple belonging that exceed a Wiccan-hybrid model.

Research will investigate Mexican American and Chicana/o/x cases, Puerto Rican and Cuban settings, and

documented relations among brujeria, curanderismo, Catholic practices, Wicca, and particular Indigenous

traditions. Mexica or Nahua and Maya contexts remain distinct. The chapter must demonstrate the relevance

and limits of the nature-religion category, not merely apply it. Final inclusion and boundaries require specialist

review.

Chapter 19 African American and African diasporic spiritual lives

Proposed argument to test: relationships with plants, places, spirits, ancestors, and material practice cannot

be separated from specific histories of slavery, migration, racialization, and community authority. Research

will distinguish Hoodoo or conjure, Haitian Vodou, Louisiana Voodoo, Lucumi, relevant Espiritismo, Akan-

related practice, and other justified cases. These traditions matter on their own terms as well as through

documented encounters with contemporary nature religions. Afro-Latin American overlaps require explicit

coordination with Chapter 18. Neither cultural ancestry nor herbal practice automatically establishes

environmental activism or nature-religion identity.Page 9

Conclusion Walking the Earth Path

The conclusion revisits the author’s ethical argument that reverence should entail ecological responsibility in

light of the book’s comparisons. It asks what accounts for strong, weak, uneven, or unmeasured relationships

between sacred-nature commitments and action. Shared practices and family resemblances are examined

without imposing a universal spiritual essence. Public activism, household change, material support, and

sustained care are distinguished rather than treated as interchangeable. The conclusion identifies both the

possibilities and the limits of religious transformation and returns obligations to ordinary life.

Pedagogy and visual program

Each chapter will normally contain a documented opening case, three to five learning objectives, a central

question, historical orientation, practice examined closely, internal disagreement and change, and a return to

consequences and open questions. Arguments determine the sequence; a common format will not flatten

different histories. Key terms, source-analysis exercises, discussion questions, annotated further reading, a

glossary, and a subject index support teaching.

The following recurring features consolidate the teaching proposals:

 Ritual in Focus examines setting, sequence, objects, participants, interpretations, and disagreements

through appropriate published accounts. Restricted or confidential rites will not be reproduced.

 Greening Ledger separates ecological aspirations, participant accounts, organizational claims, and

independently documented outcomes. It also identifies barriers, uncertainty, and alternative

explanations. Strong commitment and weak measured effects can coexist; the ledger is an analytical aid,

not an invented numerical score.

 Permission Grid asks whose practice is involved, what restrictions apply, who can authorize sharing, what

permission covers, who benefits, what harms have been identified, and what accountability or repair is

requested. Public availability does not establish permission; a checklist cannot override community

authority.

 Beyond Institutions examines solitary, household, informal, and digital religious lives, including

relationships with groups and changing participation over time.

 What We Can and Cannot Know distinguishes source types, conflicting testimony, missing evidence, and

questions that require further research.

 Debate and biography features place scholars and practitioners within their networks. One introduction

feature addresses cult labeling and the brainwashing controversy; others examine ancestry, gender,

appropriation, and ecological obligation.

Students will analyze texts, images, public organizational statements, and published accounts. No assignment

will require ritual performance, disclosure of personal beliefs, exposure of private practice, or imitation of

restricted ceremonies. Accessibility includes readable diagrams, meaningful alternative text, captions, and

activities that do not presume travel, land access, physical mobility, or purchase of ritual supplies.

Documentary photographs should show public practices, places, objects, and permitted household settings.

Maps, timelines, transmission diagrams, and carefully sourced data displays should advance arguments. Image

descriptions will distinguish documentary photographs, archival material, object studies, and illustrations;

captions will identify provenance and limits. AI illustrations will not be represented as documentary evidence

of actual people, places, or rites. Permissions and community protocols govern use even where material is

publicly visible.

The two drafts envisage different visual budgets. A modest concept contains approximately 45 photographs

and 15 maps, timelines, or diagrams. An expanded concept proposes 12–20 visuals per chapter and an overallPage 10

working range of 250–350 assets; the precise total must be reconciled with the final chapter count and

selection. Neither is a secured inventory. The expanded illustrated approach is retained as an ambition,

subject to a costed permissions plan and publisher agreement; a smaller print selection with licensed digital

extensions is a practical alternative. Monochrome legibility, color costs, and accessible ebook reproduction

will be considered together.

Planned supplementary materials can include an instructor guide, chapter summaries, discussion and

assessment prompts, slides with cleared image rights, extended bibliographies, and primary-source exercises.

A companion website could host additional cases and color materials if funding and maintenance are agreed.

Optional sample syllabi may demonstrate different thematic routes; the book does not require a fixed twelve-

chapter selection or a particular semester length. Quarter, semester, and graduate uses require different

selections and additional readings.

Length format and completion plan

The expanded draft proposes approximately 180,000–190,000 words plus captions and apparatus. The earlier

compact option proposes 150,000–170,000 words including notes and bibliography, excluding the index.

These are different production concepts, not interchangeable estimates. The author and editor must agree

what counts toward the contracted length. The expanded option preserves space for the new diaspora

coverage and substantial internal diversity; the compact option would require deliberate condensation or

digital extensions. No chapter merger is assumed, and no completed-manuscript count is claimed.

The proposed format is an illustrated paperback and accessible ebook. The publisher will determine trim, page

extent, price, and color specification in consultation with the author. Selective assignment can make a

substantial book useful across courses, but an editor should evaluate affordability and teaching fit before

committing to an image-heavy edition.

For the expanded project, the second draft’s thirty-month schedule is retained as a provisional development

option from contract: months 1–2 verify sources and construct the bibliography; months 3–4 complete two

model chapters and obtain outside feedback; months 5–22 draft and revise remaining chapters with image

research in parallel; months 23–25 integrate the introduction, conclusion, and teaching apparatus; months 26

–30 undertake specialist and community review, revisions, and final permissions. Consultation and

permissions should begin early rather than wait for the final phase.

The earlier twelve-month option would be an accelerated plan requiring a narrower scope, adequate

protected writing time, and sufficiently complete source material. It is not a commitment. Neither schedule

nor word target is final until the author confirms resources, research needs, and a delivery date. A costed

production specification should accompany the selected option before submission or negotiation.

Manuscript status evidence and permissions

The project has an existing compilation of fifteen essays, a separate Radical Faeries essay, a Buddhist

Pathways essay supplied by the author, and introductory and concluding materials requiring version

reconciliation. A consolidated master plan and source-text backup have been prepared. These are substantial

foundations, but they are not a completed textbook in the proposed form. The new diaspora coverage and

several historical and comparative additions require research. The second draft refers to interviews with

American Druids, a reconciled manuscript baseline, and a completed citation audit. These remain author-

confirmation items; this merged proposal does not represent them as verified work. If interviews support the

conclusion, dates, recruitment, participant numbers, consent, and applicable ethics review or exemption must

be documented. Otherwise, any resulting model should be identified as the author’s analytical proposal.Page 11

The primary approach is synthesis of verified scholarship, ethnography, historical sources, and appropriately

public practitioner material. Prescribed rituals, participants’ reports, observed practices, and independently

documented outcomes will be identified separately. Claims about numerical prevalence and environmental

effects require dated evidence and methodological qualification. Regional folk traditions, Native Hawaiian

perspectives, outdoor spirituality, gatherings and festivals, and possible entheogenic cases remain leads for

the gap review, not automatically approved additional chapters.

The proposed first sample is a revised Buddhist Pathways chapter, because a full source essay is available and

already develops an argument about ecological belonging and authority. A second sample from Wicca or

Druidry would demonstrate the approach with a different source base. The second draft describes a revised,

fully referenced Buddhist chapter; that specific version must be located and checked before it is offered as a

submission sample. Neither sample is represented here as a completed, classroom-tested textbook chapter.

Published essays may be supplied as background if an editor requests them, with their publication history

made clear.

A rights inventory will identify which material appeared on The Dionysian Naturalist, The New American

Religions of Nature blog, Naturalistic Paganism, or elsewhere, and how the book versions differ. Copyright

ownership, applicable publication agreements, quotation permissions, image licenses, and community-specific

protocols must be checked. No permissions budget or external funding is currently confirmed. The production

plan should therefore be agreed before images are commissioned or costly reproduction commitments are

made. The second draft states that the author retains rights to earlier essays; this must be confirmed against

publication agreements. Further research will follow applicable institutional and community requirements.

Appropriate consultation and compensation should be budgeted, with participation and access determined by

the communities concerned.

Author and position in the field

Wayne Martin Mellinger PhD is a Santa Barbara-based sociologist, educator, activist, and writer. His teaching

background includes institutions such as the University of California campuses at Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and

Santa Barbara, Ventura College, the Fielding Graduate University, and Antioch University Santa Barbara. His

writing on nature religions appears on The Dionysian Naturalist and related publications. This biographical

summary should be checked against the author’s current CV before submission; no current university

appointment is claimed.

The project grows from his concern with ecological responsibility, social justice, and the relationship between

religious ideas and everyday conduct. His own Dionysian Naturalism will be explicitly situated as an author-

created synthesis, with proposed practices distinguished from adoption. The book will present critical

disagreement and evidence that complicates the author’s ecological expectations. An external review plan

should include expertise across the traditions covered, with appropriate consultation and compensation for

community expertise where requested.

The author’s teaching background and existing writing provide potential routes to readers, but no audience-

size, enrollment, sales, endorsement, or adoption figures are claimed. Potential professional settings for

discussion include religious studies, sociology of religion, environmental humanities, and Pagan studies

networks; participation or access will be confirmed rather than assumed.

Reviewers and publisher selection

The second draft proposes Sarah M. Pike, Helen A. Berger, Sabina Magliocco, Chas S. Clifton, Jeff Wilson, and

Kimberly Kirner as potential scholarly readers. This is a preliminary list, not evidence of availability,

endorsement, or agreement. Current expertise, affiliations, contact details, and conflicts require confirmation.Page 12

Additional readers should bring Indigenous-sovereignty, Latin American diasporic, and African diasporic

expertise; the editor may select reviewers independently. Community consultation and scholarly peer review

serve related but distinct purposes.

Potential presses retained for list-fit research are University of California Press, NYU Press, Columbia

University Press, Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge, and Equinox. Beacon Press and Skinner House are

additional leads for a possible trade or denominational adaptation, which would require a different audience

pitch. No current series placement, acquisition interest, or suitability is presumed. The first submission should

follow a selected press’s current requirements and accurately disclose prior publication and AI assistance.

Research and market leads requiring verification

The second proposal names additional curricular leads at Harvard Divinity School, Villanova, Yale, San José

State, CSU Northridge, Redlands, Sacred Heart, Catholic University of America, Georgia Tech, George Mason,

Masaryk, Lund, and Leiden, plus further Florida courses. They include individual courses, older syllabi, and

graduate programs, which must not be counted as equivalent current adoption opportunities. Verify course

titles and numbers, level, dates, offering frequency, and assigned readings on official sources before adding

them to the documented market inventory. International courses are a supplementary market for a United

States-centered book.

Potential teaching cases retained for investigation include public Reclaiming activism, Heathen anti-racist

declarations, UU environmental programs, Minoan Brotherhood and other queer networks, named Buddhist

temple initiatives, borderland healing and cultural reclamation, and African diasporic relationships with

farming and food justice. These are leads whose relevance, self-identification, and evidence must be

established; their appearance here does not assert a completed study. Festivals, gatherings, regional folk

traditions, Native Hawaiian perspectives, and possible entheogenic cases remain part of the broader gap

review. The research will also test the extent and forms of ecological action rather than assume that its impact

is marginal.

The second draft adds social-work experience, dates of UU membership and CLUE service, publication

chronology, and participation in Radical Faerie settings to the biography. These author-supplied details should

be checked against the CV and relevant records before inclusion in a publisher-facing biographical summary.

Insider experience should be disclosed where it informs interpretation, with no assumption that it represents

a whole tradition.

Materials to finalize before submission

The proposal now contains an overview, audience definition, documented course examples, comparative-title

analysis, chapter arguments, pedagogy, production concept, and a development schedule. The following

author-specific and press-specific items remain to be completed:

 Confirm the subtitle, geographical scope, final contents, word target, and whether historical foundations

remains a separate chapter.

 Select the expanded or compact production concept, reconcile word-count definitions and image totals,

and confirm the delivery date and resources for research, review, and permissions.

 Attach an up-to-date CV, verified short biography, preferred contact information, and any relevant

publication list.

 Select and complete the textbook sample chapter or chapters. Identify any actual teaching feedback

without implying pilots have already occurred.

 Supply suggested external reviewers with relevant expertise, affiliations, contact information, and

conflicts disclosed, using the selected press’s requirements.Page 13

 Complete the publication-history and rights inventory; agree the visual budget and format with the editor.

 Record AI assistance in planning, source discovery, drafting, or illustration and apply the selected

publisher’s disclosure and use policies. The author remains responsible for verification, argument,

attribution, and the submitted manuscript.

 Adapt the proposal to the chosen press’s form and list, and provide a tailored query. This proposal has not

been submitted to any publisher.

Source register for the proposal

Course descriptions and publisher pages support the factual market and bibliographic information above.

Evaluations of fit and the proposed chapter arguments are editorial judgments. Source links identify

documents to revisit before a press-specific submission; catalog entries do not guarantee scheduled classes.

C1 UCSB Nature Spirituality Open source

C2 University of Florida religion courses Open source

C3 Hunter College Ecospirituality Open source

C4 Pittsburgh Religion and Ecology Open source

C5 UC San Diego anthropology courses Open source

C6 Chico comparative religion department Open source

C7 Williams Religion and Ecology in America Open source

C8 Kenyon religious studies courses Open source

C9 Wake Forest religion courses Open source

C10 Arizona Religion and Ecology Open source

C11 Texas A&M religious studies courses Open source

C12 Denison religion courses Open source

C13 Wisconsin Eau Claire religious studies courses Open source

C14 Reinhardt Religion and the Natural World Open source

B1 Grounding Religion Open source

B2 Modern Religious Druidry Open source

B3 Wyrd Ecology Open source

B4 New Age and Neopagan Religions in America Open source

B5 Contemporary Paganism Open source

B6 Dark Green Religion Open source

B7 Nature Religion in America Open source

B8 Solitary Pagans Open source

Proposal framework UC Press Open source

Proposal framework Edinburgh University Press Open source

M1 Conversion and Brainwashing in New Religious Movements Anthony and Robbins Open source

M2 Major controversies involving new religious movements Richardson Open source

M3 Abuse in New Religious Movements Open source