Is Nature the focus of your deepest spiritual feelings? Are you looking for a spirituality or religion that focuses on Nature, on saving the Earth, on preserving its habitats and species?
World Pantheism is probably the most clearly earth-focussed of spiritual/religious organizations. Nature is the very heart of our spirituality, which is close to Deep Ecology, Gaia theory, Nature religion, or basic and direct Nature Worship. The simplest way to sum it up is in Michael Gorbachev’s phrase “Nature is my god.”
This beautiful Planet Earth is our mother and our home. This sacred Earth is our ark and all the plants and animals that live in it are our fellow passengers. That ark is threatened now, as never before in history, by human actions and inactions.
World Pantheism focuses on this Earth rather than an imaginary realm, on this life rather than an uncertain afterlife. We recognize that our planet, the habitat of all living things, is a delicate network of interacting elements in which rocks, waters, climate and life all shape each other. This interaction has been described using the metaphor of the Greek Earth goddess, Gaia. The Gaia theory states that life and the planet co-evolve, and that life to some extent works to make the planet stable enough for life to thrive.
The originator of the Gaia theory, Sir James Lovelock, is one of the WPM’s honorary advisors, as is renowned Canadian environmentalist Dr David Suzuki. Our president and founder, Dr Paul Harrison, holds a United Nations Environment Programme Global 500 award for his many books on the environment, and has edited UNEP’s annual report on the world environment for the past four years.
Care and concern for Earth is one of our central ethical values. As our belief statement says:
We are an integral part of Nature, which we cherish, revere and preserve in all its magnificent beauty and diversity. We strive to live in harmony with Nature locally and globally. We acknowledge the inherent value of all life, human and non-human, and treat all living beings with compassion and respect.
We express these values as a community in several ways. Our active click group at EcologyFund has saved more wildlife habitat than any other religious or environmental group. We also from time to time sponsor ads in EcologyFund which pay for the land to be preserved. And we have a Wildlife Habitat Schemewhere people undertake to manage all our part of their garden or land in the interests of native wildlife.
We have numerous mailing lists about nature-centered ways of living and naturalistic ideas, as well as topical lists and local area lists.
