‘Dark green religion’ is the religious studies scholar Bron Taylor’s term, set out in his book Dark Green Religion (2010), for religion, or something like religion, which holds that nature is sacred, has value in its own right, and deserves reverent care. It takes in animist and Gaian strands, both spiritual and purely naturalistic, and Taylor finds it in nature writing, environmental activism, surfing, wildlife films, science and international politics. Therapeutic Shamanism shares its sense of a living world and its challenge to human superiority, but it is not a religion, and it rests on direct experience and on relationship with particular beings.
Who is Bron Taylor? #
A scholar of religion and the environment. Born in 1955, he took a doctorate in social ethics at the University of Southern California in 1988 and has been a professor of religion and nature at the University of Florida since 2002.1 He was editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2005), founded the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, serving as its president from 2006 to 2009, and has edited its journal since 2007.12 He is credited with coining the term ‘dark green religion’.2
What is dark green religion? #
A reverence for nature itself. Taylor separates two things. ‘Green religion’ treats caring for the environment as a religious duty, inside an existing faith. ‘Dark green religion’ goes further, holding that nature is sacred in its own right, has intrinsic value, and is therefore owed reverent care.3 It is generally deep ecological, valuing every species for itself and not for its use to humans. In Taylor’s account it usually rests on a felt kinship with the rest of life, often drawn from the Darwinian understanding that all living things share a common ancestor, and on a humility that questions human moral superiority, often fed by a scientific picture of how tiny humans are in the universe.4
It has no founder, no sacred text and no hierarchy; Taylor calls it “like a phantom”, visible only with the right lenses.5 To catch it, he defines religion loosely, by family resemblance, so that his net takes in people who believe in spirits and people who believe in nothing beyond the natural world, and even scientists who would reject the word religion altogether.4
What are the four kinds of dark green religion? #
Taylor crosses two pairs. The first pair is what is held sacred, individual beings or the whole living Earth. What he calls Animism is the perception that spiritual intelligences or lifeforces animate natural objects and living things, so that beings in nature have their own integrity, ways of being, personhood and even intelligence, and people can come to understand them and build mutually respectful relationships with them. What he calls Gaian Earth Religion takes the biosphere, or the universe, as alive or conscious, or at least like an organism, and venerates the whole.6 See What is the Gaia hypothesis, and who was James Lovelock?
The second pair is spiritual or naturalistic. Spiritual Animism and Gaian Spirituality involve something beyond the material world; Naturalistic Animism and Gaian Naturalism are sceptical of that, yet still express kinship with, ethical concern for, and sometimes communion with other life.6 Taylor stresses that these are tendencies, not boxes, and that most people blend them. His examples range from the poet Gary Snyder and the philosopher David Abram to the primatologist Jane Goodall and James Lovelock, who presented Gaia as a scientific idea and denied that the Earth is alive in a sentient way.6 These are Taylor’s own labels for his own map; they say nothing about how the people he places in them describe themselves. See Who is David Abram, and where does the phrase “more-than-human world” come from?
Where does Taylor find it? #
Almost everywhere he looks. He traces it through nature writers from Rousseau and Thoreau to John Muir; through radical environmental movements, including their illegal tactics; through surfing culture, wildlife films and nature tourism; through scientists and naturalists; and into international politics, in documents such as the Earth Charter.7 The philosopher Val Plumwood’s account of surviving a crocodile attack, which she came to see as a lesson in being prey, part of the food web like any other animal, is one of his examples. See Who was Val Plumwood, and what did being hunted by a crocodile teach her? His closing question is whether this scattered spirituality might one day cohere into a global, civic ‘terrapolitan’ earth religion, with bodies such as the United Nations as its most likely vehicles.8
What are the criticisms of dark green religion? #
Taylor sets them out himself. Some religious critics see nature religion as heretical or idolatrous. Some fear that it is misanthropic, valuing nature above human life, or even fascistic, and Taylor does not hide the historical links between ‘nature worship’ and racist political movements, Nazism among them. Others fear it as part of a plan for global government, with the United Nations and the Earth Charter as its focus.9 Others again argue that conventional religious ethics and institutions are perfectly able to protect the environment on their own.2
Taylor’s reply is that, examined carefully, these fears should ebb. In his judgement dark green religion carries only modest risks and could help humans change a potentially catastrophic course, so it “ought to be welcomed instead of feared”. He offers this as his own view, and says that what matters is not what he thinks, but whether people are moved and inspired by such spirituality.9
How does dark green religion relate to Therapeutic Shamanism? #
Closely, in its picture of the world. In animism everything is alive and conscious, rocks, rivers, mountains and the wind included; animists experience themselves as part of nature, not above other animals, plants or stones, for there is no hierarchy, and humans are one of the Animal People, cousins of the Plant People and Stone PeopleStone People. All physical matter: mountains, sea, rivers, clouds, sun and stars: the oldest and widest of the Peoples. As some animist cultures put it, ‘we are just the Stone People, dancing for a while’. Read the full answer, in an interconnected web of life.10 Taylor’s felt kinship with all life and his challenge to human superiority sit very close to this. So does the activism that runs through his book, for it is a nonsense to ask animals and plants for help in journeys and then ignore their plight in this physical world.11 See How does animism respond to eco-despair, and why is activism part of the path?
The differences matter just as much. Shamanism is not a religion. In the West religion is an option, something chosen and often a small part of daily life; for indigenous peoples shamanism was a way of being, how they experienced and related to the world moment by moment.12 Therapeutic Shamanism asks that practice rest on personal experience, not on beliefs taken at face value from anyone, and compared with organised religions, with their sacred texts and priesthoods, shamanism is dogma-free.13 Where Taylor deliberately sets aside whether the spirits and forces he describes are really there, Therapeutic Shamanism points people towards experiencing the world as alive, not just believing it.10 See Is Therapeutic Shamanism a religion or belief system?
The second difference is scale. Gaian Earth Religion venerates the whole. Hunter-gatherer cultures generally had little interest in gods and goddesses. They acknowledged such beings, but understood that beings so huge would take little interest in lives as small as ours.14 Shamanic work is a relationship with particular beings, a Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer, the Animal, Plant and Stone People, the GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this, met directly in journeys as well as in daily life. See Do animists believe in God, or in gods and goddesses? What is the Great Mystery? and Isn’t Therapeutic Shamanism just paganism?
