Pantheist Therapies?

Issue 13

Religion as Therapy

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reud considered religion a “universal obsessional neurosis,” with close similarities between ritual and compulsive behaviors such as repeated cleansing. There are also echoes between some beliefs of some traditional religions and some kinds of paranoid, grandiose or wish-fulfilling delusions. However, dismissing religion as a kind of collective insanity cannot explain its perennial appeal. It may be more helpful to regard it as a type of psychotherapy and sometimes physical therapy too. Religions satisfy a range of deep needs, and that is what explains their hold. In most Western societies today people choose a religion - or choose to remain with their religion of upbringing - because it satisfies enough of those needs to make it worth while buying into the rest of the package. Indeed many people, leaving one religion, promptly go looking for another. The need may be simply for a community that is mutually supportive. It may be for a solution to the existential anxiety of finding ourselves alone in the face of a mysterious Universe. Often we may need help with fears or stresses or moods where conventional medicine or psychiatry has no answer. Many religions offer something very similar to therapy, and some of these elements come without great psychological cost. In shamanism, and in most forms of theism, the priest acts as a counsellor at times of overwhelming stress or grief. The meditation techniques of Yoga, Zen or Transcendental Meditation aim to empty the mind, or to focus it on the simplest of objects or operations, temporarily freeing it from obsessive troubles. Meditation works, and can be used independently of any particular belief system. Another valuable resource is what one might call Acceptance. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all urge people to accept the “will of God.” After natural disasters, serious accidents, or the death of loved ones, resignation to what has happened is a less stressful response than denial or anger. Of course, the theist approach leaves people with the troubling question of how a good and loving God could afflict innocent people without any Features

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Nature Medicine Therapy & beliefs Spiritual Sanity Personal therapies What Pantheism means for me

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Editor: Paul Harrison

Autumn 2004

good reason. So theist acceptance does involve an element of cognitive dissonance or denial. Some religion therapies come along with serious costs. Belief in heaven offers some relief from the fear of death that affects us all so deeply, and it may soften the trauma we experience when a loved one dies. But it gives relief at the price of accepting a fantasy that can seriously distract us from enjoying the only life we will ever get. In some cases that fantasy can act as an incentive to suicide bombings. In the Roman Catholic church, confessional echoes the Freudian couch (or is it vice-versa?). Confessing one’s “sins” to the priest and receiving absolution is similar to uncovering the suppressed roots of one’s neuroses to the analyst, and finding release from them. But it comes at the price of subjection to the priest’s mind and behavior control. “Born again” conversions provide something like cognitive therapy, which allows people to “reframe” negative feelings and self-concepts in a positive way. In the midst of unhappiness and failure, the believer pulls herself together, reprograms herself, develops a new conception of herself and her potential, and changes her own life. The threat of damnation and the promise of salvation provide a dramatic incentive to change, but once again it’s done at the price of accepting a negative view of humans as born sinners, doomed unless they accept salvation. Religions also offer techniques that modern medicine and psychiatry have not really caught on to yet. Prayer for mental or physical wellness, for example, awakens the mind’s ability to heal itself and the body. The only time this is consciously reckoned with in modern medicine is during drug trials, when a control group gets only an inactive pill. These placebos can produce “cures” in 30-40% of cases, when compared to no treatment at all. Some doctors use the placebo effect informally, especially in cases where they think the ailment is psychosomatic or even imaginary. If a thought brought the ailment on, a different thought can drive it away. But there is no systematic use of placebos in modern medicine, and there couldn’t be - as soon as the practice was uncovered it would stop working, and would give rise to lawsuits. The placebo effect relies on an untruth: it depends on the

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patient believing that they are being given a genuine medicine. Yet paradoxically, it is also a truth, since placebos can be as effective as some real drugs. Placebos are genuine medicines, of a kind. Prayer is a psychological placebo: an appeal for cure to an imaginary being. When prayer works, and when it’s not due to coincidence, then it’s almost certainly due to the placebo effect. One reason why atheism and humanism are not, in themselves, sufficient is that they do not offer the kinds of therapies we’ve been talking about. So can pantheism fill the gaps? Can we offer helpful approaches to psychological problems, without recourse to fantasy or mind control? Can we use these approaches while keeping our feet firmly in reality - perhaps even enhancing our ability to appreciate real life in the real world? The counselling function of religious “specialists” can be served by many types of people. For most people friends serve this purpose. The specialist can offer bonuses such as confidentiality and impartiality, though without the kind of partisan sympathy that a friend provides. Pantheist celebrants could do the same. Small encounter-type groups can serve the confession/absolution function. These are spreading rapidly with the Unitarian Universalist movement. Typically five to fifteen people take turns to make personal statements about their life, their problems and their joys. It’s conventional not to offer to “fix” other people’s problems or psyches - a “lsitening” approach that is similar to some contemporary forms of psychotherapy. There is nothing especially religious about these measures: they could be secular, neighborhood-based, job-based. Many people pay for them in the form of professional therapy. However, a religious community does offer a very safe, and in the case of Pantheism or Unitarian Universalism, non-judgemental context in which to operate. Although meditation techniques were most evolved in the Eastern religions, they are resources available to everyone, regardless of their beliefs. For pantheists meditation may take the form of emptying the mind, or focussing on simple activities like breathing, drinking or running, or focussing close-up on simple facets of nature such as clouds and moving water. Acceptance is available to pantheists, too, and perhaps more fully than with 2

theistic religions. We accept that the Universe is what it is, and that it does what it does without malice. We know we are part of the game and that the game is a risky contact sport. We accept that disease, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes and so on are a part of the natural order. So if any of these events hit us we don’t start getting angry at a personal deity. We can cultivate acceptance more whole-heartedly, with fewer doubts. We have our own approach to dealing with death anxiety. Death was not introduced as an extraordinary collective punishment for Adam and Eve’s mistakes. Death is not a cog in some some disturbing engine of “salvation history,” it too is a part of the natural order. Most Pantheists have a desire for some form of persistence after death, but they locate this in the memory of those who survive them, in the consequences of their actions, in the genes of their children and relatives, and in the re-absorption of their elements into nature. The placebo effect is perhaps toughest for us to elicit. Because naturalistic Pantheists are often empirical and scientific-minded, most of them would never place faith in magical methods. And yet we know that the placebo effect works - it’s not fantasy, it’s real. Can we get it working for us, as pantheists? Can we learn to use the mind part of our bodies to heal itself and other parts of our bodies? We could call on the whole Universe or Nature to heal us, but most of us probably wouldn’t believe it could hear us. Here’s a possible approach. I sometimes think about Einstein’s formula e=mc2, as applied to the human body. The mass of each of our bodies, if converted with 100% efficiency, enfolds an amount of energy equivalent to 1650 hurricanes, or one volcanic eruption comparable to Krakatoa, the biggest in recent times. We can’t of course explode ourselves, but can we visualize summoning just a small part of that energy positively, to heal ourselves? Would we need to believe that it would work, scientifically, in order for it to work physically? Why shouldn’t we believe it would work, since the Placebo Effect does work? If we carried this thought around with us in our daily lives, could it help us to be more energetic, more alive, more capable? The special articles in this issue explore other pantheist approaches to therapy. As always, signed pieces represent personal viewpoints and are copyright of the authors.

Water: Freeing the future

Water was the element from which I first learned pantheism, on a wooded path by Windermere in England’s Lake District. The day was sunny but windy, and through the trees I could see the choppy waters on the lake reflecting the light in bright glints that danced exuberantly. I have always been entranced by this fire dance for its vigor and unpredictability - I imagine it is like the dance that proceeds invisibly at quantum level. Water in its many moods can be used in therapy, to induce calm and reflection, or dynamic motion and change.

Clouds: Releasing Pain

At troubled times I would sometimes lie on my back in a meadow or forest clearing. It worked best on a humid summer’s day with rapidly changing white wispy cumulus. I would watch how tiny clouds formed out of nothing, and grew and developed, as moisture rose up from the ground and met the dew point. I would choose a cloud and imagine that my pain was emerging from me, like water vapor, rising up into the cloud, building into its formation. As the cloud rode on its way, I would imagine that it was carrying my pain away with it.

Fire: Harnessing energy

Fire is even more fluid than water. It is beautiful and destructive and sometimes, in volcanoes, creative too. It speaks of the immense energy that lies at the root of all things, an energy that each one of us has inside us and that we can tap into. It is useful for inducing active drive, acceptance of change, and contact with the underlying energy of the universe .

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Nature is the Best Medicine by Paul Harrison One of my fond dreams is to develop a therapy system based totally on nature and reality. It would stress full acceptance of reality. Griefs would never be denied but fully expressed and worked through. It would stress human freedom to reprogram our brains, to refuse to be confined by old channels of thought or action, to choose new directions. Independence and self-transformation would be fostered, not dependency or therapistimposed solutions. I’m still working on the details. One feature I apply to myself, during times of severe stress, is to use natural aspects of human life to alter mood and focus, such as exercise to release endorphins, slow breathing to induce calm., massage for relaxation into the body, or animal friends for unconditional acceptance. Another is the use of natural objects and settings - trees, clouds, water, fire - as a guide for meditation, reflection, learning and self-transformation.

Trees: Strength and flexibility

Trees can be wonderful therapists that cooperate with you to develop strength and flexibility. The more mature trees have survived the worst that Nature has hurled at them. They have achieved this partly through the strength of their trunks, but partly also through the flexibility of limbs bending gracefully to let gales pass. In my walks on Hampstead Heath in London various trees helped during difficult times. There was one ancient sweet chestnut tree I called “The Ancestor.” I guess she was three hundred years old or more. I looked to her for wisdom in longevity, and endurance through severe hardship. Her circumference was thirty feet or more, her bark dark and striated. She had several missing limbs, torn off in storms or fallen through their own weight, and at the base was a huge cavity where fires had been lit at times. Yet she was still prolific and protective. Her upper limbs extended sixty feet above. Squirrels rustled high up in the canopy, while debris from their nibblings would trickle down in a slow rain of hulls. In late summer her trunk was surrounded by prickly green fruits, in autumn by layers of discarded lance-shaped leaves. One copper beech stood on the brink of a slope, his curling roots protruding from the ground like enormous octopus arms. He was very tall with a trunk as straight as a telegraph pole. This tree I called “The Father.” He was a wonderful role model, as a father at his best might be to a small boy. A symbol of gentle but almost invulnerable strength, he nourishingly sustained dozens of branches forking into thousands of stems and myriad leaves. Close by was a place I called “The Grove”, a row of beeches and wayfaring trees and English oak, most leaning slightly southwards towards the sun. They were close together, so their higher branches spread into each other. Their presence was particularly powerul

at dusk: they just stood there, persisting, like a line of quiet waiting watchers, having stood through many nights and winds and frosts and storms. The last tree on the western end of the grove was a beech with a hollow about three feet from the ground. She was large enough for people to climb in and shelter, and many did so. I have seen people having champagne parties and picnics inside, I have seen many lovers, and many many children. One day I found a little tiny embroidered flowered dress with a note pinned to it: it was from a young girl offering a gift to the elves who, she imagined, lived there. One autumn equinox we tried to cram as many people in as we could, and got six inside. This tree I called “The Mother.” Her hollow was like a womb, and there was a distinctly vagina-like opening on one side. During hard times I would sit inside this tree and admire the polished grain which flowed and curved in waves and swirls, smoothed by the many people who had sat there.. There was a wonderful healing feeling that nature was holding you to her, and would always be there to do so.

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Towards a Reality-based Psychotherapy

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lients (or patients) who are pantheists may benefit from psychotherapy to help them deal with life’s vicissitudes, reduce or manage symptoms of anxiety or depression, understand themselves better, change dysfunctional behavior, and improve the quality of their relationships. And they may wish to be treated by a therapist who is either a pantheist, or at least aware of pantheist values. If the therapist is a pantheist, it is likely that their pantheism will subtly, or not so subtly, influence what they emphasize in a therapeutic relationship. In particular certain pantheist values will come into play and may facilitate the therapy. Let us look at the the Belief Statement of the World Pantheist Movement to see how this belief system might influence a pantheist therapist’s approach. 1. We revere and celebrate the Universe as the totality of being, past, present and future. It is self-organizing, ever-evolving and inexhaustibly diverse. Its overwhelming power, beauty and fundamental mystery compel the deepest human reverence and wonder. The therapist might stress that there is much beyond the individual client’s control. After all, he cannot control the universe, just some of his actions, choices, and social interactions. Striving to reconcile the client to this basic fact, while pointing out that the world is a place of overwhelming beauty, and wonder, and helping the client reawaken his sense of wonder and appreciation, may play a role in the healing process. 2. All matter, energy, and life are an interconnected unity of which we are an inseparable part. We rejoice in our existence and seek to participate ever more deeply in this unity through knowledge, celebration, meditation, empathy, love, ethical action and art. Pointing out to the isolated patient that he/she is not nearly so isolated, and indeed in fact cannot possibly be completely isolated, may at times be helpful. Striving to reawaken a sense of connectedness through actions such as getting the client to become involved in volunteer work, calling old friends, reestablishing ties with estranged relatives, and for some clients getting a pet, may play a big role in therapy. Meditation has much to contribute to the therapy of anxiety disorders, depression, and impulse problems. There are particularly pantheistic

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By Walt Mandell

forms of meditation such as walking meditations and sensory awareness meditations that can be done while in a natural setting. For some clients, group therapy can increase ability to empathize. Activism - ‘ethical action’ in support of social justice, equal rights, or environmental causes - can be deeply satisfying for many, and help provide a sense of meaning and life purpose. Encouraging clients to try their hand at various arts is life changing for some clients. 3. We are an integral part of Nature, which we should cherish, revere and preserve in all its magnificent beauty and diversity. We should strive to live in harmony with Nature locally and globally. We acknowledge the inherent value of all life, human and non-human, and strive to treat all living beings with compassion and respect. A goal of therapy is harmony. Harmony with oneself, ones family, ones peers, and the natural world. Respect for self depends on respect for life. A pantheist therapist might pay particular attention to the patients ‘biophilia’ - need to live in a more or less natural setting, with plants and animals around. 4. All humans are equal centers of awareness of the Universe and nature, and all deserve a life of equal dignity and mutual respect. To this end we support and work towards freedom, democracy, justice, and nondiscrimination, and a world community based on peace, sustainable ways of life, full respect for human rights and an end to poverty. The therapist would be interested in the client’s values, would treat the client with respect and dignity, and would be concerned with the social issues confronting the patient. This is especially important when dealing with the handicapped, the aged, the poor, and members of minority groups facing discrimination. 5. There is a single kind of substance, energy/ matter, which is vibrant and infinitely creative in all its forms. Body and mind are indivisibly united. The therapist would take a holistic approach, not regarding the patient’s psyche as separate from the

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patient’s body. Issues of health would be investigated as well as medical conditions impinging on emotional state; e.g., endocrine problems, poor diet, chronic pain, sleep disorders etc. would be looked for, and the patient/client referred to appropriate specialists to deal with these. 6. We see death as the return to nature of our elements, and the end of our existence as individuals. The forms of “afterlife” available to humans are natural ones, in the natural world. Our actions, our ideas and memories of us live on, according to what we do in our lives. Our genes live on in our families, and our elements are endlessly recycled in nature. Any therapist will at times deal with clients who are grieving, or dying. Investigating the client’s beliefs and fears regarding an afterlife will undoubtedly play an important role. Where appropriate, the therapist may point out to the patient that in some ways the dead live on in their genes, the lasting impact of their actions, and the memories others have of them. 7. We honor reality, and keep our minds open to the evidence of the senses and of science’s unending quest for deeper understanding. These are our best means of coming to know the Universe, and on them we base our aesthetic and religious feelings about reality. Therapy must be reality based, and open to scientific evidence of what works and what does not. The therapist will strive for both rational understanding and empathy in dealing with the client, and will encourage the client to strive for rational understanding of their problems, options, and abilities, and will seek to improve the patients ability to be empathetic. 8. Every individual has direct access through perception, emotion and meditation to ultimate reality, which is the Universe and Nature. There is no need for mediation by priests, gurus or revealed scriptures. The therapist will not hold himself up as guru, will not accept anyone’s theory as holy writ, will not seek to become a cult figure, but will instead help the client to take responsibility for their own lives, honor their own perception, tune into their own emotions, and where appropriate will teach the client how to meditate. Walt is a retired psychiatrist.

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have been taking myself too seriously, and once again my body knows this before my mind. My lower back is tight, my head aches more than it doesn’t, and if I turn my head just so and life my left arm, it gets stuck - this from driving too long, too frequently, in the stressful dark rush hour. Earlier this week I lay awake in bed, blinking at the ceiling, and wishing, wishing…for what? Once again my attempt to find spiritual companionship in a pagan circle has failed - the circle has decided it wants to be Wiccan, and to revere a goddess and a god. I just can’t do this, and yet I yearn for the kind of comfort that comes with the interaction of like minds. I am tossing and turning now, as much to nudge Shane, my partner, awake, as to release my anxiety and trouble. Shane makes a sound and I take this as a sign that he is available Julie Beman for conversation. “I’m troubled,” I say, “Tell me once again about your faith.” Shane is Roman Catholic. Not the churchish, moralish kind, but the kind that comes from being steeped in a culture of it while growing up. I too was raised in it, forced to it, by a desperate, unhappy mother. Even now it has a grasp on me, propelling me to the edge of feeling that there is a conscious, benevolent presence that creates us, guides us, punishes us, takes our side. But there isn’t. I know this as well as I know that I won’t fly off of the planet if I jump high enough. Yet it troubles me, nibbles me, paws at me like my pup - I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. This spiritual sadness lingers for a few days, and I half-heartedly search for solace. Shane brings me Emerson to read. I pick it up and put it down. Too many words. I want a connection. I want a voice. I want to feel comfort, an embrace, a flash of understanding. Why can’t I cry out these words to a god who will hear them? Why can’t I find peace, or some kind of faith? It is time to take my pup for a walk. His name is Murphy and he’s a challenge. Shane and I rescued him from the Hartford Pound nine months ago and he has yet to learn that his jaw is very strong and that it doesn’t feel good when he nips me, even though for him it is only play. I sigh deeply, resigned

Just a Hint of Happiness

to my responsibility to this creature whom I invited 5

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to live with us, rather than leave him to a certain death. I clip his lead onto his collar and step outside into a brilliant November day. The sky is blue, the sun is burning white, and the autumn leaves are whirling in a dance with the wind. Murphy and I set off down the street. He turns the corner toward the park. Murphy finds a stick. A stick! My heart lifts a bit as I realize it is perfect for playing. It’s as long as my arm, with just enough weight to fly far when thrown. Murphy drops this stick as he finds another. Before long we find four perfect sticks and I am throwing them, one after another, inscribing a large circle in an empty softball field. Murphy and I run to each stick as it lands. He picks it up and drops it, looks at me with his tongue hanging out and his body concentrated for his next mad gallop. We play at this for a long time, until Murphy collapses on the grass and rolls over, inviting me to scratch his belly. The wind picks up and yellow leaves swirl around us. It feels like we are in one of those souvenir snow globes that someone has just shaken wildly. We are at the very center of a vortex of leaves. Me and Murphy, at the center. I start to feel a little better.

On the walk home, we both step ankle-deep into a pool of mud camouflaged under a pile of leaves. Water seeps into my runners and I’m afraid if I pull my foot out, the shoe will stay behind. Murphy is delighted. He sticks his nose under the leaves and shnuffles along. When he lifts up his head, his nose is covered with mud. When he’s done with his mud, we continue home, stopping to stand on top of each boulder that marks the path in the park. Once home I wash two Granny Smith apples, one for me and one for Murphy. We bite into our apples at the same time. They are crisp and sour. Murphy licks the juice that wells up on the green skin. He bats the apple around with his paws. I decide to write, and go to the computer. Murphy follows with his apple and lays down at my feet. Now he is sleeping in a puddle of sunlight, a half-eaten apple on the floor near his belly. Brown dog. Green apples. Yellow leaves. Boulders. Blue sky. Four perfect sticks. Wind. Bright white sunshine. Emerson doesn’t sound too bad now, and perhaps I feel a hint of happiness.

The Road to Self-Acceptance I was first diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1965 at age 20. Since that time I have been hospitalized briefly numerous times for psychotic episodes. For many years I resisted the diagnosis and often neglected to take my medication, usually resulting in hospitalization. It was only about 20 years ago that I finally acknowledged my illness and accepted the need to take medication on a regular basis. Since that time, I have only been hospitalized a couple of times, for very brief periods, and not at all for the last 10 years or so. We have a vast amount of knowledge of mental illness, but relatively little about wellness. This is where pantheism comes in. I had consciously been a pantheist since high school biology class, my favorite subject. Then in college, first at UC Santa Barbara, where I again studied biology, and later at UC Berkeley, where I briefly majored in philosophy and read Spinoza, my pantheism was confirmed. My first psychotic episode occurred in Santa Barbara after I returned from my junior year in France. It was partly a quasi-religious experience: I imagined that I was a special incarnation of divine wisdom, rather like an Indian Avatar. It was not until many years later that I read about Indian religion and philosophy and recognized many of the ideas that I was flirting with 6

by Dave Kiebert

during that first psychotic episode. My present belief system is a kind of mystical, spiritual pantheism. The mysticism consists of the identification of the individual self with the cosmos - oneness with the universe, so to speak. The spiritual aspect derives from my adaption of some of the idealism of Plato into a materialistic worldview. I don’t consider matter itself to be mundane or easily understood. Matter is mysterious!! From the ghostlike neutrinos to the wave/particle duality of electrons, matter is bizarre and fantastic. I consider science a very spiritual (read “imaginative”) activity. Pantheism has been therapeutic for me because it has led me to appreciate the natural world and to understand my own place in it. As Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata states, “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here, and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” Pantheism has helped me to accept myself, mental illness and all, as a legitimate part of nature. I feel a kinship with plants and all other animals, based on our common DNA. And the WPM has given me what the Buddhists call a “Sangha,” or spiritual community in which to enjoy the fellowship of other pantheists.

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Spiritual Sanity By Katherine Peil In the traditional pantheist worldview, why should humans need therapy? Given the profound order, beauty, and mathematical precision of the universe, why wouldn’t optimal mental health unfold as naturally as the seed becomes the rose? Or a disturbed mind heal as swiftly and amazingly as the body closes a flesh wound? How could anything as devastatingly wrong as mental disorder even emerge? Idealism aside however, there’s a clinical bible of sorts entitled the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, detailing many dreadful things that can go wrong with a human mind. All these human disorders have something to do with human emotion - when sadness, fear, or anger builds depression, paranoia, rage; and envy, pride, or greed become pathological. Although quick to declare what goes wrong, the psychiatrist rarely tells us what goes right with the human being - how optimal mental or spiritual order naturally unfolds. Many shrinks are catching a new wave called Positive Psychology where the long ignored good feelings are being rediscovered as wellsprings of physical, mental, social, and spiritual flourishing. So is emotion good stuff or bad stuff? Does it help or hinder one’s mental health? What greater role does it play in the functioning of the human being? The newest sciences provide intriguing links between good and bad feelings and right states of self-organizing balance. Although in the strictly Darwinian view, living things passively undergo natural selection and activities beyond self-replication are meaningless, the new perspective suggests that choicemaking behavior has played a key role in evolution from very early on. Even the simplest living systems can sense the electrochemical ebb and flow of their environment, and use this crude sentience to behave in ways that actively enhance their evolutionary fitness. This gives rise to a universal approach/avoid pattern of self-regulated behavior, observable from the single-celled amoeba right up to the human being. In other words, natural selection relies upon ancient electrochemical mechanisms that animate the body while sparking, guiding and expanding any emerging mind - uniting and regulating all parts within the unified self-organizing expansive whole we call the Universe. Emotion is our ancient sensory link to this vital selforganizing life force, offering the animation and guidance long thought to spring from supernatural sources. It is our perceptual window onto matter in motion, delivering the core “feeling of what is happening” as our body automatically restores its optimal self-balance in response to electrochemical change. Feelings are elaborate partners of our immune system, informing the emerging mind how to right the system so that it can join in the adaptive game. In a nutshell, emotion is how we and other “higher”

animals participate in natural selection! But the catch is that without alignment with its emotional guidance from very early on, a mind has little chance to blossom, or even to play, since it is sidelined each time it misses its cue. My view is that most mental disorder springs from a fundamental lack of emotional and spiritual development. The optimal human blueprint is already written within our genetic code, and the wisdom it represents is accessible through our emotional sense. Just like sounds, colors, and smells, our spectrum of feeling tones offers precise guidance to find and stay upon the right track. All we have to do is honor the optimal responses which are spelled out within the many unique tones of the emotional pallet. There are three levels of self-regulatory information encoded within each feeling - one for the whole self (the pleasure/pain hedonic code), one for the body (the primary emotions: joy, sadness, disgust, anger, fear), and one for mind (their complex blends and shades: trust, mistrust, gratitude, resentment, envy, admiration, love and hate). They reflect three levels of emotional processing and their corresponding degree of behavioral control, which in turn relate to three major layers of the brain (the reptilian stem, the mammalian midbrain, and the primate prefrontal cortex). This neural design produces three optimal levels of spiritual consciousness along the path of self development - Survival, Being, and Transcendent. There is a fourth level - a maladaptive, imbalanced, and self-destructive condition that I call spiritual insanity. Traditional religions have fostered this insanity. They miss the core meaning within our emotional messages. They even negate, blame, and revile Nature’s own spiritual messenger, telling us to suppress our “sinful” feelings and actions. This can never work, because the self-system uses the frequency and intensity of unanswered pain to measure the mind’s adaptive success and trigger the removal of pain from the control loop. Religious self-deception negates the subjective “truth” and objective “reality” of our feelings and generates new levels of suffering. Perhaps even worse, instead of using the simple bottomup wisdom of our emotional sense to guide our personal thoughts and actions, we use expressions of our own negative feelings to gain manipulative control over each other, to enforce our many convoluted, conflicting and 7

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often unsound cultural rules. The complex negative emotions such as shame, hate, terror, despair, greed, rage, envy, paranoia, guilt, resentment, or contempt have come to dominate our minds. Yet they need never have done so if we had discovered the spiritual sense long ago. They are the flip side of the complex positive emotions such as trust, courage, gratitude, admiration, love, compassion that reflect a life on the right track. To help promote spiritual sanity I have developed a tenstep therapeutic system (see box) that is educational, preventative, and self-corrective rather than reactive, victim-driven, or dependency-creating. It fosters awareness of our emotional sense. It aims to reduce the suppression and misuse of negative emotion, and to enhance the entire sphere of positive feelings, motives, and potentials. It helps us to outgrow our unconscious dependence on the body’s punitive stick of pain, and allows us to be pulled forward by the carrot of complex joyous pleasures. The system is not only therapeutic but also opens up new realms of consciousness and levels of bliss. When we are attuned to the emotional sense, life becomes a delightfully new and wonderful game. There is peaceful coexistence between the positive and the negative, between individuality and unity, competition and cooperation, free

will and self-organizing predestiny. We can enthusiastically greet each event that arrives at our door as a treasured clue to the unfolding mystery, and as direct feedback about the soundness of our mental and cultural landscape. As we take each step in selftransformation, we build ever broader self-concepts, expand our boundaries of empathy, and widen our adaptive niche. Basic pains will always punctuate our lives to keep things real, but the predominant mode can become one of meaningful happiness, freedom, cooperative empowerment, connection, and creative contribution - the full bloom of human being. Clearly there is much work to do to reclaim our birthright of spiritual sanity, but it will not occur through religious indoctrination, nor by divine, governmental, genetic, or pharmaceutical intervention. It will be through the efforts of each individual to honor the self-regulatory function of the emotional system and to design mindful thoughts, actions and cultural enhancements that align with nature’s grand flow. Katherine directs EFS International in Kirkland, Washington and crusades for the recognition of the role of emotion in evolution and spirituality. www.emotionalfeedback.com

Ten Steps to Emotional and Spiritual Sanity 1. Awaken to the emotional sense as a tool of self-regulation. Replace avoidance and suppression with curiosity and reverence for every feeling. Build body awareness and contemplative self-reflection into everyday experience. Honor the body with optimal care, nutrition and activity for peak functioning. 2. Recognize and align with the ongoing trial and error feedback cycle. All feelings signal moments of imbalance dissonance between expectations and outcomes. Bad feelings are error messages, signalling the need for correction, while good feelings signal opportunities for adaptive growth. 3. Recognize how feelings, motives, and behavioral corrections relate to four levels of consciousness: Survival; Being; Transcendence and Insanity. The more complex, frequent, and intense the negative emotion, the less the conscious mind is involved, and the more unconscious “fight and flight” drivers will prevail. 4. Recognize pleasure and pain as signals of positive stress and distress, linked to environmental opportunities and dangers. Recognize how the common behavior pattern of approach and avoidance embodies nature’s simple rules: the imperatives of self-development and self-preservation. Reduce the mental beliefs and physical conditions that produce pain and increase the conditions that produce complex pleasures. 5. Develop emotional literacy. Recognize the difference between compulsive desire and complex pleasures which pull toward future development. Craving and aversion are often rooted in past pain. 8

6. Add “Right” responses to the Fight and Flight repertoire, with optimal responses that change and develop the mind and the world. Aim for a 4:1 ratio between mindful growth and bodily defence, by removing the faulty beliefs that trigger the complex pains. Fight only when anger and disgust are signalled, and even then only through co-operative communication and negotiation. Take flight from toxic relationships if sadness or fear persist. Learning and forgiveness can then convert pain to compassion - or even mirth. 7. Recognize and disengage from the “Wrong” responses rooted in suppression, self-deception, and negative emotional dynamics. These include infatuations, compulsions, superiority, rationalization, judgment, delusion, making excuses, lying, aggression, blame, resentment, and revenge. 8. Cultivate a Perspective of “Personal Accountability.” No matter who else may have played a role, all feelings are messages delivering information from the self, to the self, about the self. There’s no need for shame or blame - just accept personal responsibility to respond correctively to every emotional event. 9. Cultivate the “We” Perspective. Develop the optimal balance between self and others, I and Thou. Give “We” it priority over “Me only, Me first.” Expand the boundaries of the self toward equality, empathy and unity, so as to build public trust and social justice. 10. Cultivate the Big Picture. Think, plan, and act locally and globally. Creatively embrace all realms of time, space, and self.

Cassini-Huygens arrives at Saturn

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aturn is a gas giant, the only known planet that is less dense than water. It has a stormy atmosphere, with winds of 1,118 miles per hour near its equator. The rings are believed to be made of billions of pieces of ice and rock in all sizes up to boulders as big as houses - fragments of comets, asteroids or moons that broke up before they reached the planet. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative project of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Launched in October 1997, the spacecraft reached the Saturn region in July 2004. The Cassini orbiter will orbit Saturn and its moons for four years, while the Huygens probe will land on the moon Titan, analyzing its atmosphere and surface. The big image above was taken at 5.3 million miles from Saturn, the insets from 5.1 million miles (left) and 6.4 millions miles (right). Keep up with the mission at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/ 9

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Journeys Shared N

ature has always been my first love as far back in my life as I can remember. In the last seven years or so, I have put myself in quiet natural places to take refuge and enjoy the beauty and serenity found in nature. Sadly, because those around me don’t feel as I do about nature, it has been largely a solitary and at times, lonely activity. As an exercise in observation and focus, and as an attempt to preserve those beautiful inspiring images to be enjoyed at a later date, I took up nature photography as a hobby. I see nature as the original art, and art as we humans have come to think of it, as man’s attempt to copy nature. Kim: The sun light filtering through the leaves is my stained glass, a rock outcroping from which I can observe a breath taking view, is my altar, and water rippling in brooks or falling as rain, the wind in the pines, and of course a cooperative choir of birds, all sing appropriate hymns to me In these last few years I have discovered that I do have a sense of spirituality, and it comes straight from the same source, as that which gave me such joy as a child. My walks in Nature, the woods or along a deserted winter beach, have now taken on a wonderful new meaning. Nature IS my spiritual home. Ron Goldie, New Jersey In a world where bigots of conventional theism, from the hills of Afghanistan to the corridors of Washington, threaten the very existence of humanity there is an urgent need to promote Pantheism. Pantheism is without doubt the religion of the future and indeed the religion of the present as I believe that it is the way that the majority of the world’s moderate and peace loving peoples think but are unable to affiliate to given it’s lack of prominence. The promotion of unity with the one God that we are all a part of, materially and spiritually, is I believe the route to our salvation and perhaps the most important cause of our generation. Russell Razzaque, London, UK I enjoy being a part of the natural world. I am fascinated by it. I find that Atheism comes up cold and has “in your face” connections. I need some way of feeling part of something universal without being obligated to believe in some

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When people join the WPM they get the opportunity to say a few words about their panheist beliefs. The offerings are often inspiring. Photos by Ron Goldie personal deity. I want the numinous without the “God garbage.” Lowry Sandifer, Washington State. I believe in the divinity of the universe, magnificent in its complexity and mystery. Planet Earth, one of its children, must be revered and protected. Through organizations like WPM, likeminded people can collectively share ideas, educate others, and be at the vanguard of progressive changes that will help our beautiful and fragile planet. Sylvia Suarez, Oklahoma I outgrew bible stories about the same time I realized that Grimm’s Fairy Tales were also just make believe stories. Some people seem to feel the presence of a God in a church, but I never felt the presence of anything but other people in a church. The myth about an all powerful god watching over his children has never made sense to me. I’ve spent most of my adult life seeking solitude in the natural world, being and feeling a part of nature. When I’m alone in the forest, I am one with nature and am at peace with myself and the natural world around me. This is the only time I can feel the presence of a “god”. Nature, with all it wonder, is sacred to me; it’s divine. Norma Jones, Wrightwood, California I believe that all life is sacred and that the Universe, Infinity, Energy and Mass are orchestrated chaos. I revel in the understanding that human beings have evolved to the point of being able to acknowledge this fantastic Cosmos. Our planet is a jewel that is the product of these forces, and it saddens me that a vast percentage of the population are blinded by superstition, bias, and intolerance which has led to unneeded death of millions of people. I hike 3 miles a day every day in the woods and every day my beliefs get stronger. My home is a carbon sink: no poisons, a sanctuary for any life that wanders in, a green space, a safe place. I have accidentally found this site and it too feels like a safe place. Keith Kinder, Knob Noster, Missouri I am looking for a highly authentic paradigm into which I could expand my humanistic/scientific belief system. Also, to be involved in a movement that is indirectly or directly supported by Einstein, Wilson, Sagan, Dawkins, Spinoza,

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Hawking, etc., and meshes with reputable perspectives like Native American beliefs, Taoism, and atheism is very moving. Jason Merchey, San Diego, California I am a Pantheist because I can’t believe in the traditional concept of God or the simplistic dichotomy of damnation and salvation, and yet I feel the need for spiritual experience. For years I sat in Quaker meetings and never felt any kind of religious experience, but as soon as I step outside and look at a magnificent sunset, a spreading oak tree, or a shooting star, I’m filled with the awe that more traditionally religious people feel for their gods. I don’t need any anthropomorphic transcendent god; the Universe is powerful and amazing and beautiful all on its own. Julia Morgan, Washington D.C. To look further than the Universe for answers is to take for granted the beautiful, complex, mysterious, and engaging world we live in. Michelle Danner, Tempe, Arizona I began reading the Tao Te Ching as a youth and it strongly influenced my thinking. I’ve always loved nature and communing with animals. I’ve never felt comfortable in churches or saying “God” or “Jesus”. I believe I belong to the world, not some far off heaven. I want to teach my daughter reverence for the universe without lying to her or making her lie to herself. I need a spiritual home where I can say these things without scaring people! Stacy Doney, Amherst, New York I believe that “God” and the universe are identical, and the only reason I use two words is to acknowledge my belief in the existence of a spiritual dimension to the universe orthogonal to the normal dimensions of space and time. Frank Benford, Salem, Oregon I was in search of a religion that I could call my own. I was raised from two Mormon parents who rejected their religion at a young age. They decided to not raise me with any church in my life. Now that I am 17, I am searching for my future in the world. Pantheists are here with open arms trying to better the world, why wouldn’t I want to be right beside them? Jason Bischoff, Bountiful, Utah The infinite mystery and eloquence contained in a dewsoaked oak leaf requires no words and connects with deeper things in me than any book full of words. Kevin Brooks, Muncie, Indiana

Autumn 2004

From the earliest age it became apparent to me that all creation is One. As I grew and studied and experienced various religions, theologies and philosophies, that sense of oneness was reinforced. I have experienced what DeChardin called the view from Point Omega, where you see and feel the unity of the universe. I have felt it in the love of another and in the miracle of the natural world and the realms of art. The trick, it seems to me, to leading the life I desire to lead, is to keep that unity in front of me at all times, in times of trial as well as times of celebration. My neighbor, my enemy, this side of the world and the other, are all a part of me and I of them and we, together are the universe. Hate, bigotry, and all the deadly divices which keep us apart are erased if one can remember and love. Nancy Reuscher, Sausalito, California When I read through your principles, I cried with joy. I believe in the divinity and unity of all life. By life I mean everything that is, was and will be. For everything that I have ever sensed is alive, whether it be a granite boulder, a burbling brook, a whisper of wind, a towering tree, a human sculpture, or the electric calm before a storm. Tears of joy, compassion and love have streamed down my face when the boundaries of self have melted away to leave me open and connected to our incredible universe, our astounding reality, our home for eternity. Menzie McEachern, Tokyo, Japan I am a Pantheist. Never thought I was, but I am. I cry when leaves wilt off trees due to the heat and pollution in the air in the summertime. I do not like to walk on grass because I feel I am bothering the insects that lie beneath its blades and am disturbing its symmetry. I sometimes look at the morning sun breaking into the sky and cry at its beauty and yet at the same time I lament the loss of a good full view, view lost due to pollution. I can walk for miles and never look down, enamoured as I am of the sky and trees in the musty vistas of Tennessee. I feel as though I fly above nature for I am scared to disturb it any. Like a water lily. A water lily never fully lies upon the surface of a lake, it hovers above it on a cloud of mist the lake has designed for it to rest upon. I am the water lily and the world of nature is my lake. Mary Kline 11

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Nancy Reuscher asked people on the Community list to say what it meant in their lives to be a Pantheist: I would like to hear from some of you about what the implications of being a Pantheist ought, should, might be. We all come from different backgrounds, but what does it mean to our behaviors, to be a Pan? Obviously we think that there is a oneness to the universe, but how should that translate into our lives? I know that no one wants proscribed behaviors, but surely, if this is to mean anything to me, then my Truths, my Values, my Ethics and my Behaviors must be consistent? Do we agree that fighting oppression should be a cause? Should we fight to give children the very best chance in life? What will I teach my children? Can I tell them that to be a pantheist means to revere all other religions? May I tell them that they must fight against hate and bigotry? Should they support equality for everyone? How about same-sex marriages? What do I say to them about the beliefs for which they are willing to die? If an evil like the Nazis should arise, should they fight or go hug a tree? Are we proponents of Gandhi style response, or Thoreau’s civil disobedience? Should we buy “green” cars? Should we help Habitat for Humanity build houses? Should we give 10% of our income to the poor and the sick?

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Living within each day Eljay Love-Jensen answered: eing a Pan means that I am conscientiously aware of the beauty and majesty around me, and within me. That I am, indeed, part of everything-that-exists. I am a minuscule, perhaps infinitesimal part of everything. But I am part of everything intrinsically and integrally. Being a Pan means that I hesitate before becoming angry, and try to look at the bigger picture. Being a Pan means that I have no invisible means of support. Being a Pan means that I do not indulge myself with comforting fantasy -- such as clinging to the belief of an afterlife as a response to my survival instincts. As such, I value the ephemeral life I have more so, and I value the lives of those around, both human and non-human. Being a Pan means that I realize that -- in the greater scheme of things -- I am no more important than a robin, an elephant, a firefly, or a bacterium. I am important to me, to my family, to my friends, to my co-workers, and to many others whose lives I’ve touched. I try to make my life a “valueadd” for my family, my community, my society and humanity. Being a Pan means that I an sceptical of extraordinary claims. I take a cautious view of claims that appear to be supernatural, pseudo-science, rumour, hearsay, imaginary, or misattributed. I am less gullible and less credulous. Being a Pan means that I readily “Being a Pan engage in conversation about Pantheism; but means that I have I do not coerce, cajole, or pressure to convert no invisible means anyone else to Pantheism. I think the merits of support.” of Pantheism stand on their own, and do not need pontificating to propagate. Being a Pan means that I do not believe that the universe has a purpose or meaning. I am free to figure out my own purpose and meaning in life. Being a Pan means that the universe neither loves me, nor hates me; it is not testing me, nor out to get me. The cosmos is without volition, will, intent, sentience or sapience. No “big brother” anthropomorphic / personified supreme being watching over my shoulder. Being a Pan has brought me peace, tranquility, serenity, equilibrium and equanimity. That reflects in my life and behavior. Being a Pan in the WPM community has brought me like-minded individuals with which to share our beliefs; and the community acts as a sounding board by which I can bounce my ideas (good or bad) -- weed out the harebrained and keep the commendable. Being a Pan means that my “worship” consists of getting up, getting ready, meeting the challenges of the day, and then getting a good night sleep. I’m in “church” every minute of every day of every year. Do we agree that fighting oppression should be a cause? “Should”? No. But each of us is free to take up that cause. It’s a laudable cause. Should we fight to give children the very best chance in life? “Should”?

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No. But each of us is free to take up that cause. It’s a laudable cause. Can I tell my children that to be a pantheist means to revere all other religions? I’m not telling my children that. I don’t see how that is entailed by Pantheism. There are some other religions that I find have merit, but I find that a majority of them encourage damaged critical thinking, wishful thinking, magical thinking. I find those religions to be despicable, reprehensible, and irresponsible. What do I say to them about the beliefs for which they are willing to die? I’m going to say, “It’s better to have a belief that you are willing to live for.” If I am a Pan, what will I teach my children? I’m teaching my children to be Pantheists. As per the WPM Belief Statement. I’m also teaching them about the other 12 large world religions.

Autumn 2004

Sharon Dobrovic answered: o me, and I truly do speak only for myself here, pantheism has meant living in turmoil for the past 1-1/2 years since I discovered this group and other information about pantheism. Pantheism means rethinking my belief system of forty-plus years, letting go of old ideas that promised false hope and false security in a world that doesn’t exist. It means letting go of words that had become commonplace to me and learning new ones, letting go of “God” and that “God is all good.” It means being confused about how to celebrate holidays with my family. It means not fitting in with a lot of the people in my community. It means finding new meanings in old rituals so I can still share with the people important in my life. It means creating new rituals.

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Mule deer in the Santa Monica Mountains Photo Paul Harrison

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It means truly living each day one at a time, because now is all there is, and being more aware of the decisions and choices I make through the day, because I realize that my choices can affect other people, animals, the planet, the universe. There is no savior to wash away “sins” or make it right in another life. Thus, it means living a more thoughtful life. I won’t always make the best decisions or the “right” ones but I will think more about them, and some of them will become my new commonplace. It means respecting other people’s rights to be here even if I think they are making a mess of their lives. It means letting them make their own choices, some of which are unpopular or destructive, and speaking up when I feel it’s appropriate. It means standing up for human rights and hating certain behaviors even while I try to put myself in the place of other people and understand better why they act as they do. Being a pantheist doesn’t mean I love nature more. I loved nature before. I was always most at home and most deeply moved sitting by a river, canoeing on a quiet lake, hiking in the woods, or sitting on the porch looking at the mountains. Looking up at a winter sky full of stars filled me with awe then and still does. I appreciate it more now. I realize how right it all is and how I’m part of it, as is every part of creation. It means knowing that when I die I am still part of it just in a different way. It means living my life with integrity and in a way that will be remembered for positive contributions to my community or whatever part of the planet I come in contact with rather than for destruction. It means letting go of the importance of my individual personality in the big scheme of things and realizing I live on through my children (and possibly my children’s children) genetically, through the things I have taught them and how they act in the world, through my own actions and effects on people I meet, and through memories others have of my life. As far as social issues, I have my chosen ones to take up a cause for (gay rights and gay marriage, separation of church and state, antiracism, animal rights). I don’t personally think there should be global WPM shoulds and oughts as far as particular causes to follow. I think people will take up causes that touch them in some particular way. Those social issues were important to me before pantheism and still are just as important to me. Finally, pantheism means being me, living my life authentically and not letting other people determine how I think or feel or act. It means expressing the source or nature or creation as the unique me, here and now. 14

NEWS OF WORLD PANTHEISM

Shermer backs WPM Dr Michael Shermer agreed in September to become an honorary advisor to the WPM. Michael is editor of Skeptic magazine, and author of several books promoting a naturalistic, scientific outlook, such as Why People Believe Weird Things; and The Science of Good and Evil. He also writes a monthly column for Scientific American. Paul Harrison wrote to Michael after seeing him in the PBS show The Question of God, in which he said: My philosophy is that all phenomena have natural explanations. There is no supernatural, there’s just the natural and stuff we can’t yet explain. For me, the scientific worldview generates the feeling of transcendence. Carl Sagan gave the feeling of the pure, emotional awe and wonder and joy at the miracle of life, and the Cosmos is so big and vast. And it certainly generates in me a feeling of spirituality. I feel like a spiritual person, without a belief in God. Michael wrote back saying he would be honored. He offered a link to our “wonderful web page” and this additional quote: If this is all there is, then every moment, every relationship, and every person counts, and counts more if there is no tomorrow than if there is, for it elevates all of us to a higher plane of humanity and humility that we are in this limited time and space together, a momentary proscenium in the drama of the cosmos.

Meetup numbers surge In July we started promoting Pantheist.Meetup. Meetup is the Internet networking outfit that facilitates local face-to-face meetings between people of shared interests. When we got involved Pantheist Meetup had just 60 members. We promoted it on our front page and the scipan site, and the numbers rose to 500 by end September. Our growth rate was fastest of all religious groups at 35% a month - alas the second fastest were the Satanists! However, numbers are only the first step - getting to meet is next. Meetup used to allow meetings only if three or more people voted for a venue. Now they are shifting to a system where each locality has an organizer who decides. We need people to volunteer to organize in each locality. Please volunteer if Meetup emails asking you to do so. Sign up at http://pantheist.meetup.com/

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Autumn 2004

WPM at the UU General Assembly Between June 24 and 28, World Pantheism had an exhibition stall at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Long Beach, California. Besides volunteers from the Los Angeles and Ventura pantheist group, we were joined by Tony van der Mude from New Jersey, Richard Hervey from Oregon, Andrew Millard from Connecticut and Dick Gray from Arizona. On Saturday night we were joined by World Pantheist friends from San Diego for a dinner at the Island Sunfish Grill by the harbor. Our stall was one of the most attractive. We had wallposters of the Universe, the Sun, volcanoes, nature, along with Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata and Susan Kennedy’s How to be an Artist to which we added the words “and a Pantheist.” You can see most of the posters at http://www.nature-art. org/posters.htm. We had a display of World Pantheism style books on nature, science, and human rights (raided from Paul Harrison’s library). We had our colored leaflets and visiting cards, a complete file of Pan back numbers, a stack of Elements of Pantheism. We made a few adjustments as we went along: at first sign it seemed we were a book and poster stall, so we had to make clear they were for display only and jazz ourselves up with extras. We added a quiz “Maybe

Sheila Rosenthal and Andrew Millard joke with a visitor to the stall.

you are a Pantheist and don’t know it?” which stopped a lot of passers-by, most of whom came out positive. We had hundreds of visitors over the five days of the conference. It got extremely hectic during the coffee and meal breaks between Unitarian Universalist sessions, but in between there were long periods of calm. Many of the visitors were UU ministers. We made very useful contacts with members of UU churches in the Los Angeles basin, but also some valuable insights into the compatibility of

World Pantheism and Unitarian Universalism. It was clear that creating pantheist groups within UU churches would be good for both. We opened up our email list for World Pantheist Unitarian Universalists to all comers, and its membership quickly rose from 35 to 52. A trifold leaflet on the connection between Unitarian Universalism and pantheism was also prepared. You can print it out from the Web at: http://www.pantheism.net/ uu/wpmuu.pdf

Google Adwords treble visits to World Pantheism In mid-July World Pantheism started advertizing with Google Adwords, resulting in a sustained trebling of daily visits to our site. Google Adwords are probably the cheapest and best targeted advertizing approach available anywhere. Google displays our ads whenever Internet users enter a range of search words and combinations that we specify. The display of the ads costs nothing: we pay only for the number of times people click through on our ads, which leads them directly to our site. This guarantees that the ad expenditure is very precisely channelled towards people who have a real potential interest, as opposed to the

scattershot approach of conventional advertizing. By the beginning of September, our ads had been displayed over 3 million times, and 13,000 extra people had visited our site. The cost of 1000 impressions (showings of an ad) was only 21 cents. The average cost per click was only 5 cents. Our best click-through rates were for paganism- and atheism-related searches (1.7% and 1.2% respectively.) We also did quite well for Humanism (1.1%) and Unitarian Universalism (1%). Even for people who do not click through to the site, the ad spreads knowledge of World Pantheism and what pantheism means. Paganism minus Magic Revere and save Nature without supernaturalism www.pantheism.net

Positive atheism? Satisfying emotional needs without supernatural fantasies www.pantheism.net

Joyful Humanism Pantheism adds celebration of Universe, Nature, Life www.pantheism.net

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Autumn 2004

Membership: Join or Renew The World Pantheist Movement depends on the generous support of its members to sustain, improve and expand its activities and services. If you would like to join or renew by check in US $, please fill in the form below and mail check and form to us. Otherwise please renew at http://members.pantheism.net/imdms/ or join at http://www.pantheism.net/join.htm Please tick as applicable if this is an address change and if you wish us to correct the database entry for you. Name Address 1 Address 2 City State etc Zip code Country Photo: NASA

Eye to eye

In September the Hubble released a spectacular new image of the Cat’s Eye Nebula in Dorado, 3,000 lights years away. Each circle is the edge of a spherical bubble of material ejected by the central star in its dying phases. It had been proposed that maintenance on the Hubble should be shelved, leading to a slow decline. NASA has now approved a robotic servicing mission which should keep it working till its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is launched.

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Calendar & Almanac Almanac

Special events October 1 International Day of Older Persons 2 Birth of Gandhi [non-violence] 4 Birth of Francis of Assisi [love of animals] 10 World Mental Health Day 16 World Food Day 17 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 24 United Nations Day 31 Samhain /Hallowe’en

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Equinoxes & Solstices November 1 All Souls/Day of the Dead 16 International Day for Tolerance 21 World Television Day [Switch it Off] 24 Spinoza born [1632] 30 John Toland born [1670]

Winter solstice December 21 12:42 Spring equinox March 20 12:33 Geminid meteorite peak December 10

December 1 World AIDS Day 2 International Day for the Abolition of Slavery 3 International Day of Disabled Persons 10 Human Rights Day 25 Birth of Isaac Newton [1642] 29 International Day for Biological Diversity

Full Moons September 28 October 28 November 26 December 26 All times Universal time = Greenwich Mean Time

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