Reflecting on Aldous Huxley’s “Island”

Last updated on: February 8, 2024 at 7:47 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by James Jarrett Creator: Kristie Gianopulos From: Flickr (Spoiler alert.) “Eternity… Believe it or not, it’s as real as shit.” So dawns Will Farnaby’s moment of clarity on a guided psilocybin trip at the end of Aldous Huxley’s utopian novel, Island. (1) Set in a Southeast Asian island society founded by a Rajah yogi and a Scottish humanist physician where everything is oriented toward sustainable human flourishing, Pala is a place where people are socially supported in trying to behave as... Read more

Why Ancient Traditions?

Last updated on: January 25, 2024 at 1:06 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Thomas Schenk Writers for the Spiritual Naturalist Society, including myself, often refer to the writings and sayings of ancient traditions such as Stoicism, Buddhism and Taoism. In the modern age, with the rise of science, we generally consider newer ideas to be better than older ideas. So it may seem a little odd that we should be looking far into the past, to writers and teachers who knew nothing of the modern scientific view, for inspiration. Here I will... Read more

Meditation That Doesn’t Feel Like Meditation At All

Last updated on: January 25, 2024 at 1:03 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by SNS Guest Author: Larry1732, From WikiCommons (Today’s article is by guest writer KaZ. A brief bio is provided below.) I will describe here one of the simplest and most effective meditation exercises I’ve found. I’ve had a 95% success rate teaching it to students. The remaining 5% have come back in the future and told me it worked for them when they were on their own without any distractions. The feedback is that it’s simple AND powerful. You can be... Read more

Urban Paganism

Last updated on: January 18, 2024 at 8:43 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Eric Steinhart Pagans have lived in cities, and loved living in cities, since the very start. Although ancient pagan temples and shrines existed in rural or sometimes even wild areas, ancient pagans didn’t automatically run out to the countryside to worship. On the contrary, they built great temples in their cities – think of the Parthenon. This is true for the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. It’s true for the Celts and the Norse. The great temples of the... Read more

The Sunnier Side of Doubt

Last updated on: January 18, 2024 at 8:40 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

(Article is by guest writer Ed Kelly Jr. See bio below.) For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproven, Wherefore thou be wise, Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt Lord Tennyson[i] Since leaving the mindset of Fundamentalism, I have been drifting out of the certainty of knowledge into a healthier balance of doubt. My previous worldview was a theocentric revelational view of... Read more

The Spirituality of Symbolism

Last updated on: January 18, 2024 at 8:38 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Jeff Worthy Created by Harmen Steenwijck *ca 1650. In public domain. Ever since I was a kid in the 1970s, I have been drawn to various symbols as sources of inspiration. I would spend hours on my living room floor, meticulously working with pencil and crayon to reproduce the “S” insignia on Superman’s chest or the Starfleet Delta from “Star Trek.” At the time, I probably could not have articulated what they meant to me or why I felt it... Read more

Right Speech May Be More Important Now Than Ever

Last updated on: January 12, 2024 at 2:20 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by DT Strain At first when I set out to write about Right Speech, I thought it was a little strange since we are all social distancing and isolating at the moment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But really, this may be one of the most important times to think about our speech, for several reasons. For one, we should remember that hard times are a call to action. There are so many tragedies happening during this crisis – the loss... Read more

Natural Soundscapes and Meditation

Last updated on: January 12, 2024 at 2:17 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Leigh Anderson I love to take a walk in nature with the purpose of spending part of the time in observation of the natural world, and part of the time in meditation. It isn’t as easy as it sounds to meditate in nature, though. I thought this was something that should come naturally. It took several attempts at practicing meditation in nature for me to feel I was becoming more successful at it. It doesn’t always come easy and remains... Read more

Become What You Are?

Last updated on: January 5, 2024 at 11:14 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Thomas Schenk There is a German expression, werder was du bist, which roughly means “become what you are.” It’s a rather odd notion – what else could we be or become than what we are? Yet most of us, at least some of the time, feel that we are not what we truly are. So what stands in the way? There are at least two senses in which a person might say “I don’t feel that I now am that which... Read more

Wholeness

Last updated on: January 5, 2024 at 11:11 pm By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Thomas Schenk In his recent article “Okay, Not Okay,” James Jarrett writes: “For many of us, to be human is to experience a sense that something is missing. Something is just not quite right.” This statement is undoubtedly correct, but I have also experienced that we can do something about this. For me, the great value of spirituality is that through it I can feel whole, I can feel that nothing is missing. And, through naturalistic spirituality, I can do... Read more