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<\/a>The Wakeful World<\/em>\nby Emma Restall Orr
\nPublished by Moon Books, November 2012
\nPaperback: 225 pages
\n$20.95<\/p>\n
When the question of the greatest Druids of our era comes up, I\u2019m going to have to start including Emma Restall Orr<\/a> in the discussion.\u00a0 She began her Druid work in OBOD, was co-chief of the British Druid Order for nine years, then founded The Druid Network<\/a>, which gained notoriety in 2010 when it became the first Druid group to be recognized as a charity in the UK<\/a> (which is a much bigger deal than filing for 501(c)(3) status in the United States).\u00a0 She\u2019s written eight books and co-written three others.<\/p>\n I just finished her most recent book The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind and the Self in Nature<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 I discovered it earlier this year when Patheos Pagan Managing Editor Christine Kraemer posted a list of recommended resources for Pagan Theology<\/a>.\u00a0 Christine said The Wakeful World<\/em> \u201cis one of several recent sophisticated books on \u2018the new animism\u2019\u201d and that \u201cit is also less textbook-like\u201d than similar books.<\/p>\n Christine said The Wakeful World<\/em> has a reading level of \u201cGeneral audience \/ Undergraduate.\u201d\u00a0 I think that\u2019s a fair assessment.\u00a0 My exposure to philosophy consists of two sophomore level classes 25 years ago, and while I\u2019ve done extensive reading and writing in religion and theology in recent years, I\u2019ve done very little in philosophy.\u00a0 I had no trouble reading The Wakeful World<\/em>.\u00a0 Emma Restall Orr does a good job of explaining both working terms and competing ideas.\u00a0 You won\u2019t be lost just because you don\u2019t have an extensive background in philosophical history, thought and process.<\/p>\n You will, however, need to be able to think outside the scientistic materialism that dominates contemporary Western culture.<\/p>\n I am not qualified to critique the philosophical theories presented in The Wakeful World<\/em>.\u00a0 Instead, I want to talk about what I took away from reading the book and how it relates to my beliefs and practices as a Pagan and as a Druid.<\/p>\n A working definition of animism<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve always thought of animism as the belief that whatever gods or spirits or forces animate (\u201cto give life to\u201d) humans also animate other animals, plants, the land, the sky and the sea.\u00a0 That\u2019s not wrong, but there are some foundational principles that support the idea.\u00a0 Emma Restall Orr says<\/p>\n Animism is a monist metaphysical stance, based upon the idea that mind and matter are not distinct and separate substances but an integrated reality, rooted in nature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Perhaps more importantly, there are some strong implications that come out of this idea, implications that speak to our common ancestry and our shared destiny.<\/p>\n Nature\u2019s worth does not accrue from how useful it is proved to be to humankind.\u00a0 Nor is it sentiment, aesthetics or some other human judgment that confers value on nature.\u00a0 As a whole and in every part, as every creature and every fragment, nature has inherent value<\/em>.\u00a0 Albeit simplistically put, that is the basis of animism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is the foundation of my identity as a Nature-centered Pagan<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s the foundations of Dark Green Religion<\/a> as articulated by Bron Taylor in his book of the same name.\u00a0 It\u2019s the foundation of Bolivia\u2019s law outlining the rights of Mother Earth<\/a>.\u00a0 We were not placed on the Earth, we grew out of the Earth.\u00a0 We do not have dominion over the Earth, we are a part of the Earth \u2013 and a part of the larger Universe.<\/p>\n Our mission, then, is not to conquer and subdue Nature, but to live in harmony with Nature as part of Nature.<\/p>\n Animism begins with humility and with the acceptance of our limitations as humans<\/strong><\/p>\n Animism makes some claims that are counterintuitive, at least to 21st<\/sup> century Westerners.\u00a0 We like to think we know almost everything, and what we don\u2019t know requires only the proper amount of diligent scientific research before it too is measured and catalogued.\u00a0 While science and my own profession of engineering have worked wonders, we don\u2019t actually know as much as we like to think we do.\u00a0 For starters<\/p>\n The way we see the world is not actually the world in itself<\/em>.\u00a0 What we see is our idea of it.<\/p>\n No mind can perceive nature\u2019s actuality.\u00a0 What is perceived is nature\u2019s raw data processed through the filters of perception established by beliefs based on limitations and experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There may be such a thing as Objective Truth (I think there is<\/a>), but if there is we can never be sure we\u2019re seeing it.\u00a0 Even the question of reality has to be addressed provisionally \u2013 my mythical knowledge and mystical experiences are every bit as real as my scientific knowledge and my ordinary experiences.\u00a0 Emma Restall Orr gives a very simple definition:<\/p>\n What is real is that which we need to believe exists in order that we might function.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In recent years I\u2019ve taken the term \u201cthe real world\u201d out of my vocabulary.\u00a0 Other worlds are just as real as the material world, and the term implies we know reality with a greater certainty than we actually do.<\/p>\n Arguments with atheists<\/strong><\/p>\n The Wakeful World<\/em> is easy to read because Emma Restall Orr doesn\u2019t assume you\u2019re aware of the philosophical underpinnings of the modern West.\u00a0 She explains what needs to be explained, including competing theories.\u00a0 Though it might seem that fundamentalist Christians would be the natural opponents of animism, most of their arguments were dismissed by philosophers (and mainstream Christian theologians) a long time ago.<\/p>\n The most common arguments against animism come not from Christians but from atheists \u2013 both the aggressive atheists who claim \u201creligion poisons everything\u201d and the more subtle atheists who simply assume that if something can\u2019t be explained and quantified then it can\u2019t possibly exist.\u00a0 Most of the arguments of The Wakeful World are directed at materialists.<\/p>\n To Daniel Dennett, though, the concept of qualia, the what it feels like to be something<\/em>, is simply incoherent.\u00a0 He perceives its inescapable subjectivity as a perpetual stream of inconsistencies, concluding that the idea of consciousness is thus inherently flawed, and as such not sufficiently robust to post any threat to comprehensive materialism.<\/p>\n Whether it is possible to be anything but subjective is a problem that many materialists would prefer to disregard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The world that can be observed and measured and catalogued is beautiful and awe-inspiring.\u00a0 If that was all there is, life would still be worthwhile.\u00a0 But both experience and reason tell us there is more<\/em>.<\/p>\n Nature is minded<\/strong><\/p>\n The key point of animism is that nature is minded \u2013 nature, in whole and in all its parts, has mind.\u00a0 This is a more sophisticated, more naturalistic expression of my primitive thoughts of animating spirits.\u00a0 This idea is counterintuitive \u2013 maybe a cat has mind, but a tree?\u00a0 A rock?\u00a0 Emma Restall Orr explains it like this:<\/p>\n A tree perceives the world around it.\u00a0 It is aware of gravity, light and temperature, the resources within the soil into which it roots, the availability of water.\u00a0 By the way in which it adapts in order to make the most of its environment, we might say that the tree senses the changes of the seasons, for its perception is visceral sensation, and there is nothing in those words that definitively limits their use to human experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We humans have as strong desire to see ourselves as special, as \u201cmade in the likeness of God.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s frequently said that if we aren\u2019t qualitatively better than other animals then our behavior will be selfish and violent.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure those who make that claim have ever bothered to watch actual human behavior.\u00a0 In any case, our supposed unique differences are rarely used to call us to better ways of living and far more frequently are used to justify exploiting supposedly-lesser creatures and ecosystems.<\/p>\n The fact that the mind of a tree differs greatly from the mind of a human is a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.<\/p>\n Indeed, how far can we simplify the parameters in order to use the term mind and succeed in drawing a justifiable dividing line? The answer given by the animist is to decline the invitation to draw that line at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Spirits, souls and gods<\/strong><\/p>\n Animism is a naturalistic philosophy \u2013 it says everything is part of nature and there is nothing that is supernatural.\u00a0 But the animist\u2019s definition of natural is far more open than the materialist\u2019s.\u00a0 The Wakeful World<\/em> looks at spirits, souls, and gods.<\/p>\n Each moment of interaction within the darkness of nature creates a pattern, a spirit fleetingly finding form, flashing momentarily into being before dissolving back into the whole \u2013 except where interactions repeat, allowing a pattern to persist, the spirit lingering in its ethereal form.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This reminds me of some definitions of ghosts \u2013 persistent patterns that remain after the person who originated them is gone.\u00a0 It goes far beyond that, though \u2013 think of the spirit of a place, the spirit of an event, or the spirit of a movement.\u00a0 These spirits are real and they can persist, but they are fleeting.<\/p>\n If mind and matter are not distinct, then the soul is not something that can preserve an individual\u2019s consciousness beyond physical death.<\/p>\n A soul is not a defined individual: it is the wholeness of a being \u2026 a soul is the presence of its complete past.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As someone who has had past life memories, who has experienced the presence of the beloved dead,\u00a0 and who finds the argument for reincarnation to be strong, I find this definition of a soul to be troubling.\u00a0 It is, however, consistent with the animistic worldview, and integrity demands that I give it honest consideration, even if I don\u2019t like it, and even if I ultimately reject it.<\/p>\n As for the gods:<\/p>\n The numerous gods of the polytheistic animist \u2026 are the most powerful spirits or patterns of nature\u2019s configurations of interaction, persistent forms, beyond our human ability to comprehend \u2026 some gods may also be souls, holding histories, traditions, mythologies through relationships over eons.<\/p>\n Amidst the many gods within nature, there are gods with whom the animist forges personal relationships.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This definition explains why some people insist that the beings I\u2019ve experienced couldn\u2019t possibly be the gods of Ireland or of Greece, because those gods are part of those lands and cannot exist in other parts of the world.\u00a0 My direct experience of the gods is too strong to agree with that idea.\u00a0 Emma Restall Orr\u2019s statement that the gods are \u201cbeyond our human ability to comprehend\u201d leaves open the door that the hard polytheistic conception of them as individual beings may be more right than wrong.<\/p>\n