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An Investigation Into Pantheism's Sacred Geography

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An Investigation Into Pantheism's Sacred Geography “THE ONLY PARADISE WE EVER NEED”: AN INVESTIGATION INTO PANTHEISM’S SACRED GEOGRAPHY IN THE WRITINGS OF EDWARD ABBEY, THOMAS BERRY, AND MATTHEW FOX, AND A A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF SIGNS OF EMERGING PANTHEISM IN AMERICAN CULTURE By BERNARD DALEY ZALEHA A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2008 1 © 2008 Bernard Daley Zaleha 2 To Veronica Daley Zaleha, my loving wife, to John Van Cleve, my devoted friend and supporter, to Gregory Gilbert, my long time friend and conversation partner, to Henry David Thoreau, whose timeless wisdom helped me understand this Cosmos, and to Edward Abbey, who interpreted Thoreau’s wisdom for our contemporary era. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my deep thanks to Drs. Bron Taylor and Sheldon Isenberg for their invaluable guidance. I wish to thank my colleague and fellow sojourner in the graduate school experience, Robin Globus, for all her encouragement and friendship throughout. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENT ............................................................................................................... 4 ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. 6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 8 2 WEBER, ELIADE AND GEERTZ AS AIDS IN INTERPRETING PANTHEISM, PANENTHEISM AND CLASSICAL THEISM .................................... 1 3 3 PANTHEISM, PANENTHEISM AND CLASSICAL THEISM DEFINED .................. 23 4 THE BIBLICAL CONTEXT . ......................................................................................... 4 4 5 THE NATURALISTIC PANTHEISM OF EDWARD ABBEY .................................... 5 1 6 THE ECOLOGICAL THOUGHT OF THOMAS BERRY ............................................ 58 7 THE CREATION SPIRITUALITY OF MATTHEW FOX . .......................................... 71 8 SIGNS OF EMERGING PANTHEISM WITHIN AMERICAN CULTURE . ............... 78 Quantitative Signs of Pantheism on the Internet ............................................................. 7 8 Pantheism Organizations . ............................................................................................... 8 0 Pantheism and the Deep Ecology Movement . ................................................................ 8 1 Pantheism in the Movies ................................................................................................. 8 2 Pantheism in Television .................................................................................................. 9 0 Pantheism in Popular Music . .......................................................................................... 9 2 Pantheism in Dawkins, Dennett and Harris . ................................................................... 9 7 9 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 103 LIST OF REFERENCES . ......................................................................................................... 105 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . ................................................................................................... 113 5 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts “THE ONLY PARADISE WE EVER NEED”: AN INVESTIGATION INTO PANTHEISM’S SACRED GEOGRAPHY IN THE WRITINGS OF EDWARD ABBEY, THOMAS BERRY, AND MATTHEW FOX, AND A A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF SIGNS OF EMERGING PANTHEISM IN AMERICAN CULTURE By Bernard Daley Zaleha May 2008 Chair: Bron Taylor Major: Religion I explore the definition and meaning of pantheism, and its related and contrasting concepts of theism, panentheism, atheism. Pantheism is identified as a concept of sacred geography that locates the sacred as penetrating the entire universe, but which does not indulge in speculation about a sacred dimension outside the space and time of this cosmos. Pantheism is divided into two categories: naturalistic pantheism and spiritualized pantheism. Panentheism acknowledges the sacred as penetrating all of this universe but still asserts a divinity that transcends this cosmos. Both of these concepts are contrasted with dualistic theism and nihilistic atheism. Specific explorations of the presence of pantheism in the work of Edward Abbey, Thomas Berry, Albert Einstein and Matthew Fox, are undertaken. Abbey is found to be a exemplar of naturalistic pantheism. Fox, in particular, is found to be pantheistic, notwithstanding his assertion that he is a panentheist. Finally, a tentative, preliminary survey of the extent to which pantheism is being taken up in American popular culture is presented. Nothwithstanding their professed antheism, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris are found to be examples of naturalistic pantheism. While a full evaluation 6 of the extent to which pantheism is penetrating American culture must await further research, suggestive examples of pantheism in cyberspace, movies, television, popular music and even among purported atheists are presented. 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: “I WAS BORN TO BE A PANTHEIST” “I was born to be a pantheist.” Henry David Thoreau made this declaration in a February 9, 1853, letter to the famed editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley.1 For some time, Greeley had been promoting Thoreau to various publishers. Thoreau was responding to a January 2, 1853, letter from Greeley wherein Greeley explained that Thoreau’s “very flagrant heresies” and his “defiant Pantheism” were frustrating his efforts to promote Thoreau’s work.2 In January, February, and March of 1852, Putnam’s Monthly Magazine, had published the first three installments of A Yankee in Canada (essays recounting Thoreau’s 10-day trip to Canada in the fall of 1850).3 Then Thoreau learned that George William Curtis, the editor of Putnam’s, had insisted on omitting certain “heretical” passages from the final installments. Rather than submit to this censorship, Thoreau withdrew the manuscripts, giving rise to Greeley’s exasperation.4 As the famed Protestant theologian Paul Tillich has noted, the term pantheist is “a ‘heresy’ label of the worst kind.”5 As Greeley’s tone demonstrates, this was accurate in 1853 as well. Heresy label or not, upon having the pantheist label applied to him by Greeley, Thoreau declared “if that be the name of me, and I do the deeds of one,” then “I was born to be a pantheist.”6 1 Walter Harding and Carl Bode, eds., The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau (New York: New York University Press, 1958), 294. 2 Harding and Bode, eds., The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 293. 3 Philip Van Doren Stern and Henry David Thoreau, The Annotated Walden: Walden; or, Life in the Woods, 1st ed. (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1970), 56, 88. 4 Harding and Bode, eds., The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 293. 5 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 233. 6 Harding and Bode, eds., The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 294. 8 Given Thoreau’s personal and intellectual history, it is not surprising that Thoreau would not let charges of heresy deter him from adopting any particular self-description. After all, in his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Thoreau had noted that “I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha.”7 Even in his first attempt to publish a successful book, Thoreau was not afraid to risk offense of the dominant Christian sensibilities. Nevertheless, Thoreau’s embrace of the term pantheist signals something new. While he continued to use other terms of self-description (for instance, “mystic, “transcendentalist,” and “natural philosopher”),8 Thoreau provides perhaps the first American example of a person claiming the term pantheist as a self-description. A review of the literature has revealed no earlier documented exemplar in American history. What was the content of Thoreau’s pantheism at the time he accepted the label? On the same day Greeley was penning his pantheist indictment, Thoreau was penning this in his journal that gives at least a partial description of his thinking at that time: 7 Henry David Thoreau, “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,” in Henry David Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; Walden, or Life in the Woods; the Maine Woods; Cape Cod, ed. Robert F. Sayre (New York: The Library of America, 1985), 55. 8 In his journal entry for March 5, 1853, in explaining his completion of a “printed circular” from the Association for the Advancement of Science, he states, “The fact is I am a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot. Now I think of it, I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations.” ———, "The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 5," ed. Bradford Torrey and Francis H. Allen (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1984), 4. While still using “transcendentalist” to describe himself, Walter Harding, one of the giants of Thoreau scholarship, and Carl Bode note that in Thoreau’s life history, 1853 marked the year
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