The Pagan Roots Of Environmentalism

"In 1985, a friend of mine went to a meeting in Boulder (Colorado), called by Jose Arguelles (leader of PAN and New Age Transformation). It was attended by over 200 people, who 'found their own space' and began by meditating and resonating (using vibrating sounds, something like locusts, he said). Participants were presented with 'a new idea,' that of seeing the earth as a living, spiritual being that could feel pain.

The group was asked to tune in to the crystal matrix frequency (Mother Earth's heartbeat) and to relax. Many went into trance-like states. As people felt they were being filled with the Earth's energy, they became vocal, with sounds rising and falling rhythmically. Some swayed and some fell down on the ground and began writhing. They were then 'brought to silence.'

Arguelles told the audience to concentrate on a cloud floating overhead, just drifting, and then told them to invite the cloud in to fill the empty spirit, the empty soul. He said to invite "PAN" in, accepting him as the leader and guide for their lives.

Jose explained that Pan was the first son of Mother Earth and used to live close to his mother in the primeval forest with his brothers and sisters, who went out and founded the temple-building societies (Aztecs, Egyptians, etc,). When Pan refused to join his siblings in the cities, they called him evil and Satan. They invented their own selfish religion, Christianity, which must be removed because it includes a vision of an Apocalypse.

The Boulder audience was told that 'right now Mother Earth is bringing Pan back to save us and lead us into the New Age. We can help by surrendering to him, tuning into the crystal matrix frequencies and carrying out the directions received while tuned in.' Arguelles explained this might include the physical removal of Christians, because they are the biggest obstacle to transformation."

(Pan, cloven-hoofed half man/half beast is one of the infernal names given to Satan in Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible.)

Excerpt from "Goddess Earth, Exposing the Pagan Agenda in the Environmental Movement" by Samantha Smith

Private property ownership is impossible; free enterprise is exploitation; technology is an abomination against nature; Western Culture is the root of all evil. These are some of the teachings of what is little more than the bastardized products of Eastern mysticism. Now called New Age religion, it culminates in deep ecology, eco-feminism and the worship of an ancient Greek God called Gaia - Mother Earth.

Gaia teaches that man has damaged or destroyed the fragile balance of nature. Disciples of Gaia believe that all living things on earth are interconnected (except man) and to damage or destroy even a tiny insect is to damage whole ecological systems. Such a premise was the basis for Vice President Al Gore's book, "Earth in the Balance."

Gaia worship is at the very heart of today's environmental policy. The Endangered Species Act, the United Nation's Biodiversity Treaty and the Presidents Council on Sustainable Development are all offspring of the Gaia hypothesis of saving "Mother Earth."

One of the prime spokesmen for the Gaia earth religion is Father Thomas Berry, a dissident Catholic priest and a leader of the Temple of Understanding, located in New York City. Father Berry contends that Christianity promotes "deep cultural pathology of human greed and addiction." He advocates that the earth is disintegrating and that Christianity is mostly to blame.

Father Berry believes that we are now entering an era of "earth consciousness" and he heralds a new era he calls the "Ecozoic Age" that will transcend God. Father Berry suggests that we will have to remove the idea that only humans are created in the likeness of God.

Father Berry says that "the world is being called to a new post-denominational, even post Christian, belief system that sees the earth as a living being - mythologically, as Gaia, Mother Earth - with mankind as her consciousness. Such worship of the universe is called "cosmolatry."

The Gaia Hypothesis, introduced by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (formerly, wife of Carl Sagan), is an ancient idea, presented in scientific-sounding language that makes it politically correct for the new age. The idea itself pre-dates the Christian era and even Greek mythology, from which the name Gaia was taken. The idea is rooted in ancient cultures and, until Lovelock, was generally known as "paganism."

There are three principles of paganism:

(1) animism - the belief that everything is imbued with a soul;

(2) polytheism - the belief that many gods exist and each one has a function to preside over various aspects of nature and life; and

(3) pantheism - the belief that all things, animate and inanimate, including the earth and humans are manifestations of God, that God is ALL: the universe is totally God.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, is the seat of a bishop in the Anglican Church, one of the largest religious denominations in the world. From that spot, the Dean of the Cathedral, the very Rev. James Parks Morton, is translating Thomas Berry's "cosmology" into specific programs, rituals and institutions in order to spread the Gaia theology into mainstream Christianity.

One of those rituals is the "Feast of St. Francis" where elephants and camels and other animals are paraded down the aisle to the altar for a blessing, as others present bowls filled with compost and worms. Vice President Al Gore delivers a sermon in which he tells the congregation, "God is not separate from the Earth."

Such rituals are not limited to the New York Cathedral. The Episcopal Diocese of Kansas and the Stewardship Office of the Episcopal Church sponsored a celebration of Earth Day in April, 1995 that featured, among others, James Parks Morton, Thomas Berry, and Paul Winter, official musician of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Samantha Smith, author of "Goddess Earth," attended the affair and offered the following report:

"The gathering held at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, included a North American Native Indian praying to God, then praying to the Grandfather Spirit and to spirits of the Four Directions to bless the earth and oversee the conference. California Senator Tom Hayden, offered an Earth Day prayer, claiming the earth was speaking through him: 'On this Earth Day let us say an earth prayer and make an earth pledge. In the Bible "ruah" means both wind and spirit, so let us take time to breathe with the universe, connect with the earth and remember what we need to know and do. Celebrate that ancient spirits are born again in us, spirits of eagle vision, of coyote craft, of bear stewardship, of buffalo wisdom, of ancient goddesses, of druids, of native people, of Thoreau and Sitting Bull - born again and over again in John Muir and Rachel Carson and David Brower and Alice Walker.' Hayden then asked us to 'commit ourselves to carry the written word of Al Gore into official deeds.' Thomas Berry offered a prayer for the healing of the earth.

Gaia musician Paul Winter then entertained with his saxophone. He explained that he had gone into the Superior Forest and taped exchanges of howls between his saxophone and a wolf. With his sax, he demonstrated the sound. He then asked the audience to join him in a "Howl-le-lu-ia Chorus." He made a wolf sound, and nearly 200 Episcopalians from Kansas howled back, expressing their oneness with the wolf."

This is the theology - or cosmology - which underlies the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. These are the people who conceived the NREP, and these are the people who are creating the material that is being delivered to 67,300 churches in America - in an envelope labeled from the National Council of Churches.