Scientific Animism

* I’m actually teaching Sunday School to middle schoolers (6th-8th grades; 11-13 year olds) at a Christian church. * I’m actually doing a lesson on nihilism. * This is the first in a three-part series:1. Why am I teaching Sunday School? (this post!)2. Nihilism via comics 3. Pray like no one’s listening This post will get into why I go to a Christian church, because that’s probably surprising/perpl...

I want a gratitude practice. A grounding in reverence for the world, that fits my current beliefs, without appropriating another people’s custom. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

unexplained phenomena—hearing voices,shampoo bottle flying across the room,lights flickering—insert your own hearsay,your own experience— i find the “idk maybe ghosts???” explanation a little…simplistic? convenient? boring, even? many gripes with the concept of spirits. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

It’s time to grab your shears. Stop waiting for permission. We’ve got pruning to do. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

Are you a Scientific Animist? Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

There’s so much to know but every step reveals overhead parties and I’m ready. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

Let’s imagine our own paraselves in other branches of the multiverse. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

For all those who’ve been othered. Made to feel deviant. For all those at odds with hegemony. Suffering at the hands of empire. For the abyssal creatures. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

We walked a labyrinth in December. It was fine! Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

the moon in our era was just the right distance to blot out the whole disc of the sun. just that cute lil’ corona poppin’ out. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

It’s interesting to think about the values we assign to light and dark. Is one better than the other? Are they both necessary and beautiful? Are they both scary at times? The movie Poltergeist must have made a big impression on me—I was a teen when it came out. Asked to think about the turn from light to dark for a winter solstice event I was attending, I immediately heard the voice of Carol Anne’...

How do you think trees find the gap in the canopy? And when they do, do you think they tell each other about it? We know that they tell each other so much —through fungal/mycelial networks between roots; through chemical signals absorbed by leaves. I wonder if they tell each other how to find the light. Part of my intent with this newsletter and project has been to explore new ritual. If “Scientif...

A prayer to right the seasons. A prayer for us to loosen our predictions. Let it go, trees. Let it go, clouds. It's time to rest. Let it fall, trees. Let it fall, clouds. It's winter now. You don't need to hold on anymore. You can let it go. You can rest now. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

Have you been swimming in that water, too? What other books, podcasts, poetry, artists, movies, even genres would you suggest as falling within this category? Here’s my list so far. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

I want the “scientific” part of "Scientific Animism” to actually mean something. I want this to feel like it could be a spiritual home—or maybe a spiritual framework, or test bed—for people like me with evidence-based worldviews. Skeptics who celebrate aligning our views with evidence, and who are open to the fact that new evidence might require us to change our minds. Who tend to have high levels...

A time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens , but it feels like the world has always been and will always be demon-haunted . “A time to be haunted, and a time to…” what? What’s the next season? Will it ever come? Does light exist? Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

In high school, I got an nihilist thrill from the two opening stanzas of Ecclesiastes . Years later, telling my three-month-old about our beautiful, startling world, I wanted an inverse. Nothing against nihilism! Sometimes it’s all we can muster. I’ve learned to accept hopelessness . And yeah, maybe it all ends with a slow fade , scattered particles drifting, current universe lifespan unnoticed by...

It went well! People liked it. I think close to 20 people were there? We watched a beautiful sunset in silence, shared some poems, found patterns in the trees, then went and found the moon, shared snacks and drinks, and some of us climbed a tree. Get full access to Scientific Animism at newsletter.scientificanimism.org/subscribe

Friends wanna introduce friends to Scientific Animism, but won’t (yet) because “religion” is scary. Maybe this is a “spiritual pathway” instead of a religion? To this I initially waved my hand and sighed, “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” Our languages drew arbitrary lines around fuzzy concepts; one person’s spiritual pathway is another person’s religion. Semantic arguments like this always bore me. Stil...

A few months ago, while Scientific Animism was much fuzzier in my head, my writing group spent ten minutes each writing a letter to an abstract concept (“like peace of mind, death, freedom, eternity, rebellion, serenity, time, surrender, anger, regret, pleasure, mystery, silence, contentment, discomfort, space, individuality”). I picked interdependence. Writing this felt like writing within an exi...

Part of the "religious impulse" is probably a longing for some larger mysterious narrative in which to find purpose, to be swept up in, at which to marvel. But like, how does the actual natural world not offer an excess of that, every moment, to anyone who stops to look? Scientific Animism is a resolutely material spirituality. I did not invent this term, but I am enamored with it. Just smash thos...