THE PLANET GOD

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We are so infatuated by individuality and materialism in the west that we rarely question whether the concept is correct. Yet, alongside this, we retain a popular interest in mysteries and the unexplained. This seems to be a contradiction.
Such mysteries usually find explanation in things beyond the material or individual. Yet, their popularity offers the possibility that there is an intuitive knowing that we are wrong to merely think of the material and individual.

This ‘knowing’ could be important.

It suggests that it would be so easy to expand our horizons if proper ideas were put forward that would give a purpose to such ‘knowing’. After all, without intellectual direction, those things unseen become mere belief or superstition.
In what direction should we look for a deeper understanding of impulses above the material and individual? Well, arguably such an impulse would be ‘higher’ than us. And the obvious place to look is the planet itself. After all, we DO exist within its system.

Some philosophers have thought deeply about this.

Many are aware of Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis where the planet seems to coordinate itself through a form of natural balance. But some thinkers previously thought of this as an evolutionary process.
Typical were Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin who devised the ‘elan vital’ and ‘noo-genesis’ respectively. Both these ideas see evolution having a higher principle above man, and spreading out to the planet and universe.

We don’t understand such concepts today.

The upshot of materialism and individuality is that we only accept those things in the world that can be seen or theorized, and have obvious value to us.
The metaphysical – those things that are more difficult to grasp – are ignored. This is due to specialization and reductionism. Yet, there is another way of thinking, in the holistic – an understanding that things can be ‘whole’.

I’ve tried to grasp this concept in recent essays.

And I’ve tried to grasp it in terms of man being just part of a ‘whole’ in planetary terms. Typical is the way electromagnetic impulses are known to affect brain chemistry, to the point of producing hallucinatory phenomena and mystical experiences.
I noted how changes in weather patterns due to global warming involve changes in electromagnetism, thus arguing that the planet could be regulating us in terms of ‘rapture’ – making us more spiritually minded and ecological.
If such concepts could be seen to be rational, then it removes man from the primary role within the planetary environment. Rather, it shows that we can be ‘changed’. And in many ways this makes absolute sense.
Evolution says that we adapt to changes in an environment. Hence, that environment itself becomes primary in what we are, and what we become. And this is a process ABOVE our sense of individuality.
The biggest ‘environment’ we know of is the planet itself. So maybe it is time to realize that impulses DO exist above our individuality, and things not yet grasped by materialism can have existence AND effects.
Perhaps even to the point that the planet is really a god.

© Anthony North, December 2008