The Gaia hypothesis or theory that the earth along with its inhabitants is a single living organism is a combined development of environmental speculations contributed by James Lovelock (see Lovelock, James), Fritjof Capra, David Bohm and Rupert Sheldrake. Foremost is Lovelock who followed author William Golding’s suggestion and selected the Greek earth-goddess designation, Gaia/Ge, for a planet-sized entity that could not be predicted from the sum of its parts. Lovelock promoted the idea that the entire range of living matter on the planet may be considered an organic entity in itself—one capable of manipulating the terrestrial atmosphere daily to fit and host earth’s constituent parts. This manipulator Lovelock argued is life itself.
Related to the Gaia thesis are the ideas of Capra concerning matter and space as inseparable and independent parts of a single whole. Focusing on quantum field theory and its similarity to the unified ground concept of the Hindu Brahman, the Buddhist Dharmakaya and the Taoist Tao, Capra argues that particles are merely local condensations of the continuous fundamental medium present ubiquitously in space, the quantum field. Bohm likewise addresses the issue of undivided wholeness in his notion of the implicate order: the total order contained implicitly in each region of space and time. This order is not to be understood as simply the regular arrangement of objects or events but rather, in the sense of the hologram, as implicit/implicated multiple enfoldments. Bohm distinguishes between the explicate order of traditional physics and the implicate order of a super or holistic physics.
Sheldrake stresses a Platonic slant in considering morphogenetic fields as spatial structures (e.g., determinative plans or models) that are detectable only by their effects on material systems—analogous to gravitational and electromagnetic fields. Formulating a hypothesis of formative causation, Sheldrake suggests that morphogenetic fields operate causally in the development and maintenance of all systematic forms—from the most simple to the most complex. But rather than as pre-existing and changeless principles of order, he opens the possibility that previous similar forms may still operate causally across both space and time as a type of transphysical action.
The organic and innovative speculations of such modern-day thinkers have raised the consideration—both spiritual and ecological—of the earth as something more than simply its constituent parts: suggesting even the development of a super Gaian consciousness independent of humanity. To a degree, some of these thoughts have been prefigured in the evolutionary concepts of Teilhard de Chardin that trace a cosmic eventualizing process of matter (the geosphere) to the band of life that envelops the world (the biosphere) to an emerging mental envelope (the noosphere). While Teilhard’s ‘cosmogenesis’ ultimately is superseded by a historical turning point toward greater unity and concentration, Gaian ‘theogenesis’ focuses instead on the build-up of matter, its vitalization and the ensuing hominization of life as a perpetually increasing complexity and development of consciousness.
In the broad range of the contemporary Alternative Spirituality network, Gaian exegesis varies greatly. For Wicca and broader-based Goddess Spirituality (see Goddess Feminists and Goddess Movement), Gaia as terra mater is either absorbed within or superseded by ‘The Goddess’—an overarching construct comparable to Yahweh but now ‘in a dress’. For traditional gnostics, Gaia is a phantom—the misreading of reality through our senses. For true liberation, she/it is ultimately something from which to be emancipated. For the present-day, the more watered-down and less articulated form of Gnosticism, the New Age Movement, Gaia is the super-consciousness and balancing principle inherent in the earth and her ecodiversity as an interrelated and single system. Such Gaia spirituality manifests in concerns with geomancy or Chinese feng-shui, ley lines and vortexes, sacred centres and the attracting power of pilgrimage sites, earth-acupuncture to heal imbalances of the land using nodal points belonging to the planet’s energy matrix, and the devic kingdom of nature spirits or elementals (e.g., fairies, angels, gnomes, etc.). Initially, the New Age orientation concentrated on the so-called ‘higher realms’ of etheric reality conforming to transcendental assumptions of religiosity and adopted a soma sema (‘body is a tomb’) attitude in which earth is understood as the ‘lowest’ and ‘least advanced’ frequency energy state. It contrasted with traditional, indigenous and geopagan forms of paganism that revere Gaia as earth-mother in which the tangible presence of deity is encountered in the theophany of nature. However, since especially the 1990s, Neo-Paganism has increasingly accepted a panentheistic combination of immanent and transcendent possibilities of deity, whilst New Age has steadily incorporated the notions of holistic science, complexity emergence and Gaia theory. In other words, as the two approaches grow more similar, New Age itself is becoming ever more comfortable with the concept of nature religion.
The worship of nature in today’s world is as much political as spiritual (see reclaiming)—stressing environmental reformist and educational campaigns that range from simple recycling efforts and consumption reduction to such deep ecology activism as road protest move-ments, alternative and renewable energy lobbying and hands-on wilderness stewardship. Increasingly geo-centric Alternative Spirituality that engages with the sacred in daily life manifests notably in such centres as the Esalen, Naropa, and Whitney Institutes (USA), Findhorn Foundation, Schumacher College, and Sharpham (UK), Krishnamurti Centre and Bija Vidyapeeth (India), and Cortijo Romero (Spain) among others. The London-based Gaia Foundation is an international British charity serving as the European headquarters for a network of indigenous organizations, NGOs and policy-makers in Africa, Asia and Latin America who are dedicated to the protection of both democracy and cultural and biological diversity. Also in London, the Global Development Forum draws together various organizations, agencies and the general public to discuss ways of ‘learning to manage a small planet’. Elsewhere, the Earth Council’s International Secretariat (San Jose, Costa Rica) has issued the Earth Charter Document to form a global partnership to care for Earth. While not all these agencies consider an Earth Spirit as such, the Gaia concept of the interconnectedness of our living world remains the seminal inspiration.
