Religious Panpsychism: The Ecological Stakes of Sacralizing the Earth

In this time of ecological crisis, it is essential to recognize the conceptual framework that has facilitated the expropriation of the non-human world. Mind–body dualism must be held accountable for justifying a hierarchy of values that placed the immaterial soul and culture over and against the material body and nature. Today panpsychism is the most promising philosophy to provide a cure for these pathologies of western dualism. Matter has thus come to be understood as possessing the very mental properties attributed in modernity to the soul. In this article I will draw out the religious implications of such a panpsychist position, since the reanimation of matter intrinsic to ecological panpsychism is inspired by a resacralization of the sentient Earth. Whether we adopt a panentheist or a pantheist position, both of these panpsychist religions express a cosmic vocation in transforming worship of God into care for our awe-inspiring planet.