“What
if Mary is another name for Gaia?
Then her capacity for virgin
birth is no miracle,
it is a role of Gaia since life began.
She
is of this Universe and, conceivably,
a part of God. On Earth,
she is the source
of life everlasting and is alive now;
she
gave birth to humankind
and we are part of her.”
– Sir James Lovelock , Ages of Gaia.
The
Gaia Hypothesis – A Goddess Reborn
Anyone who has studied the
global green movement has no doubt heard of "Gaia".
Believers in Gaia, or ‘Gaians’ as they often refer to
themselves, claim that the earth is a sentient super-being, an
ancient goddess spirit, deserving of worship and reverence. Sir James
Lovelock, in his book Gaia: ‘A new look at Life’, states
that “all of the lifeforms on this
planet are a part of Gaia - part of one spirit goddess that sustains
life on earth. Since this transformation into a living system the
interventions of Gaia have brought about the evolving diversity of
living creatures on planet Earth.” Gaians teach that
the "Earth Goddess", or Mother Earth, must be protected
from destructive human activity. It is this belief that fuels the
environmental movement, sustainable development, and a global push
for the return of industrialized nations to a more primitive way of
life.
Gaians claim that “we
are part of Nature and Nature is part of us, therefore God is part of
us, and God is everywhere, and everything is God”.
In reality Gaia is actually a revival of the “Earth-goddess”
found in many ancient pagan religions. The current Gaia Cult is a
cunning mixture of science, paganism, eastern mysticism, wicca and
feminism. While researching this subject I have been astounded by how
many prominent environmental leaders, politicians, scientists, and
religious leaders profess a literal belief in Gaia. Gaians appear to
have infiltrated every level of power at the United Nations and risen
to prominent positions in many Governments. I strongly believe that
they are the most dangerous and devious cult on the face of the
planet.
“Still
more important is the implication that the evolution of humans, with
his technological inventiveness and his increasingly subtle
communications network, has vastly increased Gaia's range of
perception. She is now through us awake and aware of herself. She has
seen the reflection of her fair face through the eyes of astronauts
and the television cameras of orbiting spacecraft. Our sensations of
wonder and pleasure, our capacity for conscious thought and
speculation, our restless curiosity and drive are hers to share.
This new interrelationship of Gaia with man is by no means
fully established; we are not yet a truly collective species,
corralled and tamed as an integral part of the biosphere, as we are
as individual creatures. It may be that the destiny of mankind is to
become tamed, so that the fierce, destructive, and greedy forces of
tribalism and nationalism are fused into a compulsive urge to belong
to the commonwealth of all creatures which constitutes Gaia.”
– James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life (1972)
The modern Gaia hypothesis was originally formulated
by James Lovelock. Dr Lovelock is one of the worlds most famous and
influential scientists. He has degrees in numerous areas, including
medicine, chemistry and physics. Lovelock worked for NASA during the
1960's as a consultant to the Viking spacecraft project. His task was
to develop methods for detecting life on Mars. He claims that while
searching for suitable methods he realised that conditions that
allowed life to exist on Earth could not occur ‘naturally’.
The system is so well balanced and yet so dynamic that life itself is
acting like a self-regulating sentient super-organism. He famously
told NASA that there was no possibility of life existing on Mars and
they should cancel their mission.
Lovelock
called his sentient, super-organism “Gaia”, after the
ancient Greek Goddess of the Earth. In Greek Mythology it was Gaia
that “brought Order out of Chaos”,
a theme commonly quoted in Gaian texts. Lovelock believed that humans
were a key part of this organism. He claimed that humans had evolved
to a point where they had become Gaia’s “global
brain” and “she is
now through us awake and aware of herself. She has seen the
reflection of her fair face through the eyes of astronauts and the
television cameras of orbiting spacecraft.”
However,
he also believed that humans were abusing the planet environmentally,
jeopardizing the organism as a whole, "as
though the human race is a cancer." In his latest
book, The Revenge of Gaia, Lovelock claims that Gaia is now fully
awakened, and she is angry. Lovelock writes “Just
as the human body uses a fever to fight off an infection, Gaia is
raising Her temperature to expel a harmful parasite – humans.
Unless humans renounce their destructive ways and rejoin the diverse
community of living beings in Gaia’s loving embrace then Gaia
will be forced to act in order to secure Her supreme reign”.
In the book Lovelock also claims, that on the current trajectory,
“the human population will be reduced
to a few breeding pairs by the end of this century.”
Lovelock
rose to further global prominence when, in the late 1970s, he
suddenly discovered that CFC’s were “destroying
the Earths protective ozone layer”. He led a
campaign which resulted in an international ban on these chemicals.
Lovelock was also one of the first and most vocal proponents of the
Global Warming theory. To a suspicious mind it may appear that
controlling and eliminating CFC’s was a test case for the big
prize, controlling and eliminating fossil fuels, thus removing the
cause of Gaia’s pain – the modern industrial society.
However, throughout his long career Lovelock has zealously promoted
his Gaia theory. Two of his most recent publications are titled
“Homage to Gaia” and
“A Book of Hymns to Gaia.”
The
Gaia hypothesis was eagerly accepted by the emerging new age movement
in the 1970s as it combines neatly with eastern mysticism and
neopagan theology, but “science” was needed to convince
biologists. For these people, Gaia was made palatable by Lovelock's
Daisyworld model, a mathematical and scientific theory designed to
refute the criticisms of Darwinism. Just as evolution eliminates the
need for a divine creator, the Daisyworld model provided a theory of
evolving life on earth that incorporates natural selection with a
sentient lifeforce. It eliminates a personal yet separate God, and
makes humans a part of the divine spirit that is Gaia.
Interestingly climatology was the first branch of
science to actively endorse the Gaian theory that Earth was a single,
self-regulating system. Steven Schneider, Professor of Climatology at
Stanford, organised the first international scientific conference to
discuss “the implications of Gaia.”
It was Schneider who later became the most vocal climatologist
supporting Global Warming and once famously stated “we
need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's
imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make
simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any
doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between
being effective and being honest.”
The Gaia hypothesis, absent the spiritual connotations, has now been
accepted into mainstream science and renamed the Gaia Theory. It can
be found in most environmental science textbooks.
As
mentioned previously the Gaia theory found its greatest resonance
with the New Age movement who were entranced by the mystical side of
Gaia. They found it easy to conceive that humans can have a spiritual
relationship with Gaia. A connectedness to nature and the belief that
humans are a part of this collective consciousness called Gaia
appeals strongly to their worldview. A simple google search for gaia
pagan, will reveal thousands of organisations proudly
proclaiming themselves to literally be pagan priests and disciples of
the great Goddess Gaia. There are dozens of Gaia Groups in most major
cities. Wicca, which is said to be the fastest growing religion in
the United States, is intimately connected with Gaia worship. In fact
many Gaians call themselves witches and warlocks.
The
feminist movement has also warmly embraced the concept of a Gaia
Goddess. For many of these proponents, an integral part of Goddess
worship is its prevalent theme of anti-masculine, anti-male
statements. In this philosophical world-view, since Goddess worship
is good, then by necessity, any use of masculine terminology in
reference to God or any prominence of men in culture or society is
generally discouraged. The prominent self-proclaimed ‘feminist
witch’, Miriam Starhawk stated, "The
symbolism of the Goddess has taken on an electrifying power
for modern women. It has exposed the falsehoods of patriarchal
history, and given us models for female strength and
authority."
Gaians
teach that the Divine Earth must be protected from all threats no
matter what the cost. The United Nations Global Biodiversity
Assessment, explicitly refers to Christianity as a faith that has set
humans apart from nature and stripped nature of its sacred qualities.
“Conversion to Christianity has
therefore meant an abandonment of an affinity with the natural world
for many forest dwellers, peasants, fishers all over the world ...The
northeastern hilly states of India bordering China and Myanmar
supported small scale, largely autonomous shifting cultivator
societies until the 1950's. These people followed their own religious
traditions that included setting apart between 10% and 30% of the
landscape as sacred groves and ponds.” While
condemning Christianity and Islam as the root of all environmental
evil, the document goes on to praise Buddhism and Hinduism as they
"did not depart as drastically from the
perspective of humans as members of a community of beings including
other living and non-living elements."
Al
Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance, echoes this view "Prehistoric
Europe and much of the world was based on the worship of a single
earth goddess, who was assumed to be the fount of all life and who
radiated harmony among all living things. Much of the evidence for
the existence of this primitive religion comes from the many
thousands of artifacts uncovered in ceremonial sites. These sites are
so widespread that they seem to confirm the notion that a goddess
religion was ubiquitous through much of the world until the
antecedents of today's religions, most of which still have a
distinctly masculine orientation...swept out of India and the Near
East, almost obliterating belief in the goddess. The last vestige of
organized goddess worship was
eliminated by Christianity as late as the fifteenth century in
Lithuania."
Gore
then quotes deChardin, "'The fate of
mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new
faith in the future.’ Armed with such a faith, we might find it
possible to resanctify the earth..."
Gore is also fond of quoting an old Native Indian saying “Will
you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the
earth is our Mother. What befalls the earth, befalls all the sons
of the earth. This we know - the earth does not belong to man, man
belongs to the earth.”
Gaia
worship is at the very heart of the Global Green Agenda.
Sustainable Development, Agenda 21, the Earth Charter, and the Global
Warming theory are all part of the Gaians mission to save "Mother
Earth" from her human infestation. Gaians have succeeded in
uniting the environmental movement, the new age movement, Eastern
religions, the United Nations and even the leaders of many Christian
denominations behind this vile new form of paganism.
"The
earth is not dead matter. She is alive.
Now begin to speak to the
earth as you walk.
You can speak out loud, or just talk to her in
your mind.
Send your love into her with your exhalation. Feel
your
heart touching upon the heart of the planet. Say to her
whatever words come to you: Mother Earth, I love you.
Mother
Earth, I bless you. May you be healed. May all
your
creatures be happy. Peace to you, Mother Earth.
On behalf of the
human race, I ask forgiveness
for having injured you. Forgive us,
Mother Earth"
-
“Prayer to the Earth”, Student Textbook