Skip to content

Dark Green Religion

Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary FutureDark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future by Bron Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here’s a rarity — an academic book that is also a page-turner, at least for me. I couldn’t put it down. This is a broad survey of an emergent global phenomenon which might be called earth worship or nature spirituality or “dark green religion.” Bron Taylor defines religion broadly and looks a range of cultures and subcultures, from radical environmentalism to surfing to Disney films and many more. I was a bit disappointed that contemporary Paganism got such scant coverage — only about two and a half pages plus some scattered references. Perhaps that’s because Taylor seems preoccupied with folks who don’t explicitly consider themselves to be practicing “religion” in the most familiar sense of the word. The term “dark” in the title is supposed to connote a sense of potential peril, but according to the author that mostly seems to be in the eyes of Abrahamic practitioners. He hints early in the book that he might examine the potential dangers of ecofascism, but this is never really explored in depth. I suspect there may be a resonance between racism and “dark green religion,” especially in Europe, that bears a closer look. But I quibble. This is a good one which I recommend to anyone interested in ecology or religion.

View all my reviews

Published inBooks & ReadingEcologyTheology

8 Comments

  1. David David

    What is ecofascism supposed to be? The state’s interests fastened to corporate interests, in this hypothetical case, protection of the environment? Clearly that doesn’t exist in the real world.

    “Ecofascism” is a word made up by right-wing media to disparage environmentalism, ala “feminazi.”

  2. I agree it’s scare tactics at this point. It’s hard to imagine a real ecofascism taking root in our current political climate. But remember, Hitler was a vegetarian, and the Nazis were fairly “green” and nature-revering. Taylor alludes to the dangers of any “moral holism” (I think that was the phrase) early in this book but in the end seems to dismiss it a little too casually for my liking.

  3. Jack Schick Jack Schick

    Here in the Wild West or more realistically “wild” west…
    A Rancher having his traditional management crimped by often ridiculous new
    rules, regulations, zoning, bureaucracy, is what folks might call “eco-fascism”.
    The Law-Makers and enforcers, exalted Federal Rangers cruising around and
    hassling real working people with their petty, tin-horn, authorization to put
    you outa bizness. The obvious Agenda, hear me City Boys?, Obvious Agenda to
    drive any independent bizness man into the city because the Fed Cop Mafia
    will dictate your Life to you, and play dirty tricks like intentionally sow seeds on
    your management-responsibility land parcel, so that they can then claim your
    pasture should be under Protected status. No Joke Boyz. It is War on White folks.
    Eco-Fascism, to those victimized by it, means No More home gardening, no
    more choices to have chickens in your yard. ( O.K., debatable Health Regs for cities)…The authorities have conspired to remove land management decisions
    from family farms and ranches, and place everybody under a great international
    production-and-distribution plan. Look into Farm subsidies, and the Powers
    that Be controlling who grows what.
    The Eco-Fascism controls your Government and News Media to the point that
    you New Orleanians think you are just hunky-dory, and Okee-Fine to set there
    in your toxic asphyxiation zone, and preetend you are a progressive dynamic
    Society, with sophisticated Democratic Noble politics, ready to hand over yet
    more charity to the Developing Third World in the Next Ward, confident in the
    knowledge that your efforts are creating a Brave New World, or something.
    Meanwhile, back at the Ranch…
    It should start to get a little obvious
    to you city boyz,
    that you live in a gilded CAGE, and can’t see that you are still
    following along with a Political Correctness which results in your Emasculation.
    Your City Comforts will disappear overnight, and then you will quickly think new
    thoughts as you experience the new (to you) reality, which you will realize was
    told to you earlier by the specifically Freedom-Protecting types you call
    “Right-Wing”.

  4. Jack Schick Jack Schick

    And Yes, B….spot On with Hitler, and
    the New Agenda 21 (look it up, please)…
    The Rothschild-Rockefeller-New Age movement
    is designed to popularize and propagandize the plan
    for massive depopulation, like down to maybe only a 5% remnant
    of today’s billions.
    A Very Green and Dark Green Plan.
    Wholly logical and Eco-justifiable.
    Cull the Herd, improve the Stock.
    It’s been a part of Occult Illuminati Puppet-Master Plans,
    they say for Centuries!
    They will justify the human slaughter on these green grounds.
    It’s all in the Bible, too, if considered from these Prophetic bases.
    You are a Child of God, a Part of the Body of Christ, and not an animal.
    Don’t follow along with the rebellious Amazon women who Think they are aware. They are full of Hype, and the Ethical Patriarch must assert REALITY.

  5. David David

    I like the cut of Jack’s jib.

    HOW DARE THAT GOVERNMENT WHO’S PAYING FOR THAT AGRICULTURE PUT CONDITIONS ON THE RAISING OF THAT AGRICULTURE! It IS just like Hitler . . . one rounded Jews into cattlecars; the other rounds cattle into cattlecars.

  6. Jack Schick Jack Schick

    There ya Go, David
    “The Government who’s paying for that agriculture…”
    Do you see David?
    Do you see that you are programmed?
    The GOVERNMENT is “paying for that agriculture…”?,?,?/???
    I hope you are happy with your lot as a “Good German” and will eat
    your bacon with all the little piggies and their piggy wives,
    clutching forks and knives…tee hee hee!…
    and by the way, David…
    it is going to be absolutely a screaming hysterical show, when
    most, if not all, of the “Chosen”, or, we should say those who
    THINK they are “Chosen”, are revealed,
    by DNA testing, to have a leetle problem,
    That they have not one drop of blood from the REAL bloodline.
    Hilarious…!

  7. David David

    Sorry, but it was your post that made me think the government pays for it: “Look into Farm subsidies, and the Powers that Be controlling who grows what.” I always thought that you could embrace the free market, refuse government subsidies and just grow whatever you want. Come on, Comrade–embrace CAPITALISM.

    But it is a FACT that Hitler rounded Jews into cattlecars, AND RANCHERS USE CATTLECARS ON COWS!!!

  8. Jack Schick Jack Schick

    OK, OK…a crisp touche’…so yes, David…the brave independent guy or
    grubby young farm family, the peasant goatherder who thought he was
    safe because his Jewish neighbors there near Hebron or Ramallah were Good
    and kind and everybody traded and helped each other…
    until those NAZI British forces, and UN Zionist reconquista brigades came and
    victimized them, victimized the poor peasant family, in the name of
    some claimed Right of Return and slaughter.
    These scumbag murderers now control the FORECLOSURE game, and DAVID,
    be sure there are lots of equivalent-Nazi dumbshits ready to show up in their
    uniforms to throw you out of your house, in the name of BERNANKE, and
    GEITHNER, and (whatta-demonic-gargoyle!) GREENSPAN….aren’t they ALL obviously DEMONS?
    HEIL RAHM EMANUEL!! and Paul WOLFOWITZ, and AXELROD, and Lieberman,
    and etc. etc.
    So, David…how about it? Got any Cattle Cars available for a few loads of
    TOTAL CRIMINAL SCUM? Are you sitting pretty yourself, David? Or, are you
    slowly coming to grips with adult, painful KNOWLEDGE?
    David, If we are to go toward Hindu-Harmless-Karmic-vegetarian-vegan,
    then that is a foundation for good debate.
    I recommend Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda, to read.
    Eco-Fascism is a part of the over-all FASCISM which does have its nearly full
    bloom right now!! Government Handed over your future to BANKS, not FOLKS!
    They have been “Foreclosing” on people who have NO LOANS!! FORCIBLY!!
    DAVID, don’t think you’re OK to go along with the criminals.
    Don’t be confused: that blue-star flag does NOT, DOES NOT signify
    the Prophetic, long-foretold “ISRAEL”…it is all part of the horrible Satanic lies.
    Y’all bureaucrats have only a couple more paychecks (numerated in Frogskins)
    and then the Shi-ite hits the FAN!!
    Got any hard trade goods? Ammo? Alcohol? High Quality Food Supplements?
    Your financial accounts are about to become meaningless.
    Lay Not Up Your Treasures where moth and rust doth Corrupt.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *