Nature worship

This article is about religions which worship nature. For other uses, see Naturism (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Naturalism (disambiguation) or Naturism.

Nature worship, also called naturism[1] or physiolatry,[2] is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the worship of the nature spirits considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature.[3] A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs[4][5] and can be found in pantheism, panentheism, deism, polytheism, animism, Taoism,[6] totemism, Hinduism, shamanism, some theism and paganism including Wicca.[7] Common to most forms of nature worship is a spiritual focus on the individual's connection and influence on some aspects of the natural world and reverence towards it.[8] Due to their admiration of nature, the works of Edmund Spenser, Anthony Ashley-Cooper and Carl Linnaeus were viewed as nature worship.[9][10][11][12]

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary
  2. ^ "Definition of PHYSIOLATRY". Merriam-Webster. 2022-10-13. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
  3. ^ A Dictionary of Religion and Ethics edited by Shailer Mathews, Gerald Birney Smith, p 305
  4. ^ Uversa Press (2003). The Urantia Book. New York: Fifth Epochal Fellowship. pp. 805–810. ISBN 0965197220.
  5. ^ Weir, James (16 July 2008). "Lust and Religion" (eBook).
  6. ^ Tzu, Chuang Tzu (2010). The Tao of Nature (1st ed.). United kingdom: Penguin UK. pp. 25–100. ISBN 9780141192741.
  7. ^ Sanders, C. (2009). Wicca's Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality. Crown Publishing Group. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-307-55109-2. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  8. ^ The New International Encyclopædia, Volume 14 edited by Daniel Coit Gilman, Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Moore Colby, pp 288–289
  9. ^ Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine: Being a Continuation of the Arminian Or Methodist Magazine First Publ. by John Wesley. 1778. p. 914. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
  10. ^ Gill, S. (2006). William Wordsworth's The Prelude: A Casebook. Casebooks in Criticism. OUP USA. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-19-518091-6. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
  11. ^ Glickman, S. (2000). The Picturesque and the Sublime: A Poetics of the Canadian Landscape. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-7735-2135-3. Retrieved 2023-02-26.
  12. ^ Test, E.M.L. (2019). Sacred Seeds: New World Plants in Early Modern English Literature. Early Modern Cultural Studies. University of Nebraska Press. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-4962-1289-4. Retrieved 2023-02-26.