Adelphiasophism
Fairness, Justice, Caring Compassion: The Wise Woman’s Way
Abstract
© 1998 The Adelphiasophists and AskWhy! Publications. Freely distribute as long as it is unaltered and properly attributed
Contents Updated: Sunday, March 07, 1999
NeoPagan: Anti-Religious
Christians have grossly misrepresented Pagans, believers in some of the ancient religions. Paganism is a word that covers a variety of religions that were rivals of Christianity as it built itself into the only religion in Europe in the first millennium of this era. Christians marginalised Paganism since then for the sake of senseless dogma. People today can be forgiven for thinking that pagan is a synonym for evil or devil worship or perhaps just barbarian. Yet, Paganism has many merits Christians do not care to consider.
NeoPaganism is against traditional ideas of religion but Pagans do not worship the devil except in so far as Christians have renamed old gods as devils. Satanism is an invention of Christians to help them keep control of their terrified sheep. Christians have demonised gods whose attributes were only to do good in the world. If Satanists exist, they are Christians who consider that the Judaeo-Christian Devil is the evil demiurge or local god of this part of the universe, a belief held by many varieties of Christianity in the second century.
Modern religions have foisted on to people the idea that religion is not religion if it is not “handed down” by god. Yet, no god ever “handed down” a religion, simply because there are no gods that meet face-to-face with humans to hand anything down. Even the Christian theft from Judaism, the “Old Testament,” a revised collection of religious texts including many Pagan texts of the Canaanites of Palestine, says that no one can see god face-to-face. Yet, Moses does so and gets handed down a set of rules. The rules are God’s revelation and, as far as Christians are concerned, he later continued his revelations through Jesus. These are artificial man-made religions, and they are nonsensical.
One could say that all religions are man-made, as they are, but the difference between these artificial constructions and Paganism is that Paganism is “not” set out on tablets of stone. It is alive and grows with its followers and the evolution of culture.
Pagans do not believe in one god almighty unless it is the Goddess, the totality of power in the universe, and untainted by Christian duality, for she creates and destroys with no thoughts of good or bad. The sentient transcendental Christian God would be a lonely, pitiful and quite unnatural figure, if he really did exist. Paganism in important ways is anti-religious.
There are about a quarter of a million Pagans in the world, mostly Wiccans, Druids, Classical NeoPagans and followers of Native American Spirituality. Activists like the Adelphiasophists, Sisters and Brothers of the Goddess as Wisdom, being angrier and less inclined to curl up and keep quiet, will make their mark in the future war of the worlds—the battle for the Goddess’s world rather than a spaceship earth. NeoPaganism in its pluralistic forms is growing and must succeed if humanity is to survive.
Veneration of Women
NeoPagans revere the Great Mother of all things, the Dea Magna Mater. Unlike ancient Pagan forms of Goddess worship, NeoPagans see the Great Mother as a personification of Nature, a Gaia, a Cosmothea, the principle of birth and therefore creation, and death, and the source of all knowledge.
Patriarchal religions are all grossly wrong about the primacy of the male but their male priests are unlikely to object. The female is obviously the primal sex and, without a female, a male has no function. Male sexual organs are modified female ones, not the other way round, a finding that ought to have been obvious but was not for centuries through church dogmata. Animals as complicated as vertebrates, of course, are sexual creatures requiring male and female, so the sexes are regeneratively equal in practice and no Adelphiasophist will try to claim male or female superiority.
Adelphiasophism aims to correct an historical inequality between men and women that might have been terribly destructive through the loss of an equal female voice. The modern feminist movement in which women assume the worst characteristics of men might be a necessary phase in the assertion of the female voice once more, but there is the danger that impressionable young women might adopt disgusting male behaviour patterns and find them difficult to lose. Adelphiasophists do not want a man’s world where the men have vaginas. Women have to assert female qualities.
Intuition has been virtually lost in the modern world, though doubtless the most creative people use it without being aware. In former times, women were recognised as being better intuitively than men and were valued for their insights. There is no intention or likelihood that the rational approach can be dispensed with in the modern world, but there is no need to continue to neglect the use and tuition of intuitive skills. Both the rational and the intuitive have their place and important decisions should involve both. NeoPagans intuitively see the danger to the world that most other people have not yet appreciated. They will, but they might be too late.
There is absolutely no need of male gods and Adelphiasophists will not consider them. The Christian god, Jesus, told us there is no sex in heaven. Ever since, Christians have tried to expunge it on earth. But here it certainly does exist and should not be anathematised. Taboos on nudity and sexuality are quirks of ancient Judaism which there is no possible reason for people who see the value of creation should take any notice of today.
Creative
The concomitant of revering the birth principle is that all forms of creativity are revered, especially ones which can add to the world by beautifying what Nature has cast off, or by using what Nature provides at no cost or destructive effort. Artists, and craftspeople, especially those who can use dead timber, driftwood, fallen stones and so on are highly respected. But musicians do no harm to Nature by making gentle harmonious vibrations in the air and nor do poets. All such skills are considered gifts of Mother Nature to be developed.
NeoPaganism is an artistic religion that encourages art and individualism, and the people who join prefer to be individuals but united in their love of living in the natural cybernetic world. They do not want to live on a spaceship earth.
Paganism encourages people to write scripture too. There is no canon to the NeoPagan religions and any “Pagan Scriptures” are contributions to Pagan understanding with no canonical weight. Anything written by anyone can be appreciated in its sacred intent. Mostly they’ll be replaced and discarded but some will remain respected, rightly, unless they are canonised!
NeoPaganism sets out to encourage all of this. It is merely a continuation of a poetic tradition in Pagan religions of many types, often necessitated because their culture was purely oral. NeoPagans are not advocating a return to oral culture. They honour artists of all kinds whether creating by the written word or the spoken one.
Veneration of Nature
Pagans place their highest respect and admiration in Nature and do not accept that any force or being can exist outside Nature and simultaneously influence it. If anything transcends Nature as we know it, it cannot have any effect on us. Ancient Pagans simplified Nature by considering the infinite hairs of her head as being manifestations of her, tiny elements of her which they personified as spiritual beings or entities superior in various ways to mankind—they were gods or spirits, and arrogant humanity was suitably humbled.
NeoPagans encourage people to be constantly aware of the interconnectedness of life in the world. Human and non-human life is a single unity—life! Furthermore, all life depends upon its environment and is sensitive to changes in it. Human beings therefore change the environment at their own grave risk, yet that is just what we have been doing for millennia, though the degree of the change has only reached levels dangerous to our own lives in the last few hundred years.
The ecosphere of the earth has rightly been called alive itself. It is a vast organism but it is absurd to “worship” it or the wider universe because neither is an eastern potentate flattered by the knee-bending habits of his subjects. We should adore Nature, revere her, respect her, assist her, but not worship her, a quite stupid and superstitious idea. Our aim is to inculcate a respect that will make it impossible for the gratuitous exploiters to continue. If we fail, Nature will deal with the problem in her own way. It is certain that mankind will die out to leave space for Nature to have another go at creating an intelligent creature, one more sensitive to its home than the extinct human variety.
As John Michell says: "the sanctity of the living earth and all its creatures" is "the only alternative to planetary dissolution".
Veneration of Nature is the core of NeoPaganism. While Christians willingly fight Christians over the way they worship their absurd god and Moslems fight Moslems for the same reason, and both fight each other and the Jews for this and other reasons, the NeoPagans who defend the planet as our little local womb of the Goddess upon which we all depend, are decried as savages in the media. Direct action to save our planet is noble and those who are not able to take direct action by inclination, age or physique should not cease to fight for the Goddess with pen and soapbox. It is typical of the bent standards of Christianity and Islam that the former can get murderous about a film and the latter can get murderous about a book but neither cares a hoot that their wealthy men are uprooting the last tree or flattening the last hedgehog.
Those who adore the Goddess are accepting that the entire cosmos is an interconnected whole, just as the biosphere of the earth is. If this view is mistaken, belief in it will at least have had the effect of humbling an intrinsically arrogant creature sufficiently, perhaps, to prevent even more damage.
Pagans do not accept that humanity is the pinnacle of creation. Nature “is” creation and is manifestly infinitely mightier than humans. Nature includes humanity as part of hersef. So humankind can hardly be the pinnacle of creation. Nature herself is the top of all creation. But since we are part of her, it is stupid to dig holes in her, poison her daily, cover her in tarmacadam and turn her womb into a stinking wound—even if it is only her local womb. Locally is where we happen to live.
The universe is there for us to understand not to exploit. We live in a marvellous symbiosis with the cosmos. Who gives us the right to destroy it or even only a tiny bit of it? It so happens that the bit we are destroying is the bit we live on, so Nature will have the last laugh. What will God do meanwhile?
Minimalist
Christians claim to follow a man who believed poverty was an essential principle of spirituality. There is barely a Christian in the world today who still espouses this, except perhaps those who have no choice but to be poor. As soon as anyone has more than is necessary, they are exploiting the hospitality of the earth. Poverty is an important principle to save the earth. If it also has spiritual benefits, then so much the better. Employment is a drain on the resources of the world. The more people can live on less, the safer the world will be.
We have evolved with legs, why then do so may people have to get into a car to go to the corner shop at the end of the street? Why, indeed, do may families have two or more cars? Because two people are working. Can’t they live on one income? No. Are they sure they are not being greedy? Keeping up with the Jones’s gets an obsession in our culture. Can’t one of them get a local job? Could one of the wage earners give up their job and do something creative—organic vegetable growing, painting, DIY, woodwork, campaigning as an Adelphiasophist even? Many people cannot get work, why then don’t the lucky ones retire earlier and live off their savings and pensions, leaving a job opportunity to someone else?
NeoPagans are not saying what Jesus said. He was resigned to the end of the world, then no one would need anything at all. The same applies to us today, but we are not resigned to it. Adelphiasophists want to do something about it, and working less and consuming less is one way. We work for the world, not against it.
Pragmatic not Dogmatic
Adelphiasophists want to be a loving mother, a considerate teacher or an older brother or sister to each other and especially new attendants of the Goddess. They want to help people do things and develop as people and in their knowledge of the Goddess. Adelphiasophism aims to generate a sense of being and belonging so that the gratuitous exploitation and concomitant destruction of our world for greed will cease. Human progress will then proceed in harmony with Nature not in conflict with her.
NeoPaganism is a religion of experience and practice. Ceremonial is generally not to please any supernatural entity, because there are none to please—the Goddess will do what she will. She cannot hear us or see us. She is indifferent to genuflexion and sycophancy. So, NeoPagan ceremonial is meant to inspire a feeling of respect, awe and grandeur of Nature in us, the congregation, not to make absurd offerings of dead animals, sweet savours or hymns to please and mollify the uncomprehending universe.
The only belief required is a conviction that the earth is not an infinite resource as it must once have seemed. It is a wonderful gift but it is finite and it is much tenderer than previously thought. The purpose of a modern religion is therefore to focus attention on it as if it were an only child fallen ill. We must do all in our power to help the child pull through.
Pagans have respect for Nature, seek ways of behaving that attune with Nature as it is, and have a dislike for anything that unnecessarily or insensitively disrupts Nature.
Scientific
Science is the enemy of other-worldly religion. Science has no creed, no dogmas, it seeks facts and on these it stands. If what it discovers is contrary to the tenets of religion, the religious tenets must be abandoned, for a scientific truth cannot be declared false by appeal to religion. Priests have always tried to maintain that the bible shows the “way of truth,” yet nothing was ever discovered until people decided to ignore the “way of truth” and turn to studying Nature instead.
< div class="box2">Whither Progressives? Can anyone be hostile to reason, progress and evolution? Well New-Agey and Postmodern types can, by drawing upon nihilistic philosophies and trendy but non-scientific ideas like psychoanalysis. What was certainly damaging to reason, progress and evolution was the First and Second World Wars, and the wars fought continually by the USA since, with their barbaric industrialized warfare and mass-killing. Who could any longer claim that nations using such methods were civilized? Spengler wrote Decline of the West (1923), and Heidegger Being and Time (1927), digging away the foundations of metaphysics, then Gödel found his “incompleteness theorems” (1931) showing that no logical system could be self-contained. Reason and progress were not as reliable as they had been thought…But then no system, according to Gödel, could be reliable, so no other system could be shown to be better. There was no need to throw away the baby with the bathwater. Plenty of western liberals were appalled by what our leaders have been doing in our name. The basis of our outrage is reason and progress which do not necessitate or require mass killing. Capitalism does! If defenders of capitalism think otherwise then they want to restrain their politicians and the crazy rich that motivate them with their bribes.
Critics of the Enlightenment used reason against itself, and science and philosophy has not been able to find anything better. The scientific principle is to use the best hypotheses we have. To abandon something because we have found a fault in it but still have nothing better is precisely throwing away the baby with the bathwater, and that is what postmodern trendies have been doing over the last decades of the twentieth century.
The core of those doing this were Marxists, or former Marxists, disappointed that Marxism failed in its prophecies. Modernists ought to realize that Postmodernists are disgruntled Marxists trying to do a Hitler and a Tony Blair, that is destroy what has failed them, in Hitler’s case the German people and in Blair’s case the UK Labour Party. Hitler failed, but Blair looks to have succeeded. So, those who like to follow the trend and claim the Enlightenment is dead should know who says so and why, then think again before taking a step further.
Christians have always been opposed to science because they have always rightly feared that science will expose their nonsensical beliefs in opposing transcendental powers, angels, demons, miracles, and so on. Pagans aim to be attuned to the ways of Nature, to understand how she works in “this” world, to work with her in symbiosis not against her in conflict. They eschew the improper and gratuitous use of power and knowledge, the use of it to devastate and desecrate the world, unlike Christians whose belief that God has given them authority over Nature allows them to do what they like. "Have dominion over all the Earth" the Hebrew god said to the first man, justifying the wealthy few in their expropriation of the earth ever since.
It took a thousand years for a Christian, St Francis, to insist that animals did not exist simply to be abused by human beings. The message never sank in—it wasn’t gospel. Only now, with the Creation Spirituality movement, are some concerned Christians trying to patch the gaping holes in Christian ecological theology. They should try to inculcate a completely new consciousness untainted by Judaeao-Christian priestcraft, but if Creation Spirituality is a stepping stone to true earth spirituality, perhaps it has a purpose.
People say Pagans believe in magic and so are anti-scientific. Pagans “do” believe in magic, and not in the absurd supernatural magic that Christians delude themselves with, and they believe in science. Ancient magic, like ancient forms of religion, alchemy and astrology were pre-scientific ways of trying to understand Nature. Nature is there for us to learn about, and science is the best method mankind has so far found to learn about her. Science “is” magic. It is the magic of today. And that is not to say there is no magic in chanting incantations over a fire. It is no less magical than saying a prayer to Jesus, or chanting in a church. Each has psychological effects that are beneficial if used for benefit.
Adelphiasophism considers Christian beliefs as impractical self-delusions when we can see from practical experience that, after 2000 years of Christianity, our world is sick. We want to know more about what is happening using the methods of science so that we can stop the greedy, the misguided and the unthinking from bulldozing Nature out of the way of progress. The Goddess grants us ways to progress but we can only progress while we remain alive, and destruction is no way to make lasting progress.
And we want to know thoroughly what is going on. Scientists are bought off by the unworthy people admired by the hypocrites of that world wide sect of the Poor Galilaean, and speak with their master’s voice. That is not science, and Adelphiasophists do not believe such people. We want repeatable work by unbiased scientists, or by a variety of scientists of differing outlooks before we shall be tempted to accept that so-and-so is perfectly safe, and we shall still not believe unless our intuition confirms it, in any particular situation. So, NeoPagans accept science, but only proper science that has been fairly verified, not gash announcements from this or that sad hack in the pay of a pressure group.
Today there is a backlash against science, not through any fault of science but through its misuse and mismanagement by enterprise and politics, and propagating the supernatural has become, once more, a mass industry. It must be stopped or this time it is the Goddess who will be crucified and the human species that will die.
Science will make us all Pagan, or the Goddess will recycle us.
Pluralistic
Pagans are not united in a single belief and do not want to be. Their belief is in plurality within a general framework of respect for our universe and respect for each other. Pagans are open minded to those who are tolerant to them. They do not seek to thrust their ideas down the throats of others as Christians do, but will from now on take a greater and greater role in putting the selfish religions of Christianity and Islam into their places. These religions are the opposite of tolerant and have only succeeded by bullying.
Paganism professes polytheism. It means more than one thing. Primarily it is a metaphor for plurality. NeoPagans are not seeking to impose any faith, opinion or belief on others, so their slogan is that anyone can have their own god, whoever it is.
It is also a metaphor for the sanctity of Nature. The ancients believed that every object in Nature had its spirit that was angered only at a human’s peril. If something had to be moved, the spirit had to be appeased, but if misfortune followed, the spirit had been angered. It makes it more difficult to rip the world apart when every rock and tree is the home of a spirit.
Those who worship great gods believe that their gods are conscious, present and listening or watching them. They hear prayers and might answer them, if the supplicant is worthy. Adelphiasophists do not accept this. The Goddess might subtly feel a hurt and might respond to it but she is not sentient. She might swat troublesome flies with the equivalent of a swish of a tail but she is not listening to a load of kneebending toadies.
Adelphiasophists believe in the psychological power of prayer not in any supposed supernatural value. In traditional terms, Adelphiasophis are atheists—they believe the idea of sentient gods helping people is immature claptrap. Psychologically, there is nothing wrong with believing in a personal god, guardian angel or Harvey the Rabbit, but those who think there is independent life in it are in mortal danger of their sanity.
Tolerant of those who are Tolerant
An aspect of pluralism is tolerance. Pagans are tolerant, and therefore are not racists. NeoPagans believe the only race is the human race. Of those segments that comprise the human race, those that are dupes of the priests of the patriarchal gods are dupes whatever race they belong to, and those that are priests are crooks and liars whatever race “they” belong to.
Christians made the villain of their drama a Jew called "Jew" (Judas) and terrorised Jews throughout the world for centuries. The Jews call themselves the Chosen people of God so they too are fundamentally racists and their attitude can be seen in their disdain of Arabs. Although some churchmen like to think that Jesus must have spoken Greek as well as Aramaic, it is more likely that, as a nationalistic Jew, he consciously refused to do so. His words, when they are directly given in the bible, seem rendered from Aramaic. He was, on the face of it, a Jew by descent and the genealogies of the gospels of Luke and Matthew try to prove it. The gospel writers, however, have Jesus rejected by the Jews and he becomes an honorary Teuton, described as fair skinned and red headed. The White Races, mainly Christians habitually treat the Black races as inferior, even lthough in Acts 13:1 a man called Niger became one of the first Christians and supposedly a leader of the Christians of Antioch.
Chriatians choose not to mention a rumour spread around the time of Jesus’s death, and clearly remembered a hundred years later, that his father was a Roman soldier called Pantherus or Panther. The name might suggest that the unknown father was black—probably a Moor from North Africa—and therefore Jesus would have had a dark complexion.
Christians complain that Jesus could not have been a bastard and allowed to worship in the temple, bastards being socially ostracised by Jews. But this complaint is irrelevant if Jesus was an Essene, whose temple—like that of the Christians—was the temple of their bodies,. They adopted waifs and strays, and Jesus entered the Jerusalem temple because Nazarenes had captured it, as those who know the hidden story of Jesus understand.
The central principle of Adelphiasophism is never to hurt the earth, directly or indirectly. That principle absolutely forbids our sisters and brothers in the human race from being hurt, and is a severe inhibition on other creatures from being hurt. To claim a spurious racial superiority and to harm others is the equivalent of Christians hounding the Pagans of classical times. We have experienced it. Pagans will not tolerate intolerance.
Democratic
Adelphiasophists regard priests as rogues out to rob the gullible of whatever they can get. Often it is a lot of wealth and a naive and child-like admiration by the robbed of the robbers. Pagans only need to be guided in how to fully appreciate the awe of Nature, so that they will be astonished by her beauty and majesty and will see no sense in wanting to cover the universe in oily roads. No priests are needed for this. Each Pagan will introduce their own friends and will lead the hymns, poems and chants they know. Nor is there anything wrong with remaining absolutely silent, to hear the sounds one never normally hears. That too is adoration.
No priests means no priesthood to feed and keep in the manner to which they become accustomed, usually much grander than that of the average punter. NeoPagans have no will or intention ever to support a paid priesthood. If NeoPagans ever do, then their religion is on the way of the rest—a dishonest sinecure for the priesthood and guilt and punishment for the rest. So, NeoPagans will not pay priests, but if some groups like to elect certain of their number as teachers, sages, guides, priests, priestesses, hierophants, or whatever, we know of no rule that stops them.
The same goes for proselytising. Missionaries are not interested in practice in saving souls—everyone with a brain cell knows it is a confidence trick—but in filling the platters for the benefit of the priests. But Pagans have been humbled for too long. Modern Pagans are not exactly evangelical but are starting to answer back. It is necessary, not to count heads like a miser counting gold pieces, but to make us more effective in stopping the destruction. In a democracy the majority have the power. Adelphiasophists will evangelise because that power has to be won, if the world is not to be devoid of large vertebrates in the near future.
Serious but Joyous
NeoPagans might be struck into silence by awesome Nature but, if sometimes dumbstruck, they are never solemn with religiosity. Defence of the Goddess is a serious business but Pagans take it lightly and joyously. Traditional religions cause untold mayhem in the human world because demagogues tell dupes that "Almighty" God or "Allah the Great" needs defending by feeble beings with no supernatural powers, or even claws or sharp teeth. If gods are almighty they can defend themselves; if they are not, in what sense are they gods to be worshipped?
The Goddess is far mightier than any man and needs no defence by the puny, but she needs protecting locally for the sake of the puny folk themselves. If we seriously scar the Goddess here on earth, then we and other creatures will suffer—many already have. So, Adelphiasophists have a serious intent—we want to see the continuation of our species through our offspring, and in a pleasant world, not a dying cesspit of pollution. In celebrating the gifts of Nature however we remain happy and tolerant.
Traditional
Unquestioning faith in ancient books preserving defunct beliefs is not the Pagan way. Pagans value tradition, more perhaps than Christians, but they will experiment and will use the resources available, though not at all costs and not unfeelingly—Pagans are tempered with caution. Tradition is based on experience, not handed down as a revelation on tablets of stone. Tradition is therefore mutable and evolves but has sufficient inertia to be a counter to uncontrolled technology and materialism.
Non-Ritualistic
NeoPagans are non-ritualistic in the same sense that they are pluralistic and tolerant. It does not mean that they are not concerned with ritual, though it is quite acceptable not to be, if a NeoPagan prefers to adore Nature privately and unostentatiously. Its proper psychological use is not to genuflect before some imaginary tyrant but to bond people together in a feeling of awe, respect and common purpose.
What it means is that it does not prescribe rituals and does not believe that precise ritual accomplishes anything in the world except further bonuses for the priesthood who are paid to practice it with meticulous accuracy. Old pagan religions and modern traditional ones all prescribe the importance of meticulous ritual, as if God Almighty would be appalled and would rage around in anger, dispensing misfortune here and there, because a mass had been said wrongly. NeoPagans accept creativity and plurality of means of worship if the objective is to secure a love and respect for the world which nurtures us.
NeoPagans are fond of the outdoors but indoors is part of Nature too. In colder and wetter climates it is not always practical to bond in communal adoration of Nature outdoors. But where shelter is necessary our churches, grottoes or groves will incorporate some important natural, preferably living, feature such as a tree or trees but perhaps a rock, a waterfall, a spring or an awesome view across a valley. What do we do if some simple folk think they are worshipping the tree? Simple people are part of Nature too and should not be deterred from participating while thinking what they will, as long as they have an awe for Nature itself.
A return to seasonal festivals will mark our calendar and the movements of the celestial orbs and the response of life on earth will mark our festivals. In the truest sense, Goddess love is the love of all life, and the seasonal cycle denotes it.
Non Credere Credo
Awareness of our surroundings, experience, reason and intuitive sense of conscience should be the authorities in our lives. No one should be obliged to accept a creed or be bound by any “permanent” statement of belief, the principles of which might be proved wrong. Wisdom is ever changing, and our understanding of life and death, Nature and Her mysteries, is never final. Revelation is not once and for all but is continuous, through the processes of Nature and human enquiry into them. Authority lies not in a book, person, or institution, however sacred they are declared to be, but in our own response to the natural world. We should guide people as their teachers to think for themselves, and search for truth. We have the unusual characteristic of knowing what we are doing, and should therefore choose to do what will benefit natural diversity and future generations. So, choosing the right thing—moral living—is the true test of our place in Nature. Our relationships with one another, with other peoples, races, nations and even species, should be governed by justice, compassion and caution for the future. Bearing this in mind, the Earth Covenant of Global Education Associates is a useful commitment.
Earth Covenant
The Earth Covenant was written by Global Education Associates, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 456, New York, NY 10115 (212) 870-3290 for presentation to the World Conference on the Environment in 1992 and other global environmental events. This version is slightly changed to be a personal statement as a personal reminder of a personal commitment. The original version, which mainly differs from this in being a joint commitment expressed with the plural “we” rather than “I,” can be obtained from GEA who have additional materials for educational use.
To use it for lobbying, write to your representative, MP, MEP, Senator, Premier, President, local Councillor, Governor or mayor, enclosing a copy, and asking whether they have signed it.
Premise
I rejoice in the beauty and wonder of the lands, skies, waters, and life in all its diversity. Earth is my home, and I share it with all other living beings. We all depend upon the Earth and upon one another for our mutual existence, well-being, and development.
Yet humanity is rendering the Earth uninhabitable for human beings and for many other species of life. Lands are becoming barren, skies fouled, waters poisoned. The cry of people whose land, livelihood and health are being destroyed is heard around the world. Our future depends upon our accepting fully humanity’s intimate relationship to the Earth. The Earth itself is calling us to wake up!—to develop common principles and systems to shape our future in harmony with the Earth.
Principles and Commitments
I know that Governments cannot secure the environment without popular support. As a citizen of the world, I accept responsibility in my personal, occupational and community life, to protect the integrity of the Earth. I shall try to awaken others to the same responsibility and expect governments, as our leaders, to respond to the following principles and commitments, which I shall undertake in covenant with other people of the earth and on behalf of the whole earth community:
• Relationship with the Earth—All Life is sacred. Each human being is a unique and integral part of the Earth’s community of life and has a special responsibility to care for life in all its diverse forms.
I will act and live in a way that preserves the natural life processes of the Earth and respects all species and their habitats. I will work to prevent ecological degradation.
• Relationship with Each Other—Each human being has the right to a healthy environment and to access to the fruits of the Earth. Each also has a continual duty to work for the realization of these rights for present and future generations.
I will work for more equitable access to the Earth’s resources, to ensure that every person has food, shelter, pure air, potable water, education, employment and all that is necessary to enjoy the full measure of human rights.
• Relationship Between Economic and Ecological Security—Since human life is rooted in the natural processes of the Earth, economic development, to be sustainable, must preserve the life-support systems of the Earth.
I will use environmentally protective technologies and promote them to everyone I can on Earth. I shall not be daunted by those who out of ignorance or greed will try to impose selfish and short term advantages at the expense of the environment. When doubtful about the consequences of economic goals and technologies on the environment, I will err on the side of caution to protect Nature.
• Governance and Ecological Security—The protection and enhancement of life on Earth demand adequate legislative, administrative and judicial systems at local, regional, national and international levels. To be effective, these systems must be empowering, participatory and based on openness of information.
I will work for enactment of laws that protect the environment and promote their observance through educational, political and legal action. I shall advance policies of prevention rather than only reacting to ecological harm.
Signed:_______________________________________________________
I have signed the Earth Covenant, entering into a covenant with others around the Earth to live ecologically responsible lives. I will keep a copy of the document for personal reflexion and to remind me of my commitment. I will copy the covenant and offer it to others to sign. I declare a partnership with them and with our Earth, and give my word of honour to be true to these commitments. Printable Version
How Do I Join?
The obligatory principle of our lives in not to offend the earth, whether directly or indirectly. All else follows from this. If you can accept this and live accordingly, then you are already an Adelphiasophist. Simply honour and defend the Goddess in your own way, using this handbook as a guide if you wish. Welcome! Plant a tree to mark your decision to join and nurture it throughout your life.
If you get a group of like-minded people working together as Adelphiasophists then please tell us, not so that we can interfere—we cannot and will not—but so that we can tell others in the kinunity and preserve useful levels of activity in protection of the Goddess.
