Catherine L. Albanese

In A Republic of Mind and Spirit, Catherine L. Albanese has produced a deservedly lauded treatment of a key trajectory in American religion. She benefits from having read and considered earlier authors writing about "harmonial religion" and "metaphysical movements," and her chief difference with them concerns the centrality of what she calls “metaphysical religion,” relative to American society as a whole. She also provides some additional interpretive lenses that help to support her evaluation. Finally, she is able to furnish an account of later developments, closing out her twentieth-century history of the metaphysical religious orientation and moving into the twenty-first.

Albanese straightforwardly applies the word religion to this cluster of traditions, whereas others have preferred movements and philosophies. Albanese’s deployment of the category of ‘religion’ reflects the increasingly etic use of the term over recent decades by scholars who apply it to cultural configurations that don’t proclaim themselves as religious, such as forms of entertainment and political organization. For Albanese, religion is a collective and discursive phenomenon, so that she can refer to Americans who share in “the religious language called metaphysics” (9).

She also makes magic a pivotal feature of the metaphysical terrain. By proposing a distinction between the “material magic” of externally manifested symbolism and the “mental magic” internal to consciousness, she is able to assimilate to the latter category all of the metaphysical realizations and redemptions that might have otherwise resisted the designation of magic. She points out that mental magic tends to predominate over material magic in the metaphysical traditions, but by making these two into different expressions of a shared impulse, she provides an important thread running throughout the metaphysical orientation, as contrasted to the evangelical and institutional views of religion. The concept of magic helps her to demonstrate some deep resemblances between metaphysical developments as diverse as mesmerism, Religious Science, voodoo, and neopaganism. ‘Magic’ also places worthwhile emphasis on the practical, performative dimensions of metaphysical religion, in contrast to the more doctrinal focus of earlier authors on the topic.

Albanese is however scornful of the terms ‘esoteric’ and ‘occult,’ with their etymologies indicating things secret and cryptic. She worries about the Continentally-inflected elitism of the ‘esoteric’, witchcraft slanders against the ‘occult,’ and the heresiological legacy of the ‘gnostic.’ In her expression of these misgivings she sets herself against prior scholars of the field as Wouter Hanegraaff (‘esoteric’), Jon Butler (‘occult’), and Sidney Ahlstrom (‘gnostic’). But there are also problems with her claims for the openness and exotericism of American metaphysical religion.

Albanese certainly gets it wrong with respect to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Freemasonry, when she insists that “the esoteric became exoteric…in the wake of the declassified secret.” No matter how virally the Masonic institution might have been propagated, and no matter how many alleged exposures were published, the secrets were never “declassified” by the lodges. No matter how egalitarian the professed ideals of Freemasonry may have been, it was also always elitist in its most fundamental structures—voting to exclude applicants as well as to include members, and instilling in every initiate a ritually-heightened sensitivity to the power of secrecy. Similarly, when she writes that “the esoteric turned…exoteric” in Christian Science, she is neglecting the hierarchy and procedural secrecy that characterized Mary Baker Eddy’s mode of organization, and which helped to make it appear ‘occult’ to her contemporaries.

Confidential doctrines and ritual secrecy have also been conspicuous features of metaphysical religions emergent in the twentieth century, such as Scientology and many forms of neopaganism. Having come to the late twentieth century, Albanese writes:

"[T]here was nothing secret, or esoteric, in what Americans were pursuing. The nonsecrecy had been a fact since the mid-nineteenth century, when mass spiritualism—with its collection of trance-produced books seemingly a dime a dozen—had opened Hermetic secrets to American takers. Now the media had made even surer of the exotericism of what was transpiring, and New Age people cooperated enthusiastically." (37)

But secrecy did continue. There is no essential conflict between public announcements of groups and secret instructions to their members. Look at the AMORC ads in the back of old issues of Popular Mechanics (“These men were Rosicrucians!”) and consider that the Rosicrucian lessons their members received in the mail were strictly confidential. And more importantly, the most egalitarian, autodidactic, publicly confessional New Ager may still partake of the essential esotericism involved in cognizing that the truth she prizes is super-rational, and therefore the ‘secret’ can only be attained through personal experience. The title rhetoric of Marylin Ferguson’s Aquarian Conspiracy attests to the sense in which intimations of a secret were instrumental to propagating the late-twentieth-century New Age just as they were for Freemasonry.

A recurrent (if not intrinsic) attribute of secrecy may seem to marginalize metaphysical religion, making it insular and elitist—it certainly sets its values in contrast to those of the secular academy. But this feature should be read as a tactical variation on the general strategy of acquiring a sacred identity through distinction and alienation that is common to virtually all successful religions in America. In her desire to proclaim the exotericism of metaphysical religion, Albanese may be falling for the seduction of the tolerant, ecumenist, ‘mainline’ ideal of American religion. Over the course of its history, metaphysical religion has desired and deserved as much ‘outsider’ status as Judaism or twentieth-century Protestant fundamentalism. This fact does not diminish its relevance; it enhances it.

Albanese has brought an impressive theoretical toolkit to bear on her understudied topic: competing historical narratives, vernacular religion, combinative culture, attention to private/public distinctions, analytics of gender and race, and perhaps most importantly, a concept of magic that is neither redundant with nor antagonistic to religion. The net effect is a study that responds to its predecessors, corrects them in important respects, and surpasses them in many. It would be foolish to imagine that A Republic of Mind and Spirit has said all that needs to be known about American metaphysical religion, but it has provided the clearest delineation of its field so far, and it has opened new topics for discussion and investigation both within that heterogeneous republic and in the history of religion generally.… (mere)

This is not a book about Wicca or other religions sometimes lumped together as Neopagan. However it contains material that may be of interest to those who consider Wicca to be, in some sense, a nature religion. Modern Pagans frequently refer to themselves as a nature religion and seem to see the term as fairly self explanatory, referring to the cycle of the seasons, Gaia, the ecosphere or named deities such as Artemis or White Buffalo Woman as examples of spiritual powers to be revered. However, students of religion use the term in a number of different ways. Catherine L. Albanese lists four meanings for the term in her book, Reconsidering Nature Religion. Of these, the first two are closest to what Pagans seem to mean by the term—1) land based spirituality with god in nature or nature as god and 2) goddess focused Neopagan groups. The third, natural religion, is a term that comes out of the Enlightenment and refers to ideas about god derived from reason alone as opposed to the revealed religion of scripture. For example reason can suggest that god created natural laws to order the creation, but only revelation would tell you that baptism washes away sin. The fourth term, natural theology, seems to refer to those parts of revelation that Christians believe are confirmed by the study of nature.

Nature religion in America was a compound of many influences. Albanese mentions Native Americans, Africans, Roman Catholics, and Jews in addition to the majority of Anglo Protestants. Even the latter however, included both native magic workers such as cunning men and women and practitioners of the elite magic found in grimoires.

For the religious leaders of the early American Republic the land itself provided a validation of their program. The new world was innocent, contrasted with the corruption of aristocracy in the old world. The natural rights of men which formed the foundation of the Declaration of Independence were seen as part of the universal laws of nature as demonstrated in planetary orbits and other manifestations of order in the cosmos. Furthermore, the American landscape itself was labeled as sublime, a grand and awesome canvas for a new political experiment. (Consider Jefferson’s concern to prove American fauna to be as varied and impressive as that of Europe—to the extent of shipping a preserved moose to a French naturalist.) Somewhat later this attitude of the continent itself validating the political experiment of America was used to justify the idea of manifest destiny.

According to Albanese, the Transcendentalists promulgated an attitude toward nature that contributed to three movements that have become part of the American spiritual landscape. John Muir and other environmentalists pushed for social action to preserve the natural world. This led to the establishment of national parks and organizations such as the Sierra Club. A second strand consisted of the combination of folk practices that became Spiritualism—a form of mediumship which emphasized that spirits were part of nature rather than a separate realm of supernatural. Later manifestations of this strand included Theosophy and the many elements of the New Age. A third strand led to healing practices based on ideas of spirit within matter, universal energies and the healing power of nature. Health was seen as the natural state of being, illness as a separation from nature. Various herbalisms, homoeopathy, vegetarianism, chiropractic and Christian Science are examples of healing practices incorporating this attitude.

Albanese observes that personal gnosis in nature, such as Muir’s raptures in Yosemite, seldom leads to organized churches. Instead she sees this form of nature religion as deconstructing into either politics or personal ethics. Earth First, for example, pushes actions intended to have political consequences. Albanese feels that ceremonies such as the Council of all Beings, in which members take on the identity of a species, are a form of ritual theater intended to inspire radical action, rather than an actual religious ceremony. She does note that the organization members who take the religious aspect more seriously, nicknamed the “holies” by more political members, also tend to link environmental and social issues.

As an example of nature gnosis transforming into ethics Albanese cites vegetarianism in its various manifestations. She then examines a contemporary movement she sees as an example of nature religion shifting into a form of metaphysics. This is the animal communication movement, a movement in which practitioners claim to communicate with companion animals on behalf of their owners. She notes that communication with animals is considered a shamanic power in many cultures, with many believing that originally all humans possessed the poser now given only to shamans. The animal communication movement teaches that animals are the voice of the planet, with important lessons to teach humanity. However they also aid in more individual services such as helping diagnose behavior problems and illness, search for lost pets and communicate with pets that have died.

As this summary may make clear, the concept of nature religion as seen by theologians and scholars is not quite the same as the more casual usage of Neopagans. Neopagans tend to define themselves in contrast to what they believe is the antagonistic attitude to nature of Christianity—nature as separate from God and a source of temptation rather of value. This is a less than accurate summation of Christianity, and we worship nature is a less than illuminating explanation of Neopagan practices and beliefs. Reading works by Albanese and other scholars may help one acquire a more sophisticated understanding of the various strands of thought that have contributed to the contemporary religious scene.… (mere)