Nature Religion: A Curricular Link in the Interdisciplinary Chain
As a high school American Literature teacher of thirty-five years, I began this book somewhat skeptical that Dr. Albanese would present me with material that I could (1) buy into and (2) use in my teaching. Not that I read books solely that relate to my work with children, but when you've taught as long as I, it is almost second nature to want to bring as much to my intellectual resource bank as possible. My assessment of this book now that I have read and thought a great deal about it is that three chapters (1, 2, and 3) flesh out new angles on periods and writers seminal to the canon of American Literature and even some sections of these chapters the students could assimilate themselves. The remaining two chapters strike me as being slightly overwritten but nonetheless a potential resource for the teacher if he or she so wishes.
Dr. Albanese's insights and research play directly into the present thinking of many high schools that are working toward interdisciplinary studies. Albanese defines "nature religion" as a symbolic center and the cluster of beliefs, behaviors, and values that encircle it" with the basis resting on the 'familiar trinity-~God, humanity and nature." (7). Her analysis is organized in chronological order with an intention to draw the reader back to earlier chapters to reinforce the connectedness and natural evolution intriguing to teachers of English, history, religion, science, to name a few.
Chapter One clearly examines the cultural wealth bequeathed to all Americans from the Amerindian tribes and their reverence for and union with nature. Using information from a variety of tribes including the Hopi and Tewa, she evokes respect from us for these people who see the material world as holy and the welfare of nature as an integral part of human life (something that the colonists missed and relatively recently we gave a name: ecology). I am pleased that Albanese used material from the works of N. Scott Momaday, a former professor of mine in graduate school and the person I credit with my unfolding knowledge of the Amerindian culture. I use his clever book, The Way to Rainy Mountain, in the fall of my American Literature class, with formidable results because the students respond to his authentic voice and colorful narratives. This chapter goes on to look at the inevitable conflict and ignorance of the Puritan settlers who could no more understand the Amerindian Trickster figure, Coyote, than see nature as a welcoming spot for a weekend campout. The Puritans, fashioning themselves as God's "chosen people" having traveled their Red Sea (the Atlantic Ocean), perceived the wilderness as the home of Satan. Over time we see through Bradford and Edwards' writing that the Puritans began to see nature as a place for testing, purification, and finally revelation. This chapter is a gem.
Chapter Two possesses equally compelling information from stories of Davy Crockett and his exploits to Thomas Jefferson's vision of expansion: "the aesthetic and religious equivalent of his republican dream." (67) In my opinion Albanese achieved her primary objectives in this chapter, to prove that: "nature meant New World innocence and vigor,"; "in an American appropriation of Enlightenment religion, nature meant the transcendent reality of heavenly bodies, which moved accordingly to unfailing law, and --corresponding to it--the universal law that grounded human rights and duties within the body politic"; 'fusing with the aesthetic tradition of landscape veneration, nature meant the quality of the sublime as it was discovered in republican terrain." (50) Hence, nature religion in America. Again, I suggest that there are portions of this chapter that students would relish, especially in preparation for the Transcendentalists.
Chapter Three is by far my favorite, one that 1 plan to have my students read. I confess that I enjoy Emerson and Thoreau as they catalyze high school juniors to work in the abstract, to contend with contradictions and paradoxes, and to look at nature through a different lens. Whether teaching in Massachusetts, California, or now Maui, I fínd students instantly responsive even when they have to wade through some of Emerson's elevated diction or Thoreau's verbosity. Albanese brings to this chapter not only a sophisticated analysis of the leading Transcendentalists' beliefs and works but also an equally fascinating look at their effects on wílderness preservation (highlighting John Muir) and mind cure (highlighting Phineas Quimby, the influences of mesmerism and Swedenborgianism, and Mary Baker Eddy). The conflation of nature and the sublime emerges adamantine and, in fact, inspiring for those, like myself, who find Emerson and Thoreau refreshing with each new reading.
Dr. Albanese makes a clear connection with the subject of her fourth chapter, physical religion, and the social emphasis on materialism as a result of the burgeoning industrial revolution in the pluralistic states of the nineteenth century. The separation of doctor and preacher slowly coalesces as seen through the healing of Sylvester Graham and William Alcott. With this healing religion emerges the homeopaths, hydropaths, osteopaths, and chiropractors ( a good opportunity in English to review Latin prefixes, to be sure). By the twentieth century society was primed for a "religious synthesis in which the crack between nature as reality and nature as appearance, between ethics as harmony and ethics as mastery, would be welded more
perfectly than before. "(152).
The final chapter, Recapitulating Pieties, reviews the connection of earlier chapters while moving into New Age nature religion. I admit that this chapter introduced me to historical figures and ideas that were only a faint blur in my intellectual viewfinder: Sun Bear, the founder of the Bear Tribe Medicine Society, the political movement known as the Greens, Starhawk - a self described American witch who emphasizes the religion of the Goddess (the religion of nature), Reiki (a healing practice), and microbiotics. Annie Dillard and her benchmark work, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I know well and highly recommend students read either in totality or in excerpts. What Dillard shares about nature and the sublime, even in their violent manifestations, carries the same impact as, in my opinion, all of the other examples of her chapter that I have mentioned.
Reading Dr. Albanese's book will further educate the informed, pose pointed questions to the possible disbeliever, and equip a teacher with material that belongs in a classroom either through direct reading, lecture, or excerpts at apt moments. With twenty pages of thoughtful annotated suggestions for further reading, the book becomes a must. I am reenergized to add a new lens for my students as we begin American Literature in the fall. Religion and nature have always been integral to the course. Now a missing link: nature religion.
review ©2002 by Karen N. Stephens and RSiSS
Seabury Hall
Makawao, Hawaii