Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia Paperback – March 5, 2009

"... our belonging to Gaia happens through our senses, our feelings, and perhaps most importantly our intuition ... Let these be the gateways into our new sense of belonging in a living world, and let our reason take its rightful place as the servant of this deeper, more intoxicating knowledge."This beautiful thought by Harding can be taken as a concise expression of the thesis of his book. Within the book, science is taken no less seriously; it's merely rephrased narratively so that when you're finished following a carbon atom through its 200-million-year cycle of participation in various earthly communities you can actually identify with it. And identification is the first step toward empathy and respect.In polymathic fashion, Harding repeats this feat on up the ladder of complexity, ranging through microbes and fungi all the way up to ecosystems and the entire ecosphere. And once there is even a vague sense of identification, the ecological crisis of our time is no longer just an abstract scientific fact but rather a felt empathic sense of pain and a moral call to action.With respect to the short spiritual meditations on nature that are interspersed throughout the book, I feel a sense of kinship with Harding - and he has introduced me to places that my own spiritual nature travels have missed. This, despite the fact that Harding appears to adhere to a panpsychic metaphysics (not my cup of tea, but the tangent was short and so did not diminish the rest of the work for me).This book is full of beautiful thoughts, but it's really that first beautiful thought that has so resonated with me - so much so that I feel the need to repeat it:"... our belonging to Gaia happens through our senses, our feelings, and perhaps most importantly our intuition ... Let these be the gateways into our new sense of belonging in a living world, and let our reason take its rightful place as the servant of this deeper, more intoxicating knowledge."Thank you, Stephan Harding. Thank you.

I purchased Animate Earth for research into a documentary I was making on the Gaia theory and permaculture, I was so impressed by it I ended up naming my film after one of the chapters, Anima Mundi and used an interview with Stephan Harding in my documentary discussing elements from the book. Stephan is one of the most popular characters from Anima Mundi, he is a wonderfully intelligent and lovably eccentric scientist who adds a sense of wonder, awe and excitement to Earth Systems Science. The Gaia theory can be seen by some folk as hocus-pocus science but with Animate Earth, Stephan brings us closer to understanding, appreciating and recognising the Earth as a life-form on the scale of a whole planet.animamundimovie.com

I'm looking forward to reading this book, but on a brief perusal of it I note that Viktor Schauberger is not even mentioned. I consider him to be a prime forerunner of Gaian theory. His awareness of natural interdependent systems was profound; for example the inter-relationship between forests and weather. And his acute descriptions of water and the development of rivers as they arise from springs, and their need to run in snakelike patterns, etc.demonstrates the intelligence, needs and intents of living water. Moreover, his method was based on what could be called extreme intuition and a manner of observation reminiscent of Goethe's way of scientific observation, from which much can be learned - and Goethe is mentioned only briefly in this book. (There are a number of papers on Goethe's science at The Nature Institute) The omission of Schauberger and his inspiring work is a surprising and serious flaw.Anyone interested in the animate Earth should read, at least, Living Energies, by Callum Coats - an introduction to V. Schauberger's work.

After reading David Abram's book "The Spell of the Sensuous" this book takes the subject even further.. Written by an Oxford Phd in Ecological Sciences.. the book explains the notion of Gaia in very understandable and compelling terms.. A must read for anyone who feels the direction that the scientific community has been taking for 400 years is misguided and lacking in a most crucial ethical standard.. the fact that everything in our field of sensory comprehension is actually as much alive as we are..

Great book in great shape. Seller was good at answering my questions.

Very original, deeply insightful and informative book about our world and us humans. Mr Harding is a unique polymath and synthesizer of seemingly distant areas of knowledge and understanding.

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eye-opening

The author stoop up to the challenge of presenting such a complex subject in a very accessible manner. Beyond dry science, the aim of this book is to raise a profound awareness about the world that surrounds us and takes us on trips designed to make us actually FEEL what ecology is about. The spiritual point of view that comes with it makes for a very unusual yet extremely valuable combination. This book does not only teach how the world works and how every part in it is deeply related to its environment, but also why it matters. I study environmental engineering and believe it is a very important read for anyone (to understand how it works) and people of the field (to understand why it matters) alike. Some parts are a little technical although in general it is very easy to read and feels more like a novel than a scientific text. Very well researched!

Stephan Hardings Buch "Animate Earth" ist ein Sonderfall: hier schreibt ein promovierter Naturwissenschaftler, der auch noch Poet und Philosoph ist. Es geht um den Nachweis, das unsere Erde ein hochkomplexes selbstregulierendes System ist, in dem biologische, chemische und geologische Sphären miteinander agieren, um etwa seit Millionen von Jahren die Temperatur ungefähr gleich zu halten. Ein Wunderwerk der Feinabstimmung höchst unterschiedlicher Komponenten, wie ein subtiler Tanz oder eine Choreographie. Harding belegt dies nicht nur mit vielen gründlich recherchierten Fakten, sondern macht es auch sinnlich und emotional erlebbar. Dadurch erscheint die Erde mit ihren Bergen, Tieren, Flüssen und Pflanzen wie ein gigantisches Lebewesen, dem wir uns auch mit dementsprechenden Gefühlen (Fürsorge, Bewunderung, innere Verbundenheit, Staunen) nähern müssen. Harding arbeitet heraus, dass die neuzeitliche Sicht auf Natur als tote Materie erst in der jüngeren Geschichte entstanden ist. Es ist keine wissenschaftliche Wahrheit, sondern eine (metaphysische) Setzung, die im 17. Jahrhundert aus bestimmten Gründen notwendig war, heute aber zu desaströsen Folgen (Öko-Krise, Klimaerwärmung, Wald- und Artensterben etc.) führt. Daher fordert er eine neue Sicht auf Natur und eine neue Sprache, die unsere emotionale und spirituelle Beziehung zur Erde immer mitdenkt. Bereits Atome, Zellen, Mikroben und Algen sind handelnde, beseelte "Wesen", die am Aufbau und am Zusammenhalt der ganzen Ökologie mitarbeiten: jedes chemische Element hat eine andere "Persönlichkeit" (leidenschaftlich, besonnen, mehr oder weniger kooperativ etc.) und geht mit anderen höchstlebendige Interaktionen ein, die nicht nur in Begriffen, sondern auch in Bildern beschrieben werden können. Eine spannende und anrührende Gratwanderung zwischen Biologie, Literatur, Philosophie und Spiritualität, die dringend ins Deutsche übersetzt werden müsste.

I bought this book for a module for my Geography degree programme. This book was brilliant. Not a chore to read in the slightest. Full of interesting thoughts and facts and never a dull page. The book was neither pushy nor vague about its opinions. Easy to read whether you may be a lecturer, casual scientist, student, or just someone who is interested in the subject. Absolutely brilliant book - I cannot recommend it enough!Its not many 'university texts' that I would happily start again as soon as I'd finished reading it. I would recommend this to all my friends and family who have even the vaguest interest in the subject.Brilliant!

A wonderful blend of science and spirituality, with practical exercises to help bridge that gap that we often wrongly assume.

A really accessible book that gives me hope that humanity can learn about the world in a scientific but less dry dispassionate way than your usual scientific research and books and that we could live in a more sustainable relationship with earth. I found this book like a breath of fresh air and definitely recommend it.