Agricultural spiritualism or the Spirit of Agriculture refers to the idea that the concepts of food production and consumption and the essential spiritual nature of humanity are linked. It assumes that spirituality is inherent to human consciousness, is perhaps a product of it, and is accessible to all who cultivate it. The association with agriculture includes such agricultural metaphors as "cultivate" in language used by most mystics across history.
Followers of this idea state the following reasons to justify this link:
- Agriculture was the preoccupation of the majority of the population of the world at the time that the major scriptures of the continuing religions were compiled.
- The approach that agriculture takes to creating the optimal conditions for production of its harvest is the same as that recommended by the traditional religions for producing insight or wisdom.
- Historically, the adoption of agriculture liberated part of a population to focus on understanding of spirituality.
External links
- Spirit of Agriculture - a blog detailing the concept of spiritual agriculture
- The Spirit of Agriculture.com - a web forum on religion, ethics and the agriculture/food system inspired by the book The Spirit of Agriculture (George Ronald, Oxford 2006)
See also
- Religion and agriculture
- Fertility rite
- List of fertility deities
- Earth goddess
- Fall of man#The agricultural revolution