xxix
Introduction to the Book
Julia Wright
If you talk to animals, they will talk with you
and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them you will not know them
and what you do not know you will fear.
What one fears one destroys.
My Heart Soars’ from The Best of Chief Dan George, copyright 2004 by Hancock House Publishers
Ltd., ISBN 978-088839-544-3, used with permissions – www.hancockhouse.com.
THE NATURE OF THE INVISIBLE: RECONCILING SCIENCE
AND SPIRITUALITY
This book examines the principles and practices of farming and food systems from the perspective
that half of life is not visible to us. Everything that we know (and do not know) about the physical
world has an invisible, subtle counterpart that has been scarcely considered in the farming practices
or research of modernist cultures. Subtle Agroecologies is not a farming system in itself, but superimposes a non-material dimension upon existing, materially based agroecological farming systems.
By visible, we are talking about that which is physical and material, things that can be observed
and measured. Seeing the world chiefly as matter, and also as operating according to mechanical
laws, is characteristic of the Newtonian – Cartesian philosophical paradigm of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Yet even during this period, philosophers and scientists were continuing
to hold, explore and debate a range of other theories and beliefs of a non-material nature. Newton
himself, for example, held deep theological interests covering alchemy, spirituality and lost Biblical
works (Chambers, 2018), and historian John Brooke provides a fascinating account of how the
development of the secular-material perspective held by modernist societies today was more a factor
of politics and power than of being arrived at through scientific study (Brooke, 1991).
So what do we mean by invisible or non-material? It is that which we cannot see or initially perceive
with our five basic senses, a dimension that may be described in secular terms as involving vibrational
energy, consciousness, ether, sentience/intelligence and/or electromagnetic or sound waves/ frequencies.
Research advances continue to open up a broader and deeper understanding of this dimension, including
through the disciplines of quantum mechanics, consciousness and phenomenological studies, bioelectromagnetics, chronobiology, sonochemistry, neuroscience and transpersonal psychology. Meanwhile,
our lives are increasingly facilitated by the technological applications of such advances.
Independent of scientific advances is the belief in, and experience of, invisible realms and phenomena, ranging from the non-allopathic, energy-based medical systems and the practices of mindfulness and martial arts, to the innate societal recognition of human intuition and premonition. The
majority of the world’s cultures continue to regard the invisible dimension as a matter of course,
and may perceive it as a spirit realm and/or involving subtle forces or entities (Berkes, 1999; Peat,
2005). Even in Western Europe where such a worldview appears not to be the norm and where
such beliefs - and corresponding behaviours and practices - are commonly adopted from other
cultures, relevant indigenous, place-based traditions are being reclaimed and revived, some having
been forced to go underground during certain periods in history (see, e.g., Arlow and Adam, 2011;
Marrable, 2019; Timmons, 2006; Uzzell, 2019).
Introduction to the Book
Julia Wright
If you talk to animals, they will talk with you
and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them you will not know them
and what you do not know you will fear.
What one fears one destroys.
My Heart Soars’ from The Best of Chief Dan George, copyright 2004 by Hancock House Publishers
Ltd., ISBN 978-088839-544-3, used with permissions – www.hancockhouse.com.
THE NATURE OF THE INVISIBLE: RECONCILING SCIENCE
AND SPIRITUALITY
This book examines the principles and practices of farming and food systems from the perspective
that half of life is not visible to us. Everything that we know (and do not know) about the physical
world has an invisible, subtle counterpart that has been scarcely considered in the farming practices
or research of modernist cultures. Subtle Agroecologies is not a farming system in itself, but superimposes a non-material dimension upon existing, materially based agroecological farming systems.
By visible, we are talking about that which is physical and material, things that can be observed
and measured. Seeing the world chiefly as matter, and also as operating according to mechanical
laws, is characteristic of the Newtonian – Cartesian philosophical paradigm of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Yet even during this period, philosophers and scientists were continuing
to hold, explore and debate a range of other theories and beliefs of a non-material nature. Newton
himself, for example, held deep theological interests covering alchemy, spirituality and lost Biblical
works (Chambers, 2018), and historian John Brooke provides a fascinating account of how the
development of the secular-material perspective held by modernist societies today was more a factor
of politics and power than of being arrived at through scientific study (Brooke, 1991).
So what do we mean by invisible or non-material? It is that which we cannot see or initially perceive
with our five basic senses, a dimension that may be described in secular terms as involving vibrational
energy, consciousness, ether, sentience/intelligence and/or electromagnetic or sound waves/ frequencies.
Research advances continue to open up a broader and deeper understanding of this dimension, including
through the disciplines of quantum mechanics, consciousness and phenomenological studies, bioelectromagnetics, chronobiology, sonochemistry, neuroscience and transpersonal psychology. Meanwhile,
our lives are increasingly facilitated by the technological applications of such advances.
Independent of scientific advances is the belief in, and experience of, invisible realms and phenomena, ranging from the non-allopathic, energy-based medical systems and the practices of mindfulness and martial arts, to the innate societal recognition of human intuition and premonition. The
majority of the world’s cultures continue to regard the invisible dimension as a matter of course,
and may perceive it as a spirit realm and/or involving subtle forces or entities (Berkes, 1999; Peat,
2005). Even in Western Europe where such a worldview appears not to be the norm and where
such beliefs - and corresponding behaviours and practices - are commonly adopted from other
cultures, relevant indigenous, place-based traditions are being reclaimed and revived, some having
been forced to go underground during certain periods in history (see, e.g., Arlow and Adam, 2011;
Marrable, 2019; Timmons, 2006; Uzzell, 2019).