15
Re-Enchanting Agriculture
of appealing to the secular-materialist worldview, Kieft has synthesised a range of techniques into
three sequential categories:
1. Techniques based on energy and waves – which consider wave–particle duality, the applications of electromagnetism in health care and farming and their infuence on physiological processes in the soil, plants, animals and people;
2. Techniques based on information felds, patterns and light language – which consider the
energetic and informative aspects of nature, and measurements of vitality;
3. Techniques based on intention, intuition and consciousness – which consider subtle energies and how to sense and work with them.
For Kieft, the underlying concept is the relationship between mass, energy and information, and
he throws down the gauntlet for researchers in the quantum sciences to step up to the challenge of
exploring this applied feld.
TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF SUBTLE AGROECOLOGIES
Rather than a farming system in itself, this chapter proposes Subtle Agroecologies as superimposing a non-material dimension upon existing, materially based agroecological farming systems. Crucially, it is grounded in the lived experiences of humans working on, and with, the
land over several thousand years to the present. It is helpful here to return to the concept of
re-enchantment, which was originally used by Max Weber to critique modernist, secularised
Western society (Jenkins, 2000). Historian Morris Berman advances the idea of re-enchanting
the world by proposing that, rather than a return to the animistic traditions that existed prior the
Cartesian era, Western society now needs a more appropriate consciousness which he suggests
as being ecological, one that is grounded in the real and intimate connection between human
and nature (Berman, 1981). In this sense we may conceive of the re-enchanting of agriculture as
a way for people in modernist societies to reclaim their indigenous relationship with the living
landscape they are in, a real-time, place-based relationship which may, therefore, be accessed and
rekindled by anyone, anywhere.
Based on the predominant literature (Kieft, 2019; Lovel, 2014; Moore, 2011), the following is
a collection of techniques, methods, arts and sciences associated with Subtle Agroecologies, presented simply in alphabetical order. This collection is not exhaustive, and many of the terms share
similarities and may be used simultaneously.
Agro-homeopathy, astronomy, biodynamic preparations, bio-electromagnetism, dowsing, ecoalchemy, feng shui/geomancy, interspecies communication, intuition/direct knowing, love, mantras/
chanting, paramagnetism, planting calendars, prayer/intention, radionics, ritual, sacred geometry,
Schumann resonances, sound/ultrasound, teacher plants/psychoactives, water dynamisation.
Kieft (2019) suggests that the secular-materialist mind may be more attracted to those techniques
that are based on energies and waves and that use ‘technology’ as an interface between the perceived
subject and object, over those techniques that depend solely upon the human individual or group
faculties of consciousness which are as yet both undeveloped and more diffcult to scientifcally
validate. It could of course be counter-argued that every technique undertaken by a human being
has an inherent infuence of intention or consciousness, whether or not involving a piece of ‘kit’.
Additionally, although the focus of Subtle Agroecologies is on farming practices, through an
indigenous lens this focus may itself be considered a form of separation from the inextricable
human-nature relationship complex, and Huambachano (2019) refers to the inclusion of additional
activities that celebrate, revere, give thanks for, seek permission or ask a question of, in the form of
dance or other movement, ritual or prayer.
Based on this defnition of the practice of Subtle Agroecologies, its science or research then
follows as the systematic study of the nature of the invisible world as it relates to the practice of
Re-Enchanting Agriculture
of appealing to the secular-materialist worldview, Kieft has synthesised a range of techniques into
three sequential categories:
1. Techniques based on energy and waves – which consider wave–particle duality, the applications of electromagnetism in health care and farming and their infuence on physiological processes in the soil, plants, animals and people;
2. Techniques based on information felds, patterns and light language – which consider the
energetic and informative aspects of nature, and measurements of vitality;
3. Techniques based on intention, intuition and consciousness – which consider subtle energies and how to sense and work with them.
For Kieft, the underlying concept is the relationship between mass, energy and information, and
he throws down the gauntlet for researchers in the quantum sciences to step up to the challenge of
exploring this applied feld.
TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF SUBTLE AGROECOLOGIES
Rather than a farming system in itself, this chapter proposes Subtle Agroecologies as superimposing a non-material dimension upon existing, materially based agroecological farming systems. Crucially, it is grounded in the lived experiences of humans working on, and with, the
land over several thousand years to the present. It is helpful here to return to the concept of
re-enchantment, which was originally used by Max Weber to critique modernist, secularised
Western society (Jenkins, 2000). Historian Morris Berman advances the idea of re-enchanting
the world by proposing that, rather than a return to the animistic traditions that existed prior the
Cartesian era, Western society now needs a more appropriate consciousness which he suggests
as being ecological, one that is grounded in the real and intimate connection between human
and nature (Berman, 1981). In this sense we may conceive of the re-enchanting of agriculture as
a way for people in modernist societies to reclaim their indigenous relationship with the living
landscape they are in, a real-time, place-based relationship which may, therefore, be accessed and
rekindled by anyone, anywhere.
Based on the predominant literature (Kieft, 2019; Lovel, 2014; Moore, 2011), the following is
a collection of techniques, methods, arts and sciences associated with Subtle Agroecologies, presented simply in alphabetical order. This collection is not exhaustive, and many of the terms share
similarities and may be used simultaneously.
Agro-homeopathy, astronomy, biodynamic preparations, bio-electromagnetism, dowsing, ecoalchemy, feng shui/geomancy, interspecies communication, intuition/direct knowing, love, mantras/
chanting, paramagnetism, planting calendars, prayer/intention, radionics, ritual, sacred geometry,
Schumann resonances, sound/ultrasound, teacher plants/psychoactives, water dynamisation.
Kieft (2019) suggests that the secular-materialist mind may be more attracted to those techniques
that are based on energies and waves and that use ‘technology’ as an interface between the perceived
subject and object, over those techniques that depend solely upon the human individual or group
faculties of consciousness which are as yet both undeveloped and more diffcult to scientifcally
validate. It could of course be counter-argued that every technique undertaken by a human being
has an inherent infuence of intention or consciousness, whether or not involving a piece of ‘kit’.
Additionally, although the focus of Subtle Agroecologies is on farming practices, through an
indigenous lens this focus may itself be considered a form of separation from the inextricable
human-nature relationship complex, and Huambachano (2019) refers to the inclusion of additional
activities that celebrate, revere, give thanks for, seek permission or ask a question of, in the form of
dance or other movement, ritual or prayer.
Based on this defnition of the practice of Subtle Agroecologies, its science or research then
follows as the systematic study of the nature of the invisible world as it relates to the practice of