This will be an overview --quick but fully-packed.

...a heady trip --in both senses.

Most spiritual philosophies --religions-- are and have been more political than theological. It is time for a democratization of religion. Get it from the people, from the nature we're part of.

GAIA: G-A-I-A (GAH'-EE-AH): The Greek goddess of the Earth, who is best known now as Mother Nature. No goddess-worship here; it's just a symbol. We certainly don't pray to it. We'd hate to imagine a bunch of kooks dancing or sitting in a circle of candles and crystals, praying to "the goddess"! No, think of the idea as Spiritual Ecology. We feel that we must start from knowledge, not fantasy.

The Church is not about crystals, pyramids, UFOs, reincarnation or ghosts... or anything the National Enquirer would be interested in. Here is Standard Disclaimer #1: Gaia has nothing to say of the existence or nonexistence of anybody's particular image of a god. We'll leave that to others.

There is a resistance to getting too deeply into rituals and symbols (see the essay), but they seem inevitable, to some degree. We have designed and copyrighted a banner--a flag, if you will.... When you see it, you can think about how it relates to Gaia.

Who are we?: probably yourself. If you love to --or want to-- garden, you are already a Gaian; if you have any concern about the environment, you are already a Gaian; if you enjoy the best sunsets... you are a Gaian; if you'd like to camp beside a Mountain waterfall surrounded by redwoods... you know.

Earth is the "privileged planet". The entire Earth is your church, which is best exemplified where it is left alone --as in uncut forests. For us, the best "church-bell" is, so to speak, raindrops on onion-tops.

Gaian history does not start with that goddess in ancient Greece. The Gaia Theory ("Hypothesis", then) came about when NASA hired James Lovelock to advise on the Mariner mission to land on Mars. His conclusion --before the flight-- was that there was no life on Mars, as shown by the composition of its atmosphere. Life would add an enormous signature to it: oxygen, methane, etc. I love his phrase for that signature: "Exuberant disequilibrium"!

He concluded that life not merely conformed to conditions thru everyday evolution, but that it modified conditions to suit itself. It's been long known that things like air temperature, ocean salinity, etc., are very far from the equilibrium they'd have without the presence of life.

A friend of his suggested an appropriate name for the Theory: that of the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. Since then, scientific proofs have been found for certain parts of its structure. It takes time to devise and carry out good experiments, so we must be patient.

So, what in the world is Gaia? Gaia is the world. Time for a definition, and I'm sorry for a few overly big words. (Y'know: Never use a big word when a diminutive one will do.)

The Gaia Theory states that: Gaia is the control system created by sum of life-forms on Earth. It isn't just "all life"; it's the system they--we've--made. They modify the system, and they are modified back thru simple, inexorable evolution.

All the life-forms of the Earth synergistically interconnect. That is, they have such an interaction and interdependence that the Earth may be thought of as a single being of many cells. But the important part is that these "cells" blindly affect the environment so that, in total, the ecology is sufficiently controlled by that life. They keep conditions within the certain very narrow bounds that best suit the needs (and survival) of that life. I.E.: we make what we need, even the weather.

Let's put it another way. The organisms feed their various outputs back into the interworkings of nature in such a way as to control it. They're self-serving but unthinkingly automatic. They evolved responses to the environment that serve selfish interests. With few exceptions, these selfish interests are in the best interests of all life.

Despite the dry definition, this is awesome. We're part of this amazingly intricate system, and we are an expression of it, whether you call it God or nature.

These things can only be learned by the ego-free process known as the Scientific Method. We see science differently --not as something cold. I may surprise you with the following. Science has the proper religious respect... in that its practitioners ritually find a way to ask, without ego or prejudice, questions that humbly let nature (things as they are) make its own pure revelations. ... They keep quiet (but active) and listen carefully. By repetition and analysis, they zero in on the facts. Science is leery of ideas we merely wish to be true, and we all need to be doubly suspicious and demand double proof of such things.

That is the scientific side of Gaia. There is an emotional side, too. Finally, we've arrived at a stage where we can blend science and religion; what we've all thought was impossible. Gaia blends the best of men and women, or at least the stereotypes thereof; of our right and left brain; rational and emotional. The emotional side is... the best word we have is "AWE".

Our awareness of this awesome totality, and the acceptance that "as it is (was) is the best that it can be", leads us, individually and in total, to behaviors best in accord with the continuity of life on Earth, and our best enjoyment of it. Isn't it fortunate: the best thing we can do for the Earth is to enhance our pleasure in its nature. We think that ecstatic wonder is our birthright, and help each other toward it.

We will devise and evolve a culture within the larger set of cultures; one that will best suit, entertain, and assist in the personal growth of our members.

The Gaia Theory seems a perfect metaphor for our design of a nature-centered cultural framework, one on which we can develop an ethical, just, and altruistic system of values that we can live by, and that others may find useful.

Gaia cannot help but engender a moral system --but one based on nature. This is fascinating, but very difficult. On the personal level, the Society's main question is: what is true human nature? On the other hand, what is "evil"? And have I kind of defined evil by saying it's "on the other hand" from nature? ... Hmm? (See "Love and Evil")

Is our human nature... altruistic? We want to know if the evils of the world are --as I suspect-- simply compounded of ego, ignorance, and of virtues that are taken to excess --and that these compound not by addition, but multiply each other --a negative synergy. (Part of the above after Rev. Forrester Church. Yes, that's truly his name --how appropo for here. Son of former Senator Frank Church.)

Also... (another essay) we want to know how we can we do more good than harm. I'm put in mind of the Star Trek Prime Directive: non-interference. It is not a simple question, and it's so easy to do more harm.... We don't know, but it's possible, for instance, that Mother Teresa --with the finest of motives-- has done more harm than good. But that too is another essay --one of those on population.

One function of a church is to confer a feeling of safety. We can't and won't do that. Want not to. (see "Insecurity") One way to confer safety is to say things are stable, even when they're not.

It has been a function --or method-- of most religions to drag a century behind the science that is known and the behavior that is now vitally necessary. The Gaia Church feels that we can serve the people best with a philosophy that's up to date, especially on mass-misery and mega-death issues like overpopulation.

* Modern Gaia is the ultimate symbiosis. The original use of the term "symbiosis" --mutual benefit-- went scarcely farther than the interactions of two lifeforms (plant and/or animal). Gradually, it became evident that the effects extended throughout the area, then region, and world. A good example of a symbiosis of two partners is the tree in India that is going extinct because of man's extinction of its exclusive seed-gestating bird. There are no young trees of this kind, as the seeds absolutely need the trip thru a bird to germinate. There are vastly larger patterns of symbioses that involve hundreds or thousands of creatures, all interdependent. In the largest scope of the picture, every species of life on Earth is dependent on all the others. Only man has lost its integrity (not integrated) --we no longer mesh with other parts of the whole.

It turns out that the optimists and starry-eyed people thru-out history, coincidently or not, had it (basically) right. The entire world's creatures truly are a single interacting family, even "creature".

As they said in the sixties, we are an expression of the universe! Here, we mean it literally and scientifically.

However, complete proof of the theory isn't really necessary to the church. It has a philosophy so integrated that it would be best for all --all life-- if we acted as if it was true. Life on Earth --including Man-- would benefit greatly from this philosophy. Note, however, that the science of it does seem to be true.

Right now, scientists are busily designing and performing experiments that are translating that vision into knowledge. They've found out that the truth is vastly more awesome than the ancient mythologies. After a few centuries of conflict between science and religion, we have finally accumulated enough knowledge of nature to integrate them. Now, with the eyes of science, we look around and say: "Wow! Look at where we are! We've wandered too far from our place. We've been stumbling around here in fog all this time and didn't know our true surroundings! ...and our connection with it feels spiritual."

Finding our place is what we do. So we have a great "where" for us to find ourselves in: the intricate interworkings of the Gaian "mechanism".

If you feel more comfortable, call Gaia a philosophy, like an ecological Zen. The official Corporation name is Gaia Society and Church, so call it a society if you like, like the National Geographic. Gaia is any of these things, as you please. By the way, it is incorporated as a nonprofit and tax-exempt corporation by the IRS. Now we can really get going.

Gaia the church is what we term a co-religion. Gaia is complimentary, not competitive with the others. With little or no conflict, a person may hold the Gaian philosophy alongside that of most others. We'd like to say all others, but there are some, incredibly, even in today's packed and polluted world, who condone and even encourage what we see as population-crime: producing more than one child per family. Yep, one. More about that another time.

The Society's main thrust ecologically is about the current population crisis. That problem not only subsumes, but dwarfs to insignificance, all other ecological problems.

Our thrust, spiritually, philosophically, is that our place in life, space, time, and scale is... warmly awesome.

Because you can remain a member of your current philosophy/religion... and still call yourself a Gaian, I expect a potential of a billion members. A nice round number. Yes, Billion. If a Billion sounds like a lot of members, consider that they already have these beliefs. They just need a voice and a label for what they already believe, and the feelings they already have.

You can be a Unitarian/Gaian or a Gaian/Methodist, or Gaian/Hindu... or simply a Gaian. We'd appreciate a note to tell us what you'd call yourself; we'd feel honored if "Gaian" is on one side or another of that slash. You can even be 90%/10%, or 80%/70%!

The Gaia Church is for two kinds of people: those who think, and those who feel, and need both. It is not that we believe we have all the answers. Conversely, it is that we try to voice your answers and concerns.

We see a vast crowd that has begun to move strongly in a new direction. It, with you, moves toward ecology, responsibility, and planetary awareness. The global-warming crisis has really brought this to the public attention. But it moves without a central organization that voices their spiritual feelings, their respect for nature, and their longings for a reconciliation --a reunion!-- with it. We have feelings of alienation and isolation from this life, this Earth-mother, and a longing for re-connection, reintegration, like a return to the womb. People seldom realize that we are still in the womb. We are merely born from a small womb to a larger one! From Shakespeare: "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." How did he know?

Your Gaia organization can be the spiritual arrowhead of our moving column, guided by the feelings of our people behind, and by that reunion with nature ahead.

It is not that we try to convince people of our beliefs; it's that we've collected the already-held beliefs that we hear from most all responsible people everywhere.

We expect to appeal first to "Green" kind of people. You watch Nature, Nova, the Learning/Discovery channels? (the last two have some nonsense programs too, unfortunately, like UFO & "paranormal" stuff)... There is a Green political party. We're not political, and we don't --like a political party might do-- take a plank from a religion on this side, and a plank from the one on that. Gaia is a fully-integrated philosophy that follows facts of nature as found by zero-ego science, and feels bowled over by the awesome spectacle revealed.

Beauty --in the eye of the aware-- is life-form that follows function! --and a lifestyle that is not at odds with it. It is emotion flowing out of awareness of our place in this complex of Earthly life.