Adrian Harris

This research seeks to understand better the role of nature connection in preparing for and integrating psychedelic journeys. This research phase is focused on non-Indigenous contexts, so I am to interviewing guides working at Western psychedelic retreats and integration coaches/therapists. This interdependent research project has not been assessed...

Existing recommendations for preparation and integration frequently include spending time in nature. Ecopsychology supports this suggestion as the research has demonstrated that nature connection can: • improve overall mood; • reduce stress levels; • enhance creativity; • support cognitive processing and facilitate mindfulness. This poster presents...

I proposes that the modernist worldview that we have inherited is deeply flawed, and that animism offers a more sustainable way of being for the present time, one which is deeply relational and embodied, one which engenders a deep respect for the other-than-human world. This embodied way of knowing is nurtured by relational imagination. The explora...

Although outdoor therapy has emerged as a significant practice, there is very little research into what impact it might have on the therapeutic relationship. This research confirmed the relevance of all the themes discussed in the extant literature and identified two significant new themes; 'the turning point' and 'transference'. The research ident...

Many eco-pagans explain their intimate relationship with aspects of the natural environment in terms of spirits of place. Such relationships emerge from a situated embodied knowing that enables eco-pagans to think with place; the ambiguity of that phrase is productive. While this process consists in both using a place as a tool to think with and th...

I undertook this interview in March 2014 as part of my research into the impact that working outdoors has on the therapeutic relationship. Although David and I have edited the original transcript to clarify key points and manage the word limit, it remains largely unchanged. Of the four interviews I undertook, this was the most philosophical and ill...

Gendlin’s focusing emerged from person-centered research and is widely used within person-centered and experiential therapy. An increasing number of people are now practicing focusing in the natural environment. In this paper I develop key aspects of my doctoral research to investigate the significance of this practice. My research suggests that fo...

Cross Bones is an unconsecrated graveyard in south London that is the final resting place of around 15,000 bodies, mostly paupers and prostitutes. These are the outcast dead, unnamed and largely forgotten until construction workers began to unearth their bones in the early 1990s. A local urban Shaman became inspired by one of the spirits of Crossbo...

My fieldwork with activists living on UK protest camps revealed the impact of spending extended periods of time in the organic environment. The wilderness effect – previously described in the context of US treks in places like the Grand Canyon – was apparent even in comparatively urban environments and catalysed a spiritual emergence for several pe...

Paganism and Neopaganism include contemporary spiritual practices and religions that celebrate and revere nature. Pagans honor their sacred relationship with Earth and all that lives on Earth. The principles of their Earth-based spirituality foster sustainable lifestyles and provide the basis for the discussion and formulation of an ethics of susta...

After a brief but useful foreword from Hutton, the editors provide a comprehensive introduction that sets out themes. The next 11 chapters fall into three unequal parts, all of which offer fine contributions so I'll focus on representative highlights. Section 1, "Histories and Reflections" (p. 11), includes Ezzy and Berger's rich discussion of Paga...

Debate continues about how to define Paganism, but it is generally agreed that it is a 'nature religion'. Unsurprisingly, Pagans are widely supposed to be environmentally active, and the Dictionary of Contemporary Religion in the Western World goes so far as to say, "Paganism is an ecological faith tradition, a nature-centric spirituality that seek...

Most of this essay has been entirely co-written by M. Macha NightMare and Adrian Harris. For the section on Neopagan Ritual in Practice, however, we wanted to offer a more personal expression of this experiential spirituality. To that end NightMare speaks there of her own experience of the Reclaiming Tradition. As practicing Neopagans we temper man...

Dragon was founded in London in 1990 to link environmental action with a magical practice called “eco-magic.” Founding members sought a practical expression of the pagan belief that “the Earth is sacred.” The Dragon Network resists a final definition. Although the Network has specific principles, it encourages constant reinterpretation and ultimate...

This chapter explores the role of Paganism in the environmental drama and argues that it can revolutionise how our culture makes sense of reality. After a brief survey of Deep & Social Ecology, the chapter considers the power of a somatic way of knowing that moves beyond the cerebral to bring us to a direct experience of wholeness rooted in the bod...

Our cultural body is clearly sick, but what disease hides behind the symptoms? I believe the answer lies in a Patriarchal dualism at the heart of what we take to be common sense, & the beginning of a cure is to be found in the relationship between sex, ecology & the sacred. This paper provides a brief overview of my continuing research into this re...

Although embodied knowing is fundamental to our experience, no previous study has detailed its role in a specific spiritual group. This thesis offers a new model of embodied situated cognition, and develops an embodied hermeneutics which uses Focusing in phenomenological research. I apply these tools to the first detailed ethnography of Eco-Paganis...