The planned expansion of the human presence on our moon demands that we reconsider our relationships with our planet’s partner. Threats to the moon such as those engendered by mining encourage the preservation of various precious areas of our moon’s surface through the emplacement of international multiuse land reserves. Arising from tested env…[Read more]

One of the more important things that we can learn from space exploration is how to love lifeless stuff. We generally are taught by our cultures to love life but not be too concerned with nonlife. However, in our present understanding, within the solar system only the Earth has life. If we are to care for places like our amazing moon and be…[Read more]

A 2020 scientific report indicated the presence of phosphine, a potential biosignature chemical, in the atmosphere of Venus. As a result, Venus instantly became a global cultural celebrity. How did Venus become so fashionable, so cool in colloquial language, so quickly? I contend that Venus became the center of attention at least temporarily…[Read more]

This essay concerns the process of how we develop astrobiological morals by examining some of the compromises within ethical argumentation. I illustrate these compromises by turning to Saturn’s moon Titan to provide an ethical theory challenge in terms of protecting Titan life, should life be found there, as well as protecting the habitats of t…[Read more]

Today more than ever we need a robust set of environmental ethics that can steer us in positive directions, and Buddhism, with its practices like animal release rituals, can provide us with at least some of the moral ecological guidance that we require. Yet, like with all systems of ethics, Buddhist environmental ethics sometimes do not lead to…[Read more]

A number of scientific writers have proposed manipulating the ecology of Mars in order to make the planet more comfortable for future immigrants from Earth. However, the ethical acceptability of such ‘terraforming’ proposals remains unresolved. In response, in this article I explore some of these scientific proposals through the lens pro…[Read more]

Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default nonharm toward potential living beings, default…[Read more]

Current calls to protect the Martian environment with “Planetary Parks” maintain environmental merit. However, they lack a sufficiently urgent timeframe for initiating protection as well as a robust scientific method for the establishment of noteworthy Martian natural landmarks as natural reserves. In response, if we return to the seminal env…[Read more]

The expansion of the use of ethnography in the study of religion has led to substantial methodological confusion. The reflexive ethnographic efforts that exist commonly appeal to the need for ethnographer empathy for field subjects, although the nature and ethical ramifications of this empathy remain poorly explored. This essay offers a model of…[Read more]

This article explores the relationships of non-Tibetan American disciples with Tibetan spiritual teachers (lamas) in terms of theory, practice, and experiential meaning. Contrary to some previous studies, data for this article indicate that submission to the lama is not an end in itself, but rather ideally provides an opportunity for disciples to…[Read more]

This essay offers an alternative, self psychological model for understanding the possible healing dynamics of the guru-disciple relationship. Previous psychological studies often have interpreted the devotion of Americans to Eastern gurus as inherently enriching pathology for the disciple, yet this understanding does not helpfully explicate much…[Read more]

This study employs ethnographic field data to trace a dialogue between the self‐psychological concept of the self object and experiences regarding the concept of “interbeing” at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery in the United States. The dialogue develops an understanding of human experiences with the nonhuman natural world which are tensive, limin…[Read more]

In current debates about Buddhist approaches to the non-human natural world, studies describe Buddhism variously as anthropocentric, bio-centric or eco-centric. These perspectives derive for the most part from examinations of philosophical and normative aspects of the tradition without much attention to moments when embodied practice diverges from…[Read more]

Groundhog Day animal weather forecasting ceremonies continue to proliferate around the United States despite a lack of public confidence in the oracles. This essay probes religio-historical and original ethnographic perspectives to offer a psychological argument for why these ceremonies exist. Employing Paul Shepard’s notion of a felt loss of s…[Read more]

Religious experiences with sacred nonhuman natural beings considered to be “persons” remain only vaguely understood. This essay provides a measure of clarification by engendering a dialogue between psychoanalytic self psychology on one side and, on the other, religious experiences of cattle and Tulsi plants as holy mothers at a Hindu cattle san…[Read more]

Myriad instances of animist phenomena abound in the Buddhist world, but due to the outdated concepts of thinkers such as Edward Tylor, James George Frazer, and Melford Spiro, commonly scholars perceive this animism merely as the work of local religions, not as deriving from Buddhism itself. However, when one follows a number of contemporary…[Read more]

This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It suggests that many Americans become Tibetan Buddhists because of satisfying long-term relationships that they develop with Tibetan religious teachers, or lamas. To reach this conclusion, life stories of several practitioners were collected in the course…[Read more]

In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bringers of spiritual or material gifts, gods, guardian spirits, or sacred ancestors. Sometimes natural entities are holy models for emulation, kin who share human souls, arbiters of virtue and vice, or partners in the project of existence. At other times…[Read more]