ANIMALS AS KIN: THE RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF MARC BEKOFF'S WORK

Abstract. Although the disciplines of religion and science often may seem to be at cross purposes with each other, some individuals are attempting to bridge the gap, particularly with regard to animals. Cognitive ethologist Marc Bekoff, who studies animals in their natural habitat, has addressed in his work the implications of the findings of animal study for religion and ethics. I provide here an overview of some of his most important ideas for the study of religion and animals. Bekoff argues that the differences between humans and animals are primarily ones of degree rather than kind and that our similarities are greater than our differences‐and that this reality should influence our actions. I explore three issues in particular. First, Bekoff's work, with his view of evolution, challenges the traditional Christian hierarchy of beings. Second, this evolutionary connection needs to move us in the direction of modifying our treatment of animals to make it more ethical. Third, our understanding of and relationship with animals can deepen our own spirituality. Applying some of Bekoff's findings to our religious and ethical understandings of and treatment of animals can move us closer to the peaceable kingdom toward which we all strive.     

THE MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD: BECOMING, CREATIVITY, AND TRANSVERSAL COMMUNICATION

This essay interprets the meaning of one of the cards in aTarot deck, "The Magician," in the context of process philosophy in the tradition of Alfred North Whitehead. It brings into the conversation the philosophical legacy of American semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce as well as French poststructuralist Gilles Deleuze. Some of their conceptualizations are explored herein for the purpose of explaining the symbolic function of the Magician in the world. From the perspective of the logic of explanation, the sign of the Magician is an index of nonmechanistic, mutualist or circular, causality that enables self-organization embedded in coordination dynamics. Its action is such as to establish an unorthodox connection crossing over the dualistic gap between mind and matter, science and magic, process and structure, the world without and the world within, subject and object, and human experience and the natural world, thereby overcoming what Whitehead called the paradox of the connectedness of things. The Magician represents a certain quality that acts as a catalytic agent capable of eliciting transmutations, that is, the emergence of novelty. I present a model for process∼structure that uses mathematics on the complex plane and the rules of projective geometry. The corollary is such that the presence of the Magician in the world enables a particular organization of thought that makes pre-cognition possible.