Customer Reviews

Sacred Nature: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings

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I bought this book because I'm fascinated by the inspiration that wild places can offer sensitive pilgrims. And this book, I must say, offers precisely that, and so much more. I admire the difficult questions that Cooper tackles, and I also admire how he refuses to leave us with any easy answers. I also like the mastery with which we are taken into the details of ecological science as well as the depths of mystical experience, but always so beautifully and clearly. And that alone is more than enough reason to praise this book so highly! Great scholarship, explained clearly.

Give this book a chance to grow on you. Be patient with it! You may find it in the mind, body, spirit section of your book shop, and you may think "maybe not for me". But don't be put off. It shouldn't be in any one section, really. This book tells biographical stories of pilgrimage, so that's one section for it. But then again, it talks about wilderness ecology, so why isn't in science too? But then again, we're also treated in Adrian Cooper's masterpiece to ancient history, psychological insight, political activism, economic commentary and so much more. Often, it's the links and boundaries between these themes that fascinated me, and where Adrian Cooper proves himself to be such a master of his many subjects.

I recommend Adrian Cooper's book to all students and lovers of the sacredness which this planet inspires.

But this is a ground breaking book. There is more than a single author's voice here. Adrian Cooper uses the interviews he's done over the last 15 years with other travellers and scholars who have all been changed by their experiences in mountains, deserts, tropical forests, frozen landscapes and ocean journeying.

But there are more voices here than these modern and post-modern souls. There are the other writers, extracts of whose work are peppered throughout these pages, all of whom have given the interviewed travellers an added dimension to their pilgrimage experiences.

Making sense of all this dialogue between ecology and spirituality, past and present is a task Adrian Cooper has addressed with brilliant clarity and scholarship. He has a real gift for explaining the most complex of subjects and problems clearly and engagingly without losing sight of the wonder and awe of these same themes.

But there is more to this book than the words themselves. It should be read by every man, woman and child simply for the challenges it presents. Sacred Nature should start a global shock wave. Let me explain. Religious leaders, TV producers, newspaper and magazine editors and school and college teachers all neglect the importance of appreciating the holism of the subjects Cooper examines. Why, for example, do church ministers rarely preach on the themes of sacred earth? Why are they not at the heart (or front) of conservation movements? Why too do TV producers fail to grasp the potential for NEW PROGRAMMES which look at this fascinating but valuable connection between natural history and faith. Discovery Channel, please take note. There is a vast, rich, fascinating wealth of ideas for endless programmes from sacred mountains to sacred deserts and sacred rivers etc etc etc. I pray these people will read Adrian Cooper's book. He has identified a major need for change in the media and therefore in our lives. We will become re-educated at a time we need it most. Presented correctly, these new programmes and newspaper and magazine articles will help us to un-learn redundant ways of thinking and believing about this planet, and open our eyes and other senses to what there is here, and what we can do to celebrate it and conserve it.

A SUPERB BOOK.

Sincerely yours,

Sophie Fergusson

This is Adrian Cooper's second book. I loved the first, Sacred Mountains: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings, but here, Cooper surpasses that first achievement.

The book was developed since 1985, when Adrian Cooper began interviewing 150 pilgrims from all over the world about their experiences of finding sacredness in wilderness places. The finished book therefore includes short extracts from these interviews along with Cooper's clear and authoritative commentary.

This book is totally different to pretty much every other sacred ecology / creation spirituality book I've ever read. First, Cooper's book combines so much. There is the combination of ancient history with modern experience. All the texts and scriptures which these 150 pilgrims found helpful to their journeys into, and through, the wilderness are included in the book for others to contemplate.

I really admire the way Cooper has combined a discussion of ecology with faith. The ecological nature of wilderness areas asks penetrating questions of everyones faith who took part in this book. And vice verse, faith asks new and difficult questions of science. You can't deny either of these major themes. Both sides of this balance of ecology and faith are vitally important to sacred nature.

But Adrian Cooper doesn't stop with his debate and tension between science and faith. He looks at the bi-products of that age-old interaction. So we're lead into paths of anthropology, psychology, politics and education. The last two are particularly important for just about all these pilgrims. Why? Because the sacredness of wilderness is not restricted to the wilderness areas. Instead, they follow the pilgrims home. Haunting them and challenging them all the time to change the way they make sense of their world. For parents, they often want to change the education of their children, and so they start lobbying for changes in curricula at PTA meetings. Others get themselves onto community projects and community radio, to tell other neighbourhoods how they personally have felt changed by their wilderness experiences. In this book, Adrian Cooper discusses all these many themes.

Finally, but no less importantly, I admire the way Adrian Cooper holds all these many themes and threads together. He does it by appreciating the power of language. After all, how else do we think, or talk or write about sacred nature, or anything, if not through language. So Cooper traces the importance of the language associated with sacred nature. He looks at how pilgrims learn and negotiate their understanding of sacred nature as well as the opportunities to get out there. He looks at the politics and economics of this language of sacred nature. It's fascinating, and he explains it so clearly!

So ultimately this is scholarship of the very highest calibre explained so anyone can understand it. My only regret is that I wasn't a part of Cooper's interview groups. I've thought about them a lot. And I imagine the atmosphere of sharing and learning from each other - it must have been brilliant.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Sincerely yours,

Jean King

Adrian Cooper's excellent book says so much about the current debate over Earth and Natural Sciences, and their relationship to mysticism. But he does not look at just the elitist writers and thinkers in their ivory towers of academia. What he does is to listen to ordinary people. That is the book's first value - it breaks down the barriers around science and religion and opens them up to a much wider debate. From that openning, Cooper moves on to ask and answer many other fascinating questions such as "Why do the intricacies of ecology inspire a mystical reverence among more and more people today?" The answers are complex, but Cooper explains them superbly. Like the other reviewers of this book, I recommend Adrian Cooper's wonderful work to everyone across the world.

I agree with all the other reviews on this page, but I wanted to share a short story about this book which is special to me. As a single mother, I often struggle to get my kids into their school work. So imagine my surprise when my daughter Jane actually picked up my copy of Sacred Nature, and started to read. An hour later, she was still reading it. Within a week, she'd finished, and now can't stop talking about it. Thank you so much Adrian Cooper, from one grateful Mom out here in Kansas!

Adrian Cooper has worked a miracle with Sacred Nature: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings. He successfully communicates some of the most intricate, complex and important connections between science and mysticism, ancient history and modern experience. Do you love wild places? Do you value them for their meditative qualities? If so, read this book. It will inspire you. It will inform you, and it will make you want to share it with your friends.

Adrian Cooper's name will become one of the giants of sacred ecology over the coming years. I would therefore like to place my name among the many who already admire and recommend his work when ever possible. There is poetry in his words as well as fascinating ecological science. He is a historian, a geographer and anthropologist. His words keep haunting me, as they do so many others, with their dazzling insights and clarity. He will surely become one of the greats of our time.

Yes, all these other reviewers have it right. Adrian Cooper has produced a masterpiece. For any one whose imagination leads them to explore the full dimensions of ecology, this is a must read. For everyone frustrated by the modern urban smothering of instinctive, deep searching, Cooper's book will be a revelation. For everyone, I recommend it completely and heartily.

Cooper's manner of explanation is so clear it takes a while before the reader (or at least me) realised what an incredible universe of ideas we're being led into. If I have to pick one centre point, it's the way Cooper constructs the notion of pilgrimage and allies it to politics and personal growth. Can we really resist the ways in which we are subtly subordinated? The pilgrims who Cooper interviews suggests we can. Does this political resistance interact with psycho-analytical self-understanding? Again, the interviews in this magnificant and fascinating book suggest it to be the case. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED