I didn't know Stephan Harding well, but the fruits of his work -- especially his books and Schumacher College -- have influenced me a lot. It is with sadness that I'd like to note that Harding, a brilliant zoologist and ecologist who pioneered many novel ideas about a living Earth, passed away on September 2 at age 71.
Harding was often mentioned in the same breath as James Lovelock, the environmental scientist and Gaia theorist with whom he closely worked. Dr. Harding was also revered as the "wisdom-keeper and guardian" of Schumacher College's vision and mission, as a Wikipedia entry notes, no doubt because he showed a quiet resolve, courage, and imagination in his scholarship and teaching.
Harding helped found Schumacher College in 1991 with Satish Kumar and other progressive activists and scholars. Based in Devon, England, the College was a storied hothouse that hosted legendary thinkers such as Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Matthew Fox, Joanna Macy, Vandana Shiva, Jonathan Porritt, Charlene Spretnak, George Monbiot, and Helena Norberg Hodge.
Over the course of more than three decades, the College produced more than 20,000 alumni who learned about, and helped develop, the fields of ecology, philosophy, climate science, economics, design, art, and sustainability. A wonderful video from 1994 shows Harding explaining the mission and ambitions of Schumacher College.
As a beloved teacher and elder, Harding in his person embodied much of the temperament, intelligence, and idealism that the College sought to impart to its students. As Dave Hampton, a former student, remembered: "The college represented so much more than anything in education. If we called it a 'church' that would have been closer. Was it a shrine? Where people came to worship Gaia? In my psyche it was a space where permission was given to care deeply. To remember the scared, together. To live sustainable, together. And to all eat, around equal tables of four, as equals."
It is a poignant coincidence that the charity that hosted Schumacher College, the Dartington Hall Trust, withdrew its financial support from the College a few days before Harding's death, propelling it into uncertain waters.
We are now bereft of Harding's venturesome mind and presence, and Schumacher College must bravely reinvent itself on a new financial foundation. (For more on this endeavor, here is a crowdfunding webpage. Here is an account of the College's open statement on the Dartington Hall Trust's decision.)
In May 2022, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stephan Harding for my Frontiers of Commoning podcast (Episode #27). I was disarmed by his calm, courtly demeanor as he offered bold but rigorously presented scientific claims about Gaia. Our conversation focused on his then-recently published book, Gaia Alchemy: The Reuniting of Science, Psyche, and Soul, which was a sequel of sorts to his 2006 book, Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia (released in a second edition in 2016).
In both books, Harding explored how consciousness, emotions, and spirituality are embedded in physical matter. The subjectivity of life is not a side-story, he argued, but a driving force in the biophysical evolution of life itself.
Gaia Alchemy took the claims of Animate Earth to new levels, explaining how human consciousness and feelings are themselves deeply entangled with Gaia as a living entity. “The [human] psyche takes part in the wider psyche of nature,” Harding asserted, arguing as a scientist that humans must develop richer, more holistic perceptions and understandings. Much of Gaia Alchemy looks at Gaia through the lens of Jungian depth psychology and the collective unconscious. Harding also invoked medieval history and premodern alchemists to show how their observations and visual imagery can help us understand Gaia better.
Harding's larger mission was to teach people to see nature as a living system, one in which we are personally embedded and for which we have responsibilities. He wanted to overcome the human/nature divide and Cartesian rationalism that for 400 years has insisted that nature is separate, distinct and subordinate to humanity. He wanted to synthesize a new metaphysics and epistemology for modern science.
If we stand on the shoulders of giants in reaching new heights, Stephan Harding was surely one of those giants who ushered us to the thresholds of new insight. Thank you, Stephan, for all that you shared with us!
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