Overview

The primacy of reason and seizures of art and the enlightenment experience are Pelerín's (named for the Métis rascal-pilgrim in Fortney's novel, Ghost Dancing) central concerns in this book of essays. Others are the nature of inspiration, and most importantly, a unique perspective on the relation of science and religion: religion as art. The religious experience is an aesthetic experience, and its methodology is but a form of artistic creativity. Theology, therefore, is poetry or art criticism. The current conflict between science and religion is a false conflict, and must be reassessed as the more familiar relation of science to art. Thus a picture of progressive religion, grounded in science and art, and with a focus on the mystical event, standard in the East, finally emerges as the esoteric inflection of the monotheisms of the Levant and the monist religious expressions of the Far East, particularly in the neo-agnostic Buddhism of Stephen Batchellor. Science is our first magisterium. The enlightenment experience is central. Art is the path to spiritual progress.