Nature worship also called naturism or physiolatry is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the

worship Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recogni ...

of the nature spirits considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature. A nature deity can be in charge of

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the univers ...

. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs and can be found in

pantheism Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ...

theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referr ...

, panentheism, deism,

polytheism Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, t ...

animism Animism (from Latin: ' meaning ' breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things— animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather syst ...

, totemism, shamanism, paganism, Saridharam, sarnaism, Kirat and Wicca. Common to most forms of nature worship is a spiritual focus on the individual's connection and influence on some aspects of the natural world and reverence towards it.''The New International Encyclopædia'', Volume 14 edited by Daniel Coit Gilman, Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Moore Colby, pp 288-289 Due to their admiration of nature, the works of

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

and Charles Wordsworth were viewed as nature worship.

Forms and aspects of nature worship

* Animal worship *

Fire worship Worship or deification of fire (also pyrodulia, pyrolatry or pyrolatria) is known from various religions. Fire has been an important part of human culture since the Lower Paleolithic. Religious or animist notions connected to fire are assumed ...

Gaia philosophy Gaia philosophy (named after Gaia, Greek goddess of the Earth) is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment in order to make the environment more suitable for ...

* Gavari * Green Man * Holy well *

Megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

* Mountain worship *

Naturalistic pantheism Naturalistic pantheism, also known as scientific pantheism, is a form of pantheism. It has been used in various ways such as to relate God or divinity with concrete things, determinism,Paul Tillich: Theologian of the Boundaries by Paul Tillich, Mar ...

Naturalistic spirituality Spiritual naturalism, or naturalistic spirituality combines a naturalist approach to spiritual ways of looking at the world. Spiritual naturalism may have first been proposed by Joris-Karl Huysmans in 1895 in his book ''En Route''. Coming into ...

* Sacred groves * Sacred herbs * Sacred mountains *

Sky deity The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky. The daytime sky deities are typically distinct from the nighttime ones. Stith Thompson's '' Motif ...

Standing stone A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be fou ...

Star worship Astrotheology, astral mysticism, astral religion, astral or stellar theology (also referred to as astral or star worship) is the worship of the stars (individually or together as the night sky), the planets, and other heavenly bodies as deities, ...

* Stone circle * Thunder god * Totem * Tree worship * Water deity

References

{{Authority control Spirituality

Forms and aspects of nature worship

See also

References