Joseph received his revelation in a wooded grove.
Moses received the tablets on a mountain peak.
Muhammad in a mountain cave.
Buddha under a bodhi tree.
The origin stories of many religious traditions involve an encounter with divine truth in the natural world. It is for this reason that a number of saints, hermits, and ascetics take to deserts, mountains, and woods in search of contact with the great mystery.
Why do most religious rituals today involve being packed into temples and churches?
Places of worship can be beautiful. We often go to great pains to adorn such spaces with art and music. Yet, in that beauty lies a hidden irony: when adherents of most major religions go to worship, the preference is for enclosure in human handiwork over that of God’s.
If the goal is to worship deeply, to draw closer to that which is divine, why not follow the examples of religious adepts and go out into nature?
To be fair, there are examples in Abrahamic religions of practices that consistently take place outside and in solitude. However, by and large these occur in mystical or monastic traditions. Broadly, when we look at the history of religion, at least in Western culture, the rule of thumb we might draw is this: If you want to start a religion, you best go outdoors. If you want to keep your religion, you best bring it back in.
In his seminal essay "Mysticism and Religious Authority," Gershom Scholem observed the perennial struggle between religious authority and mystical authority. Mystics of all traditions claim direct contact, and even identification, with the divine. Yet if a mystic truly receives their revelations from absolute authority, then religious leaders would have to bow to their words. New books might have to be written. New psalms. The mystics would have the run of the show.
In response, traditional religious authority, Scholem observes, tries to control and mitigate mystical experience. Some modes of contact with the divine are deemed legitimate, and others illegitimate.
An abundance of prophets without institutional supervision would create an unstable foam of revelation that would create confusion and put institutional authority in a constant state of flux.
In the eyes of institutional religion, mystical and even prophetic encounters are fine, says Scholem, so long as these experiences fit within the established structure of their tradition. When they don't, there can be conflict between mystic and institution.
Joseph Smith’s revelation in the woods is a clear example of such a prophetic eruption. His revelation did not sit within Christianity; it rocketed out beyond its limits. He was met with severe persecution.
What does this have to do with how we practice? How do we conduct rituals?
Today, nature is a great reckoner. It is also a great source of spiritual power.
Conducting rituals in the wild, I believe, reveals a way to rejuvenate our religions and change our relationship with the natural world at a time when such a change is desperately needed.
The most powerful form of ritual is that which allows us direct contact with the divine. Today, these are commonly referred to as mystical experiences.
Professor Ralph Hood at the University of Tennessee, who studies the dynamics of mystical experience, maintains that the two most powerful triggers of such experiences are:
1) Solitude
2) Nature
Being alone in nature, while not the only way, is one of the most reliable methods to access these states.
This contact, as I've said earlier, is politically unstable. Paradoxically, it's also a key tension for religious institutions.
Scholem writes that when religious institutions have become brittle and stale, it is precisely the mystics and their potent innovation that revitalize the cracking earth of a religion.
Right now, religious institutions are at risk of “freezing into dead forms” as Scholem puts it. Yet they have an immense opportunity in turning to the natural world as a setting and source of worship.
Organizations like Seminary of the Wild, Church of Lost Walls, and Wild Village, among others, are doing this work already. These groups are emerging within a wilderness guide tradition that seeks to bring individuals out into the natural world with the aim of ritual that facilitates direct encounter with their soul, and the soul of the world.
These groups offer an exciting new vision for what "church" looks like.
Rituals that put us in touch with these forces and embody them in our lives—these are rituals worth doing.
Traditional religions repeatedly urge their followers to walk in the footsteps of their founders. And those footsteps, more often than not, lead out into nature.
Daniel Lev Shkolnik is a spiritual guide and Jungian coach.
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