In Saturday’s DM, I wrote of two persons whom I recently read, who spoke of Original Blessing each in their own powerful way. One was Aaron Stern, who wrote of “innate goodness” that he experienced in music and his love of music as he was growing up in a turbulent household.
The second is Rob Brezsny, who writes about pronoia in his powerful book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.
Each of these authors make a conscious decision in favor of biophilia over necrophilia. Love of life, over love of death, love over hate and despair. Both offer powerful medicine for times like ours, when distress and temptations to despair weigh heavily.
Brezsny defines pronoia as “the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings.” This sort of sounds like “original blessing” to me. And it is not about denial of struggle and evil, but about how to survive both.
He writes: I am rattled. I am aghast. I am in grief about the mayhem and atrocities that the Trump administration and its allies have unleashed upon the world. MAGA is a terrorist theocratic sect. ICE is a secret police force conducting ethnic cleansing….America has been invaded and occupied by a hostile oligarchic death cult.
I don’t toss around these words lightly. They are not hyperbole born of a temporary bad mood. They come from watching the erosion of truth, the demonization of the vulnerable, and the ever-tightening clench of barbaric authoritarian power. Millions of lives are imperiled, the earth is brutalized, and a grotesque parody of faith poisons millions of imaginations.
A “hostile oligarchic death cult” is a powerful way of talking about those who choose necrophilia over biophilia, that is, evil. Erich Fromm says, “necrophilia grows when biophilia is stunted.” Choking biophilia encourages an “oligarchic death cult.” Such a cult is “hostile” and built on hostility.
Consider the philosophy of Nazi philosopher and legalist Carl Schmitt who I wrote about previously, who defines politics as finding enemies. And who deeply influenced Peter Thiel, whose company Palantir is behind ICE and the current vice president. And consider how the current president committed to using the DOJ to imprison his enemies.
The very term “Christian nationalism,” which is the foundation of Project 2025 and the engine behind the MAGA movement, is well named as “a grotesque parody of faith” that is “poisoning millions of imaginations” with cries of apocalypse and antichrist and raptures aplenty.
Brezsny continues: “And yet, despite my horror at the runaway abominations, I am still a passionate devotee of pronoia: the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessing.”
He cautions: Pronoia is not denial. It’s not naïve optimism….My pronoia is rowdy, muscular, and complicated. It recognizes the grief and the terror, the corruption and the cruelty—and still insists on seeking out the currents of benevolence flowing all around us.
We are also surrounded by multitudes of life celebrations: people and movements devoted to compassion, justice, erotic intelligence and ecological repair.
For every ICE agent wielding cruelty, there is a grandmother planting milkweed for the monarch butterflies. For every demagogue sowing hatred, there are communities weaving resilience out of music, prayer, dance and boisterous rituals.
Pronoia teaches me to resist effectively, I’ve got to cultivate my joy as fiercely as I curate my outrage. My anger fuels my sacred fight, and my glee and bliss nurture my soulful lust for life. The fascists want us depleted, numb, and cynical. But pronoia dares me to be tender, ecstatic, and wildly imaginative even as I confront their horrors.*
Brezsny sounds to me like Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich rolled into one. Original Blessing is everywhere.
* This is cited with permission from the author. See Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology.
Rob Brezsny. Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia. Revised and Expanded Edition. North Atlantic Books, 2009.
See Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, In the Beginning There Was Joy.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint For Our Times, p. xiii.
And Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: Manna Falling from Heaven, a shower of blessings. German woodcut from the Nüremberg Bible, 1400. From the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you believe that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings? Do you cultivate your joy as fiercely as you curate your outrage? Does one serve the other and make you fully alive and therefore spiritual?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
In the Beginning There Was Joy: A Cosmic Celebration for Kids of All Ages
The first book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series tells the story of the big bang and how humans fit into the awesome, fantastical, cosmic picture! In this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet.
Receive a 20% discount when you buy this and one other book from Matthew Fox’s store! Use Promo Code 20% at checkout.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century
Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
Julian of Norwich lived through the dreadful bubonic plague that killed close to 50% of Europeans. Being an anchoress, she ‘sheltered in place’ and developed a deep wisdom that she shared in her book, Showings, which was the first book in English by a woman. A theologian way ahead of her time, Julian develops a feminist understanding of God as mother at the heart of nature’s goodness. Fox shares her teachings in this powerful and timely and inspiring book.
“What an utterly magnificent book. The work of Julian of Norwich, lovingly supported by the genius of Matthew Fox, is a roadmap into the heart of the eco-spiritual truth that all life breathes together.” –Caroline Myss
Now also available as an audiobook HERE.
5 thoughts on “Original Blessing as Pronoia: The Antidote to Paranoia”
This morning, I am especially exhausted by language. Further, academic, drawn out, philosophical language feels draining and distant. Brezney’s quote is all well and good, but as he says it I can’t help be reminded of flowery academic language, and watch as my simple mind longs for a voice to jsut say this stuff in the tone and language of an everyday person. Ain’t no one going around talking about “pronoia” and such and such. It’s funny how academics can be overly sentimental and dramatic despite the nature of their task. Alas, the same with this word “blessing”. The average person does a Google search and sees things like “gods favor” or “divine favor, protection”. Does it really seem like such a thing exists given the diverse circumstances state of individuals around the world? Is that term, and all its baggage, even useful nowadays? Is this DM for everyone, or just Christian’s? This iteration of humanity is immensely language-oriented. And, at this point, it seems to be our rigid choosing of a comfortable language that is the last strangle hold on identities and realities that separate us more than unite.
“Do you believe that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings?” No, I do not believe the universe is “conspiring” about anything. However, I believe that it is much healthier (and enjoyable) to count one’s blessings than one’s misfortunes and, doing so, to get to see life as a miracle and as a blessing rather than as a curse and a chore.
“Do you cultivate your joy as fiercely as you curate your outrage?” Yes, especially since I discovered (through a midlife crisis and exposure to joyful worldviews such as “Original Blessing”) that joy is a choice and a lifeline, especially in these times of civilizational decay.
“Does one serve the other and make you fully alive and therefore spiritual?” I am not sure of which “serves” which, since outrage makes joy even more vital, and joy makes outrage more spontaneous when witnessing the Moral Abyss Gulping America (MAGA). Yet I am sure that being fully and truly alive is being spiritual.
Unless, however, “conspiration” is used as meant by Édouard Le Roy in “Les origines humaines et l’évolution de l’intelligence” (Paris, Boivin, 1928) to describe the convergence of consciousness in the universe. Teilhard de Chardin credits Le Roy when he also uses that term, especially in “Activation of Energy” and in “The Appearance of Man,” e.g. ‘All this quite naturally leads us to consider, beyond the intellectual effects of co-reflection, the only ones envisaged up to now in these pages, the increasing importance seemingly reserved in the future for the noospherical phenomena of sympathy or, to use a favourite expression of Edouard le Roy, of ’con-spiration’.’(p. 255).
The universe can, in that sense, be considered as a “conspiration” and a “blessing”.
I agree with Daniel that the Universe does not “conspire” but, rather, is designed to shower us with blessings. It gives us entirely what we need provided we are paying attention. Similarly, I do not “cultivate” joy any more than I “curate” my outrage. I allow both to arise in accordance with how I have ordered and navigate myself through life. This combination, unique to us all, is how I engage with the world though I do not believe I yet know what it is to be “fully alive” even though I conspire towards that.
YES! YES! YES! Contemplative~Creation~Incarnational Spiritual Traditions are interrelated, mystical, cosmic, and Living Faiths that inspire and remind Us that We are not alone on Our daily spiritual journeys. Our LOVING SOURCE CO-CREATOR’S SPIRIT of DIVINE LOVE~WISDOM~CREATIVITY… Is PRESENT within, through, among Us in All ongoing evolving Creation, All unique physical/non-physical Beings in all spiritual dimensions, in Our LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS in the Sacred Process/Flow of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….