Cosmic Religionrefers to the ethics and politics that it inspires: followers of the
Universe Story are, say, highly ecologically aware and politically
inclusive. They explain that this springs directly from what the
new physics tells us about our place in the universe, that being
defi ned by its relationality. We are literally linked to the stars in
that we are made of stardust. We are entangled like quantum
particles. We are creatures with all sorts of possible tomorrows,
like the non-determined states of quantum mechanics. The dif-
ference is that we must take responsibility for those tomorrows,
since we have emerged into self-consciousness.
Lynch believes that in much the same way as the charismatic
movement of the 1980s started out as a marginal movement in
the church and is now mainstream, so the Universe Story, and
related new scientifi c sacred myths, will become mainstream
over the next decade or so. For example, his research shows that
already hundreds of women’s Roman Catholic religious commu-
nities are following something like its ecological view of life.
Brian Swimme himself describes the Universe Story as a sacred
myth that can orientate anyone in life. He is what might be
called a pantheist, and develops the idea into a politico-spiritual
programme. The origins of the myth go back to the Copernican
revolution, when it was proposed, fi rst, that the sun was the
centre of things, before it was realised that even the sun was
sailing unanchored through space. This insight had a massive
impact on western civilisation. The medieval sense of self
melted away, and the modern sense of self emerged – which like
the sun enjoys the liberty of mobility, though also the loneli-
ness of not being quite sure where it belongs in the cosmos.
Today, Swimme continues, we’re at a similar moment of
breakdown and creativity. Physics is now able to tell a story
that reaches back 13.7 billion years, when the universe came
into existence. Since then, the tale is of growing complexity.
Undifferentiated energy became the web of forces and conden-
sations we call atoms; atoms formed into molecules; molecules
dust; dust stars and planets; planets provided an incubator for
life; life led to that extraordinary phenomenon we know as