A new genre of children’s books combines naturalistic science with alternative and Eastern philosophy and spirituality, reports the magazineWhat Is Enlightenment (June/August).
Such new children’s titles as “Born With A Bang,” and “All I See Is Part of Me,” represent “what must be the latest defensive tactic of `spiritual but not religious’ parents everywhere– inculcating children in the ways of Carl Sagan and Eastern philosophy before they even have a chance to learn about Noah’s Flood. Spanning epic tales of cosmic evolution and esoteric explanations of God, it is a genre that encompasses both scientific naturalism and nondual mysticism — usually seen as two opposing currents in the philosophical stream,” writes Tom Huston.
But these books all express visions of “universal Oneness” or “panentheism” and are clearly aligned in a fundamental aim to “awaken children to a sense of the sacred in the midst of a secular world.” Books such as “Becoming Me,” look at evolution from the vantage point of “consciousness,“ showing the process of evolution from God’s perspective, “as an enormous playing-with-possibilities.“
(What Is Enlightenment? P.O. Box 2360, Lenox, MA 01240)
