This story / page is available in: German

Fly me to the moon

“When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon for the first time, he said: ‘It’s a small step for me, but it’s a giant step for humanity.’ I want to say to that man: It’s a small step for you, and it’s a very, very small step, indeed, for humanity. To have walked on the moon is no big deal.”

John Moriarty

 

Eco-Philosopher John Moriarty was unimpressed by mankind’s technical achievements. Compared to the elegant flight of birds, he considered the flight of the aeroplane to be a cumbersome simulation. He saw the push into space and to the moon as an evasion and a development in the wrong direction at the expense of spiritual growth. Moriarty endeavoured to walk in beauty on our earth instead of seeking the far reaches of the moon. He considered it existential for us humans to recognise the wrong path we took 300 years ago with the Enlightenment, rational-mechanistic thinking and the capitalist extraction economy, and to find a new way of being in a new consciousness that fits in and can exist in harmony with all other life forms on this planet. Our own earth is the goal, the paradise that we only have to recognise as such.

 

John Moriarty in Deutsch

In Moriarty’s Universe we regularly present a thought from Irish nature philosopher John Moriarty. The writer, gardener and soul traveller became known for his insights and mystical view of post-modern life. John was born on 2 February 1938 in Moyvane, County Kerry and died on 1 June 2007 at his home at the foot of Mangerton Mountain near Killarney. John Moriarty lived an extraordinary life in nature and left behind a rich body of work that gives us clear insights into the human condition as well as profound insights into the failure of the human species and possible ways out of the impasse in which we are trapped today.

Here at Irlandnews we introduce the life and work of John Moriarty for the first time to a German-speaking audience. You can find the current series on the Irish nature philosopher here: KlicK

 

Three decades have passed since John Moriarty developed this body of thought based on lived experience. Humanity seems to have made no progress in healing its relationship with the natural world. The technology craze continues unabated, artificial intelligence is gaining power and transhumanism, the fusion of man and machine, seems unstoppable. Psychologist Mattias Desmet writes in his essay The de-souling of the world: ‘In the context of mechanistic thinking, the universe is seen as a machine. The great machine of the universe can be fully understood, predicted and rationally manipulated. People can take their lives into their own hands with the help of reason. They will print food in laboratories and leave the burden of pregnancy to artificial wombs; they will travel to Mars and control the sunshine and rain. And they can perfect themselves by finally eliminating the faults and shortcomings of human existence.’

But will they still be human? John Moriarty warned us early on to continue on the material outer path of so-called progress. He points us in the direction of the path of the soul: ecumenism instead of ego, soul instead of reason. Instead of moving our bodies to Mars, we should move inwardly, change and transform ourselves, from deluded to enlightened, from sinners to saints. John’s books are more popular today than ever before, his readership is growing and the number of people who have come to similar realisations to his – from many different directions – is also increasing. This gives us some cause for hope in the cultural battle about what mankind will be in the future.

 

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* Source: One Evening in Eden, Audio.

Photos: John Moriarty courtesy The John Moriarty Institute; photo moon: Antje Wendel

This story / page is available in: German