Paper short abstract:

Based on 'inner' and 'outer transition', linking all living entities, from bacteria to Gaia through a 'web of life', the 'worldview' of French and Swiss environmentalists, self-defined as 'enlightened catastrophists', can be related to esotericism and the analogism of Descola’s ontological grid.

Paper long abstract:

Environmentalists showing concern for the future of the planet, worrying about climate change and a potential collapse of our complex societies are often depicted as prophets of doom predicting the end of the world and ridiculed for their apocalyptic views.

The study of the narratives and practices of an informal network of environmentalists living in France and French-speaking Switzerland gives a more complex picture. These highly educated environmentalists who are acting as the intellectuals of French environmentalism (or at least its 'enlightened catastrophist' part), are mainly concerned by the future of the 'thermo-industrial civilisation' and expecting its collapse. But they deny waiting for the end of the world. They rather expect the end of a world, and the start of a new one.

Linked to the Transition Town movement that emerged in Totnes (Devon) ten years ago, they are advocating for a transition toward a sustainable society, a metamorphosis that requires radical political changes, as well as personal transformation. Linking the fate of the 'Earth system' Gaia, somehow viewed as a living entity, to inner transition, they draw correspondences throughout the 'web of life' that can be related to esotericism as Antoine Faivre defines it.

Such form of 'spiritual ecology' is more than a new avatar of the 'New Age'. Rather than an emerging worldview, it can be interpreted as the revival, in the public sphere, of the ontology of analogy, which remained for centuries in the shadow of naturalism, following the ontological grid developed by Philippe Descola.