Just as each feature of cosmic order has an essential nature, cosmic order itself has an essential nature. Bringing ourselves into harmony with the essential nature of cosmic order is the way by which we can live peacefully in the world. Conversely, dissonant action relative the essential nature of cosmic order brings about chaos and destruction.

Yet materialism, which has dominated our intellectual culture since the Victorian age, covers fewer and fewer bases of life in the twenty-first century. The natural sciences are increasingly defined by quantum data, interdimensional formulas, and fields like neuroplasticity, which uses brain scans to demonstrate the capacity of thought to alter neural matter. Our ordinary reference points of life are in greater flux today than at any time since Darwinism upended what it meant to be human in the Victorian era.

My formulation of spiritual citizenship grew out of what I learned over two decades in Trinidad working with dynamic religious communities informed by ancestral and contemporary West African faith practices….

In her research, Anya Foxen focuses on the intersection of South Asian yogic and tantric traditions and Western esotericism and metaphysical spiritualities.