Practices & Ritual – The Spiritual Naturalist Society

Secular Mantras in Place of Prayer

October 29, 2026 by Rick Heller

A variety of mantras can serve our needs throughout the day.

Deconstructing our World

August 6, 2026 by Thomas Schenk

Human beings inhabit two realities at once: the immediate world revealed by our senses and the mental world woven from memory, language, imagination, and belief. This article explores how mindfulness can help us reconnect with direct experience without abandoning the uniquely human capacity to create meaning, culture, and possibility.

Broadening Experience at SNS

July 30, 2026July 30, 2026 by DT Strain

As an online community, what kinds of shared events can we realistically build, which address ritual and the experiential side of spiritual practice? Daniel Strain shares thoughts on this in an exercise to imagine what is possible at SNS...

Poetic Faiths

October 24, 2026July 23, 2026 by DT Strain

Poetic Faiths are an emerging current within Spiritual Naturalism treating myth, ritual and religion as creative works of art. They are “metamodern folk religions”: consciously made systems of story, symbol, object and practice that recover the folk-religious power and mystique of ritual life without requiring naïve belief or institutional authority. The term is an expansion … Read more

Convergence 2026: An Online Conference for All Spiritual Naturalists

November 4, 2026April 8, 2026 by DT Strain

November 7–8 | Live on Zoom REGISTER NOW! The Zoom link for Convergence 2026 is available here. This link is valid for both days of the event. The Spiritual Naturalist Society warmly invites you to Convergence, a free two-day online gathering dedicated to exploring the many ways people find meaning, wonder and ethical … Read more

Is Mindfulness Bogus?

April 8, 2026 by SNS Guest

Mindfulness meditation is often praised as a powerful tool for mental well-being, but the evidence behind it is more mixed—and more nuanced—than the hype suggests. This article explores both the limits of the science and the author’s own decades-long experience, revealing how meditation may not transform everyone, yet can still offer something quietly valuable.

The Daemons of Our Nature

May 27, 2026March 26, 2026 by DT Strain

Learning chess reveals a deeper truth about thinking: we don’t calculate everything—we rely on patterns to navigate overwhelming complexity. This article explores how those patterns shape our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors, often operating beneath awareness like modern echoes of what earlier thinkers called “daemons.”

Loving What Must Change

March 23, 2026January 22, 2026 by DT Strain

This article reflects on the death of a beloved cat through the lens of Spiritual Naturalism, exploring how loss, love, and impermanence are deeply intertwined. It argues that meaning is not diminished by life’s finite nature, but instead arises because of it—inviting us to love fully while accepting change as an essential part of existence.