For many years, a significant part of the Spiritual Naturalist community’s work has involved explaining what “spiritual naturalism” is.
The short version is that we live in a natural universe, without recourse to supernatural explanations, and that this is exactly why meaning-making matters very much at the human scale, which is where we actually spend our time. The experiences traditionally described as spiritual – wonder, reverence, belonging, transformation, transcendence or inscendence of the self – are real and valuable aspects of human life. If anything, recognizing their roots in our bodies, minds, cultures and relationships with the more-than-human world may allow us to approach them with greater honesty and creativity.
Definitions are necessary and useful, especially for a movement whose very name can initially sound like a contradiction in terms.
Eventually, though, it becomes more interesting to ask what follows when we simply take those basic premises for granted. What kinds of philosophies, practices, communities, rituals and creative projects become possible? How can spiritual naturalism inform the ways we face mortality, cultivate wisdom, encounter the natural world, create meaning and live alongside people whose perspectives differ from our own?
Some time ago, the SNS Council began discussing the possibility of an online gathering devoted to questions of this kind. We hoped that bringing people together for a concentrated exchange of ideas might encourage greater engagement within the SN community. We also wanted to introduce participants to perspectives and resources they might not otherwise encounter.
The result is Convergence 2026, scheduled for November 7 – 8.
Over the course of those two days, Convergence will feature ten doers and thinkers representing SN as something people put into practice. We will consider scholarship and contemplation, community-building and ritual, artistic invention, ecological engagement and the deliberate creation of meaningful ways of life.
The event has therefore been conceived as more than a sequence of lectures:
Presentations will allow our guests to introduce their work and ideas.
Interviews will explore the experiences, questions and influences behind that work.
Talkback sessions will create opportunities for participants to respond, ask questions and consider where these different approaches intersect, or productively diverge.
Spiritual Naturalism has always been more of a broad orientation than a single doctrine. Its practitioners may draw upon Buddhism, Humanism, mythopoetic Paganism, Stoicism, religious naturalism, the arts, the sciences and/or traditions of their own devising. They may use familiar spiritual language, radically reinterpret it or dispense with it almost entirely.
What converges, therefore, is not a single perspective, rather a shared willingness to explore how human beings might live meaningful, reflective and perhaps even enchanted lives within the world disclosed by reason, evidence and experience.
That shared foundation leaves room for considerable variety. In fact, one of the purposes of Convergence is to make that variety more visible. A viable movement needs experiments, disagreements, practices, conversations and encounters with unfamiliar ideas. It needs artistic imagination as well as academic theory; people willing to ask not only “What do spiritual naturalists believe?” but “What can spiritual naturalists do?”
We hope Convergence 2026 will provide a setting for those questions to unfold and that the conversations begun during these two days will continue well beyond the event itself.
You can meet the ten featured speakers and learn more about their work on the Convergence 2026 presenters page.
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Learn about Membership in the Spiritual Naturalist Society
The Spiritual Naturalist Society works to spread awareness of spiritual naturalism as a way of life, develop its thought and practice, and help bring together like-minded practitioners in fellowship.
SNS strives to include diverse voices within the spectrum of naturalistic spirituality. Authors will vary in their opinions, terms, and outlook. The views of no single author therefore necessarily reflect those of all Spiritual Naturalists or of SNS.
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