Pantheism Its Story And Significance

J. Allanson Picton's classic exploration of pantheism.

Pantheism Its Story and Significance by J. Allanson Picton

Pantheism: Its Story and Significance is an essay by J. Allanson Picton that was originally published in 1905 as a 94-page book. Picton explains clearly how Pantheism differs from Atheism, and tends to emphasize how much Pantheism agrees with mainstream religions rather than how it differs from them.

Pantheism Its Story and Significance by J. Allanson Picton

Pantheism differs from the systems of belief constituting the main religions of the world in being comparatively free from any limits of period, climate, or race. For while what we roughly call the Egyptian Religion, the Vedic Religion, the Greek Religion, Buddhism, and others of similar fame have been necessarily local and temporary, Pantheism has been, for the most part, a dimly discerned background, an esoteric significance of many or all religions, rather than a "denomination" by itself. The best illustration of this characteristic of Pantheism is the catholicity of its great prophet Spinoza. For he felt so little antagonism to any Christian sect, that he never urged any member of a church to leave it, but rather encouraged his humbler friends, who sought his advice, to make full use of such spiritual privileges as they appreciated most.