This is a new edition of a pioneering book in which the author traces the ecological crisis back to what he believes is its true origin: the incremental replacement of a participatory and sacramental understanding of creation with the more detached scientific mentality that predominates today. Sherrard believes that by accepting this materialistic, mechanistic worldview we are contributing to our own dehumaniszation - with drastic consequences for the natural world. 'Through his sense of the sacred, through his emphasis upon the visionary intellect, and through his acute perception of the ecological crisis, Philip Sherrard is truly a prophet for our present age, a messenger whose winged words are addressed not so much to the twentieth century in which he lived as to the twenty-first century that is now unfolding.' METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS OF DIOKLEIA.