of good or evil. Auxier defends a pluralistic and culturally embedded ideal of human religious life, holding that ritual, which is found in the animal world in full continuity with the human world, viewed as a version of animality. Auxier argues that myth is superadded to ritual as an independent companion to it, making a second aesthetic level tinged with reflection available to humans who enact rituals. He rejects the claim that myth developed to explain ritual as an overly reductive and unknowable hypothesis. Auxier argues that the experience we call “religious” in the higher phases of experience is not reducible either to aesthetic or to cognitive experience and is a distinctive and nearly universal characteristic of human life. Auxier holds that religious experience can be engendered both through the repetition of rituals and through the experience of novelty (in nature or other cultures), but the novelty must be integrated into the familiar patterns in order for the feeling of value it carries to be retained. Thus Auxier believes that the religious community in which a human being is raised becomes the basis for the integration of future religious experiences that are not explicit in the experience of that community. His theology would generally be identified as liberal and Protestant, but along the Arminian and Wesleyan lines of Protestantism. Auxier commonly criticizes Calvinist views in his writings, sometimes quite harshly. Politics and activism Beginning with his musical explorations during his residence in Atlanta, Auxier became active in environmental causes and simultaneously in politics. These activities included protesting the First Gulf War, and every subsequent war the US has prosecuted, as well as various other forms of social injustice and oppression. His commitment to nonviolence, environmental conservation, and community localism has led him to participate, organize, speak, and perform music at hundreds of events and for many causes. He visited the imprisoned to spread music in Oklahoma and Illinois, as well as visiting nursing homes and homes for the developmentally disabled, most often as a musician. Auxier joined the Illinois Education Association in 2000 and was elected to the Departmental Representatives Council, supporting the SIU Faculty Association during collective bargaining cycles of 2001 and 2003. In 2006 Auxier was drafted to join the bargaining team for the SIUC FA and served in that role through the completion of the 2006-2010 agreement. Resuming this role for the 2010-2014 contract, Auxier was among