Many societies have seen the world as alive, through and through. In most pre-literate societies animals, plants, rocks, springs, the stars, the hills are living beings, endowed with value and worthy of respect (a view often called “animism”). Later a variety of subtle theories of life emerged such as the Hebrew triple of body, breath (ruach) and personality ( nephesh). By contrast the Western tradition, especially in the system of Descartes, reduces this to a simple animate soul and totally lifeless matter. The session will explore the way in which modern science, though it may have eliminated the traditional soul, has brought back elements of a world permeated by different levels of life. Gaia theory (a scientific approach introduced by James Lovelock to understand how the earth regulates its climate) treats the earth as a living being; consciousness is seen by some as an aspect of all matter; quantum theory regards all organisms as being potentially “subjects” playing a special role in the unfolding of events. I shall present the theoretical ideas behind this vision, and we will discuss what this means for our relations with other beings on the earth and for our understanding of our place in “the web of life”.