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In 1976 David Abram, then a young sleight-of-hand magician from Long Island, became the house magician at Alice’s Restaurant in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Magic took him on as an itinerant street magician through Europe and the Middle East, and later to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Nepal. He then took a doctorate at Stony Brook (1993), and in The Spell of the Sensuous (1996) coined the phrase “the more-than-human world”. This guide covers his 2 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 2 key books · 1996–2010 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
David Abram has written two books: The Spell of the Sensuous (1996), which won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction, and Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (2010). Start with The Spell of the Sensuous, where he introduced the phrase “more-than-human world”. Below: what each book argues, how he writes, and how his work connects to Merleau-Ponty and to non-dual thinking.
Where to Start with David Abram
If you want his defining book
→ The Spell of the Sensuous (1996) — perception, language and the alphabet, drawing on his time with shamans in Nepal and sorcerers in Indonesia.
If you want his later, more personal book
→ Becoming Animal (2010) — chapters on shadow, stone, mood and shapeshifting.
If you want the phenomenology behind his ecology
→ The Spell of the Sensuous (1996) — his reading of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.
2 David Abram Books, in Order
The Spell of the Sensuous
Abram asks how Western culture became so estranged from the rest of nature that it accepts the destruction of forests and rivers. Drawing on his time with shamans in Nepal and sorcerers in Indonesia, and on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, he treats perception as a participation between the body and its surroundings, and blames the phonetic alphabet for a growing abstraction from the land. He looks for ways back in the Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime, the Navajo idea of the Holy Wind and the role of breath in Jewish mysticism. Published by Pantheon, it won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction. The first full French translation, by Isabelle Stengers and refined by Didier Demorcy, appeared in 2013 as Comment la terre s’est tue.
Becoming Animal
Published by Pantheon in 2010, a book whose chapters each take up one aspect of ordinary experience: “Shadow”, “Wood and Stone”, “Depth”, “Mood”, “The Discourse of the Birds”, “Sleight-of-Hand” and “Shapeshifting”, among others. It was the sole runner-up for the inaugural PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2011 and a finalist for the 2011 Orion Book Award.
In What Order to Read David Abram
With only two books, publication order is the natural order. The Spell of the Sensuous sets out the argument: how perception works, and how writing changed it. Becoming Animal, fourteen years later, takes that argument for granted and applies it, chapter by chapter, to things like shadows, stones and moods.
If his phenomenology interests you more than his ecology, read The Spell of the Sensuous alongside Merleau-Ponty, whose work he draws on throughout.
A reading path
1. The Spell of the Sensuous (1996)
2. Becoming Animal (2010)
The years · 1957–2014
Quick facts about David Abram
- Known for
- Coining the phrase “more-than-human world” and arguing, from phenomenology and from fieldwork with indigenous peoples, that human perception belongs to the living land around it.
- 1957
- Born in Nassau County, New York
- 1976
- House magician at Alice’s Restaurant
- 2006
- Co-founds the Alliance for Wild Ethics
- 2014
- Arne Næss Chair, University of Oslo
- Born
- 24 June 1957, Nassau County, New York; went to high school in Baldwin, Long Island
- Education
- Wesleyan University, summa cum laude (1980); doctorate, State University of New York at Stony Brook (1993)
- Magic
- Sleight-of-hand magician from his school years; house magician at Alice’s Restaurant in 1976
- Fellowships
- Watson and Rockefeller Foundations; Fellow of Schumacher College (2014)
- Honours
- Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction; Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and Ecology, University of Oslo (2014)
- Works
- Creative Director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics, which he co-founded in 2006
The red mark is 1996: The Spell of the Sensuous, the book in which he introduced the phrase “more-than-human world”.
How David Abram Writes: Philosophy from the Senses
Abram writes philosophy from first-hand experience rather than from other books alone. The Spell of the Sensuous draws on his travels as a sleight-of-hand magician, among shamans in Nepal and sorcerers in Indonesia, and his own organisation describes his work as shaped both by phenomenology, especially Merleau-Ponty, and by fieldwork with indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia and North America. Magic stays in the work: Becoming Animal has a chapter called “Sleight-of-Hand”.
His central claim is that perception, before we reflect on it, does not separate a mind from a world. In his words, “Direct, prereflective perception is inherently synaesthetic, participatory, and animistic.” Following Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, he treats the body as an organism that is always taking part in its surroundings, and he argues that the phonetic alphabet trained Western readers to look past the land to the page. This is why he is read in a cluster on non-duality: not as a spiritual teacher, but as a philosopher who describes human and earth, perceiver and perceived, as one ongoing exchange rather than two separate things.
He builds new vocabulary for this. He coined the phrase “the more-than-human world” in 1996 for earthly nature; in recent writings he sometimes calls it “the commonwealth of breath”. His ideas have been debated, sometimes heatedly, in journals such as Environmental Ethics and Environmental Values, and in 2001 he debated the biologist E. O. Wilson in Boston.
Watch
David Abram on The Commonwealth of Breath
David Abram gives the lecture The Commonwealth of Breath: Climate and Consciousness in a More-than-Human World at Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions on 9 April 2019, introduced by director Charles Stang. From the official Harvard Divinity School channel.
Frequently asked questions about David Abram’s books
How many books has David Abram written?
Two: The Spell of the Sensuous (1996) and Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (2010). Both are on this page.
What are David Abram’s books in order?
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World (1996), then Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (2010).
Where should I start with David Abram?
The Spell of the Sensuous (1996). It sets out the ideas that Becoming Animal (2010) builds on: perception as participation, and the effect of the alphabet on how we experience the land.
What is David Abram’s most famous book?
The Spell of the Sensuous (1996), which won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction and in which he coined the phrase “more-than-human world”.
What does “more-than-human world” mean?
A phrase Abram coined in 1996 and used in the subtitle of The Spell of the Sensuous. He uses it to refer to earthly nature, the living world that humans are part of; in recent writings he sometimes calls it “the commonwealth of breath”.
Was David Abram really a magician?
Yes. He practised sleight-of-hand magic in high school in Baldwin, Long Island, became the house magician at Alice’s Restaurant in the Berkshires in 1976, and performed as an itinerant street magician in Europe and the Middle East. Later he performed as an itinerant magician in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Nepal; his time among shamans in Nepal and sorcerers in Indonesia informs The Spell of the Sensuous.
Did Becoming Animal win any prizes?
It was the sole runner-up for the inaugural PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2011 and a finalist for the 2011 Orion Book Award. The Spell of the Sensuous won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.
How is David Abram connected to Merleau-Ponty?
He draws on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology throughout. The Spell of the Sensuous uses Husserl and Merleau-Ponty to describe the body as a participant in its surroundings rather than a mind looking out at a world, and Abram’s own organisation names Merleau-Ponty as a central influence.
Has David Abram’s work been criticised?
Yes, in academic debate. His ideas have been discussed, sometimes heatedly, in Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values and Environmental Philosophy, with critics including Ted Toadvine, Meg Holden and Steven Vogel.
What is the Alliance for Wild Ethics?
An organisation founded in 2006 by Abram with Stephan Harding, Per Espen Stoknes and Per Ingvar Haukeland. Abram is its Creative Director.
Footnotes
- David Abram — Alliance for Wild Ethics
- David Abram — Wikipedia
- Becoming Animal — Alliance for Wild Ethics
- Becoming Animal, 2011 Orion Book Award finalist — Orion
- The Spell of the Sensuous — Publishers Weekly
- Becoming Animal, contents — Simmons University Library
- David Abram on the language of nature — The Marginalian, 2019
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human.”
— David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (1996)
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