“This looks like the big question for mystics, whether the oneness is something to approve of or to be horrified by.”

The very best mystics, such as Plotinus, don’t speak of “oneness” because it is an abstraction, not the visceral non-separation they find. Plotinus pointed out that the “One” is just a cry of complete befuddlement — even when he used it. Hawkers, cranks, and wannabe mystics speak of ‘oneness’.

Loved your writing here. The three pillars of human misery, Power, Consent, and Control, have changed in guise over the centuries, but as you point out, scientism has replaced religion as the Control. Power today is once again morphing into something dark and destructive of life (that’s what Power is after all), but Consent — the media and its ever-active manufacture — has crossed over as the handmaiden of Science (“Science Says….”) and its effulgence of sciencecum that convinces us all that science will tuck us in when the great night, that culmination of the economics and dark power, ends us all.

Well, not all, there will continue to be New Musk on Mars to continue the race! Yippee! Last one to Mars is a rotten egg.

Responsive Naturing is a possibility, no pun intended.