It's been a long time since I read Lovelock, but in the one book and the couple early articles of his that I read, I have never thought that he had any theological/philosophical intentions. In 1990, he stated, "Nowhere in our writings do we express the idea that planetary self-regulation is purposeful, or involves foresight or planning by the biota." (sorry, I don't have any exact reference for this but I believe it was at a conference. I found it on the web.)

I admit that Lovelock used rather literary language in talking about the Gaia Hypothesis at times, but in the context of the writing, it's clear that he is not claiming or even alluding that there is some "higher being" or greater conciousness. He's giving a romanticized packaging to physical or biological phenomena. When he refers to "collective intelligence," he defines "intelligence" rather loosely, likening the "collective intelligence" of the self-balancing Gaia to the self-regulatory capacity of the human body. He affirmatively denies any conciousness to Gaia.

I don't have any problems with belief in Earthmother, Goddess, or any other higher conciousness/supernatural entity, but ascribing it to Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis just doesn't seem to fit what he meant. Sure, people can take the Gaia Hypothesis and add stuff on and still call it Gaia Hypothesis, but that's not Lovelock's original idea. I concede that I haven't read everything of Lovelock, and that he could be unconciously influenced by the writings of other philosophers/theologians before him, but IMHO it just doesn't seem to come out in his writings. He's a scientist writing about the physical world.