Archive for the ‘religion’ Category
Inspired Literature (reposted)
Simone Cantarini, Saint Matthew and the Angel, Italian, 1612 – 1648, c. 1645/1648, oil on canvas.
IN ONE of his more famous writings, William Ellery Channing addressed the topic of developing a uniquely American intellectual tradition. His message is important today in several respects. One of his chief concerns was to counter the growing tide of materialism in Europe and America. This, he believed, could only end in, at the individual level, unhappiness, and, at the collective level, dehumanizing institutions and dysfunctional government. Sound literature, he maintains, is founded on genius, which is itself activated when our hearts and minds are aligned with our moral and spiritual nature. Genius does not manifest itself in a vacuum, however: inspired writers write inspiredly when there is an audience capable of receiving an inspired message. Hence our first need is to morally prepare the public. This, Chandler, argues, is the proper role of religion. But religion itself must be of a higher quality. Instead of religion based on formality, authority, dogma or superstition, we need one based on personal spiritual experience and authentic moral consciousness. . . . read full article here (re-posted from my Christian Platonism blog)
Pitirim Sorokin: The Role of Religion in the Altruistic Transformation of Society
IN 1948, in the aftermath of two colossally destructive world wars, the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the commencement of the Cold War, Harvard sociologist wrote The Reconstruction of Humanity. He saw as few others did the perilous road that lay ahead. Certainly others sounded a warning bell, but Sorokin’s sweeping studies of cultural history gave him deeper insight into the problems of modern society — and the possible solutions — than others.
What he foresaw was a continued decay of society obsessed with materialism and sensate values. The only solution, he believed, was to consciously renew culture on the principles of idealism and altruism. The first half of Reconstruction of Humanity he devoted to debunking false panaceas of popular democracy, science, capitalism, world government and the United Nations. In the second half he presented his prescription, which involved an intentional restructuring of the family, education and religion — all with the explicit aim of raising consciousness and fostering the development of a deep transformation of human personality from egoism to altruism.
The following comes from his section on religion. He saw modern religions as needing to concentrate efforts on two fundamental reforms: (1) a greater emphasis on religious experience (as opposed to doctrine), and (2) achieving a greater proportion of practitioners who see religion as central, not merely peripheral to their lives.
Sorokin, though a sociologist, was quite sophisticated in his understanding of religion. Large sections of his work, The Ways and Power of Love are devoted to the Western monastic system and Indian yoga as means of effecting a thorough moral and psychological transformation of the individual.
The message of Reconstruction of Humanity (which, incidentally, was dedicated to Mohandas Gandhi) is more relevant and urgent today than ever.
III. Religious Institutions
Religion is a system of ultimate values and norms of conduct derived principally through superconscious intuition, supplemented by rational cognition and sensory experience. As such it tends to constitute the supreme synthesis of the dominant values and norms of conduct. Its superconscious intuition makes us aware of, and puts us in contact with, the superconscious aspect of the ultimate reality value, the Infinite Manifold, God, or the Holy. Herein religion is little dependent upon logic and sensory experience. In so far as it attempts to give a rational and empirically correct synthesis of the superconscious, the rational, and the empirical aspects of the Infinite Manifold, it draws upon syllogistic and mathematical logic and upon empirical science.
Virtually all the major religions and all genuine religious experiences have apprehended the ultimate reality value in a very similar way so far as its superconscious aspect is concerned. The differences between the Tao of Taoism, the “Heaven” of Confucianism, the Brahman of Hinduism and Buddhism, the Jehovah of Judaism, the God of Christianity, and “the Inexpressible” of mystics consist mainly in differences of terminology, in the accentuation of this or that aspect of the Infinite Manifold, and in the even more subsidiary differences of rationalized dogmas and cults. In these secondary traits religions vary and undergo change; in their intuition of the ultimate reality value as an Infinite Manifold, as in their basic values and norms of conduct, they remain essentially unchangeable. The scale of values of all genuine religions unanimously puts at the top the supreme value of the Infinite Manifold itself (God, Brahman, Tao, the Holy, the Sacred), and then, in descending order, the highest values of truth, goodness, and beauty, their inferior and less pure varieties, and finally the sensory and sensate values. Likewise, the moral commandments of all genuine religions are fundamentally identical. Their ethics is the ethics of unbounded love of man for God, for his fellow men, for all living creatures, and for the entire universe. In brief, in their intuitive system of reality — values and norms of conduct, religions remain true to themselves, undergoing little change, and depending little upon logic and empirical knowledge.
In their rational and empirical ideologies religions, as has been said, naturally depend upon logic and empirical science. Since these are incessantly changing, religions change also in these respects: in their theological rationalizations, in their cult and ritual, in their empirical activities and organizations. If a religion does not modify these logical and empirical elements in conformity with changes in logical and sensory knowledge (mathematics, logic, and science), it becomes obsolescent in these components and is eventually supplanted by a religion whose logical and empirical values and norms are up to date. The superconscious essence of the supplanting and the supplanted religion remains, however, essentially the same. Religion as a superconscious intuition of the Infinite Manifold is perennial and eternal; as a rationalized system of theology, as an empirical system of cult, ritual, and technical activities, it is incessantly changing.
There has been scarcely any great culture without a great religion as its foundation. The emergence of virtually all notable cultures has been either simultaneous with or preceded by the emergence of a notable religion which has constituted its most valuable component. The decline of any major culture or the end of one era and the beginning of a new era in its life history has again been marked by either the decline of its religion, or by a replacement of one religion by another. Only eclectic cultural congeries have been devoid of an integrated system of religion. Such cultural congeries have functioned mainly as material to be used by creative cultures. Without Confucianism and Taoism the Chinese culture is unthinkable; without Hinduism and Buddhism there would have been no great Hindu culture; without the Greek religion and philosophy Greek culture would have been impossible; without Mohammedanism there would have been no notable Islamic-Arabic culture; without Zoroastrianism the Iranic culture could not have achieved a high level. The same relationship applies to the Egyptian, Babylonian, Judaistic, and Western Christian cultures and religions.
If we wish to build a truly great culture, we must create or recreate one or several great systems of ultimate reality — values and norms of conduct for the various parts of the human race. Like different languages, each denoting the same objects in its own words and idioms, humanity may have different “religious languages,” each in its own way conveying the experience of the Holy, putting men in touch with the Infinite Manifold, and constituting the indispensable condition of the creativity of their culture and of a peaceful, altruistic social system.
Viewed in this light, the existing major religions, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Mohammedanism, Jainism and others, do not urgently need to be replaced by new religions or to be drastically modified. Their intuitive system of reality value (God, Brahman, Tao, etc. as an Infinite Manifold) and their conception of man as an end value, as a son of God, as a divine soul, as a bearer of the Absolute; these intuitions and conceptions are essentially valid and supremely edifying (in varying degrees for the different religions).
Similarly, their ethical imperatives, enjoining a union of man with the Absolute and an unconditional love of man for his fellows and for all living creatures, call for no radical change. Some of these norms, such as those of the Sermon on the Mount, are, indeed, incapable of improvement.
What is needed, therefore, concerns not the essence of the great religions but its revitalization and the modification of their secondary traits.
It is essential to recover a vital sense of the living ‘presence of God, of union with the Infinite Manifold, such as has been experienced by the mystics and other deeply religious persons. This experience should not be attended by the emotional outbursts and bodily convulsions typical of many present-day “revivals.” A large proportion of contemporary believers hardly ever enjoy such an experience. Their religiosity is chiefly a formal adherence to the prescribed ritual and cult, a mechanical repetition of traditional formulas, the mere outer shell of religion without its living flame. Hence their religious ideologies scarcely influence their overt conduct.
This reawakening of intense religious experience is inextricably connected with the actual application, in overt behavior, of the ethical norms of religion. The transformation of overt conduct in the direction of ‘practicing what one preaches’ is another fundamental change that must he effected by the leading religions. We have seen that in modem times there has appeared an unbridgeable chasm between avowed beliefs and standards, on the one hand, and their embodiment in actual practice on the other. Thus the adherents of Christianity overtly behave, as a rule, in the most un-Christian manner. Since they retain but the formal shells of their religion, devoid of its real substance, such a chasm is inevitable.
The revitalization of religion consists precisely in these two essential tasks:
(1) re-creation of a genuine religious experience;
(2) realization of ethical norms in the overt behavior of the believers.A truly religious person, feeling vividly the presence of God, walks humbly and reverently on this earth and loves the other children of God and all living creatures to his utmost capacity.
These are the paramount needs of religious transmutation. Believers, especially religious leaders, must concentrate their efforts on these tasks instead of devoting most of their energy to the external shells of religiosity; their cult and ritual, [note 1] their institutional property and hierarchy, their rational theology and dogmas, their politics and their claims for the superiority of their own brand of religion over the others.
The sacredness of man as an end value and the ethical commandments enjoining love are limited in several religions to the circle of their own believers. This tribal provincialism, with its double standard of morality, should cease. Any true religion of the future must he universal in the sense that everyone, regardless of his race or nationality, creed, age, sex, or status, is regarded as a sacred end value.
Its logical and empirical aspects, which are incessantly changing and whose validity depends upon logical and empirical science, religions must bring into harmony with existing science and logic, dropping what is obsolescent. This concerns theological speculation and dogma, cult and ritual, and the technique of man’s spiritualization and moralization. Keeping abreast with logic and science in these subsidiary features, religion enters into harmonious co-operation with science, logic, and philosophy without sacrificing any of its intuitive truth revealed through the superconscious of its seers, prophets, and charismatic leaders. On the other hand, in its turn it supplements science, logic, and philosophy through its system of ultimate reality — values. In this way religion, logic, science unite to form a single harmonious team dedicated to the discovery of the perennial values and to the proper shaping of man’s mind and conduct.
For the realization of these objectives religions need not only to be familiar with existing techniques but also to create new, more fruitful, and more adequate techniques of religious and ethical transformation. (Cf. the next section of this work for an elaboration of this topic.) [note 2]
If the foregoing tasks are successfully performed, religion will contribute as never before to the creation of a society characterized by peace and harmony, happiness, and a sense of kinship with the Infinite Manifold.
Notes.
1. Sorokin’s comments here might be mistakenly understood to mean he does not appreciate the importance of religious ritual. Rather, I believe his point is that these should be understood not as ends in themselves, but as powerful tools that support and enhance the fuller spiritual life of the practitioner.
2. His later and more definitive analysis of techniques for altruistic transformation of society is found in Sorokin (1954/2002).
Bibliography
Sorokin, Pitirim. The Reconstruction of Humanity. Beacon Press, 1948.
Sorokin, Pitirim A. Social and Cultural Dynamics. Revised and abridged in one volume by the author, Transaction Books, 1957, 1985. (Originally published in four volumes, I–III, 1937; IV, 1941.)
Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1954; repr. Templeton Foundation, 2002. [ebook]
❧
The Soul’s Vast Battle of Kurukshetra
PREVIOUSLY I’ve suggested (Uebersax, 2012, 2017) that a useful framework for understanding the psychological meanings of ancient myths is subpersonality theory (Lester, 2012; Rowan, 1990). Three leading hypotheses of this view are: (1) the human psyche can be meaningfully likened to a city or kingdom with many citizens (a situation which opens up many allegorical possibilities); (2) individual ‘citizens’ of the psyche may take the form of psychological complexes; and (3) there may potentially be a very large number — thousands or millions — of these mental citizens operating. These hypothesis were derived by applying subpersonality theory to interpretation of the myths of the Old Testament (following hermeneutic principles laid down by Philo of Alexandria 2000 years ago), and Plato’s Republic (a work that makes much more sense interpreted as an allegory for the psyche than as a literal manual for civil politics.)
Independent confirmation of these hypotheses is found in a recent commentary on the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Kriyananda. Relevant passages are shown below. The Bhaghavad Gita is a section of the much larger work, the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata describes a vast battle on the plains of Kurukshetra between two clans, the Panduvas and the Kauravas. Allegorically, the Panduvas symbolize our virtues, and the Kauravas our vices. Hence the epic falls into the category (and is perhaps the most notable example) of a psychomachia myth, comparable with such Greek myths as the Titanomachy (the battles of the Olympian gods against the Titans) and the Trojan War (as mythologically chronicled in Homer’s Iliad), and with the Old Testament’s various battles and contentions between the Israelites and their enemies.
Swami Kriyananda’s allegorical interpretation of the Mahabharata follows a tradition imparted to him by his teacher, Paramhansa Yogananda (1893−1952), who either inherited or derived it from the teachings of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar (1855−1936) — who, in turn, was influenced by his teacher, Lahiri Mahayasa (1828−1895). While terms like “complex” are clearly modern, the basic psychological mechanisms described seem firmly planted in the yogic tradition.
Citizens of the Soul
The Bhagavad Gita presents a fascinating picture of human nature. It shows that every individual is a nation unto himself, his “population” consisting of all his qualities, both good and bad. … Over time, the innumerable experiences he encounters in life, and the way he encounters them, may develop in him innumerable “complexes.” In other words, certain aspects of his nature may insist on attack, while other aspects plead, tortoise-like, for a self-protective withdrawal. Still others may mutter helplessly in the background about “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” while still others spread a whispering campaign of malicious gossip to get “the world” to side with them, while another whole group of mental citizens may [plead] … for tolerance, forbearance, amused acceptance, or calm non-attachment. (pp. 47−48)
There may be thousands or even millions of such complexes/citizens:
[O]ur qualities assume the characteristics of individual personalities, as we become steeped in them by a repetition of the acts that involve us in them. Because of habit, they become entrenched as true “citizens” of our own nation of consciousness. … Thousands or millions of “citizens” mill about, each one bent on fulfilling his own desires and ambitions. Sigmund Freud hardly scratched the surface …. Freud saw only the conflict between personal desire and the expectations of society. In reality the case is infinitely more complex. (p. 50)
Ranged against his upwardly directed aspirations are innumerable downward-moving tendencies which he himself created by past wrong actions, and developed into bad habits. … the forces for error are “innumerable,” whereas the forces of righteousness are “few in number.” Countless are the ways one can slip into error, even as the outside of a large circle has room for taking many approaches to the center. Uplifting virtues are few, for they lead into, and are already close to, the center of our being. Hatred can be defined in terms of countless objects capable of being hated, whereas kindness springs from the inner self, and bestows its beneficence impersonally on all. (p. 58)
Personality Integration
That we have all these inner citizens doesn’t per se necessitate constant inner conflict, although in the usual ‘fallen’ human condition that does seem to be the case. We need not, however, suppose that the only resolution to conflict is for our virtues to utterly destroy hosts of opposing tendencies. Rather, the goal should be one of harmonization.
One obvious strategy, then, is to try to transform, convert or sublimate recalcitrant complexes. This is perhaps symbolically represented in Plato’s Cave Allegory, where, after the philosopher rises from the cave of ignorance, he voluntarily returns to try to educate and uplift the prisoners who remain there (Republic 7.519d−520e).
Another strategy is to consciously solicit the responses of multiple subpersonalities before embarking on some course of action:
introspection (Sanjava) is the wisest course to understanding. … if by introspection one canvasses the reactions of his own mental citizens, he will have a clearer understanding of what he ought or ought not to have done and of how he ought to behave in future. (p. 58)
This corresponds well to suggestions made by Rowan (1990) in managing conflicting subpersonalities.
Indispensable in any case — and this appears to be a key message of the Bhagavad Gita — is to withhold a strong ego-identification from any particular complex. It is not really complexes themselves that cause conflict, but only when we mistakenly identify them as who we are.
Further study and application of subpersonality to the interpretation of myths seems warranted. Modern psychologists can learn much about personality integration and self-realization by studying the Indian mythological epics such as the Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, and the Ramayana. Indian myths, Greek myths, the stories of the Old Testament, and even Plato’s Republic can be understood using a common set of hermeneutical principles. They supply multiple maps of a common terrain, the human soul. Their messages — salvation of the soul by means of Wisdom, virtue, holiness and, above all, love of God — are the same.
first draft 27 July 2021
References
Assagioli, Roberto. Psychosynthesis. London: Turnstone, 1975.
Swami Kriyananda. The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita Explained by Paramhansa Yogananda. Crystal Clarity Publishers, 2008. ebook audio book
Lester, David. A Multiple Self Theory of the Mind. Comprehensive Psychology, 2012, 1, 5.
Rowan, John. Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us. London, 1990.
Uebersax, John. Psychological Allegorical Interpretation of the Bible. Paso Robles: El Camino Real Books, 2012.
Uebersax, John. Psychopolis: Plato’s Inner Republic and Personality Theory. Satyagraha weblog. 12 January 2017.
❧
The Psychological Meaning of Soma
BOOK 9 of the Rig Veda contains 114 hymns to Soma. Soma is presented variously as a god, an ambrosia of immortality drunk by gods, and a ritual elixir with spiritual powers consumed by human beings. Our main interest here is what Soma means in terms of archetypal psychology, and especially what it symbolizes at the level of spiritual consciousness, meditation, contemplation and the like.
In the Vedas, Soma — the drink and the god — is associated with a vivifying, quickening and strengthening of consciousness. Because consciousness itself may be directed in many ways (e.g., sensation, thought, contemplation) so too the gifts of Soma are manifold. Here the reader is encouraged simply to read a few of the Hymns of Book 9. Good examples include Hymns 1, 4, 28, 36, 81, 86 and 100.
My own conjecture is that what’s being described is a dramatic change from the ordinary, fallen consciousness of daily life to a transformed, vitalized, sacred and transcendent experience of the world (outer and inner). It corresponds to what mystics call unitive life. In terms both of Platonism and Maslow’s humanistic psychology, it is to achieve the cognitive state of Being, as opposed to merely Seeming; cf. jivana mukti state, Asrani (2012). Stated in the most exalted terms, we might call this temporarily living as an incarnate god, breaking down the boundaries of time and Eternity.
The Soma principle evidently adds to human Consciousness an affective dimension of intoxication, delight, joy and pleasure. As a god, Soma is associated with the Moon (which beautifies objects by reflecting the Sun’s light). Soma also has parallels with the Greek god, Dionysius.
Two important myths are associated with Soma. In one, the powerful deity Indra (a sky god and counterpart of Zeus) drinks hefty amounts of Soma in order to gain sufficient strength and resources to defeat the primal serpent, Vrtra. Vrtra is the source of the evils that afflict humanity (or, symbolically, that which oppose the integrity of the human psyche).
In another myth, the Asuras (good divinities) defeat the Devas (demonic powers) in a war to see who will have access to Soma, the elixir of immortality. This myth resembles the war between the Olympians and the Titans in Greek mythology: psychologically, the Asuras symbolize the more virtuous elements of the psyche, and the Devas our powerful natural appetites in their unregulated condition.
Because the descriptions for the preparation of Soma are so detailed in Rig Veda 9, it’s generally been assumed that the drink was actually consumed in ancient religious practices. This view is supported by the fact that the Persian equivalent, called haoma, described in the Avesta, is still drunk by certain Zoroastrians. There has been much speculation as to what this ancient drink might have contained. One widely spread (but scarcely credible) theory is that ancient Soma was based on hallucinogenic mushrooms (either psilocybin, or Amanita muscaria). A more popular view today is that the ancient Aryans brought to India a drink based on some combination of cannabis, ephedra and opium. This view is supported by (1) ancient and continued use of cannabis as an entheogen by some Hindu sects, (2) use of ephedra in the above-mentioned contemporary Zoroastrian drink, and (3) most intriguingly, recent discoveries of 4000 year-old temple complexes in Turkmenistan that contain many vats, sieves and so on evidently used for food or drink preparation that contain residues of these three substances.
Even if there was historically a drink, Soma, made of psychedelic substances, our greater concern is not what went into it, but what positive alterations of consciousness are described. The Soma hymns were likely composed over many centuries. While initially they may have been used in connection with actual drinking rituals, over time the genre might have been adapted to instead convey allegorical and psychological teachings. Nevertheless if ancient people did drink a beverage made of cannabis and ephedra, it must have packed quite a wallop! Throughout the hymns we find images of powerful steeds, chariots and bulls.
References
Asrani, U. A. The Psychology of Mysticism. In: John White (ed.), The Highest State of Consciousness 2nd ed., White Crow, 2012. (Article originially appeared in Main Currents in Modern Thought, 25, 68–73, 1969.)
Choudhury, Raja. Soma: The Psychedelic Origins of Religious Experience. Video. 27 August 2015.
Frawley, David. The Flow of Soma. American Institute of Vedic Studies. 25 November 2020.
Frawley, David. Soma, the Bliss Principle in Vedic Knowledge. American Institute of Vedic Studies. 4 November 2020.
Griffith, Ralph T. H. The Hymns of the Rigveda. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Benares, 1897. (web version)
Maslow, Abraham H. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. New York: Viking, 1971 (republished: Arkana, 1993). Ch. 9. Notes on Being-Psychology. pp. 121−142.
Muthukumaraswamy, M. D. Churning of the Ocean: The Myth and its Yogic Interpretations. Sahapedia (website). 19 June 2019
Sarianidi, Victor. Margiana and Soma-Haoma. Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, Vol. 9, 2003.
Emerson’s and Thoreau’s Shared Mystical Experience
Sunset at Horn Pond (source unknown)
ONE hallmark feature of American Transcendentalists was their interest in achieving transcendent states of consciousness, often in connection with experiences of Nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson sought them out eagerly, taking long walks under the stars or sitting beneath a pine tree. His writings describe many. This especially beautiful example relates the events as he and his friend Henry David Thoreau went rowing one evening at sunset. To fully appreciate this read it slowly and imagine yourself being there, seeing the same things:
6 June 1841. Concord, Mass.
THEN the good river-god has taken the form of my valiant Henry Thoreau here & introduced me to the riches of his shadowy starlit, moonlit stream, a lovely new world lying as close & yet as unknown to this vulgar trite one of streets & shops as death to life or poetry to prose. Through one field only we went to the boat & then left all time, all science, all history behind us and entered into Nature with one stroke of a paddle. Take care, good friend! I said, as I looked west into the sunset overhead & underneath, & he with his face toward me rowed towards it, — take care; you know not what you do, dipping your wooden oar into this enchanted liquid, painted with all reds & purples & yellows which glows under & behind you.
Presently this glory faded & the stars came & said “Here we are,” & began to cast such private & ineffable beams as to stop all conversation. A holiday, a villeggiatura, a royal revel, the proudest, most magnificent, most heart rejoicing festival that valor & beauty, power & poetry ever decked & enjoyed — it is here, it is this. These stars signify it & proffer it: they gave the idea & the invitation, not kings, not palaces, not men, not women, but these tender, poetic, clear, and auspicious stars, so eloquent of secret promises: we heard what the king or rich man said, we knew of his villa, his grove, his wine, & his company, but the provocation & point of the invitation came out of these beguiling stars soothsaying, flattering, persuading, who though their promise was never yet made good in human experience, are not to be contradicted, not to be insulted, nay not even to be disbelieved by us. All experience is against them, yet their word is Hope & shall still forever leave experience a liar. … Yes, bright Inviters! I accept your eternal courtesy and will not mistake it for a bidding to a foolish banquet with men & women called rich & beautiful. [1]
But on us sitting darkling or sparkling there in the boat, presently rose the moon, she cleared the clouds & sat in her triumph so maidenly & yet so queenly, so modest yet so strong, that I wonder not that she ever represents the Feminine to men. There is no envy, no interference in nature. The beauty & sovereignty of the moon, the stars, or the trees do not envy: they know how to make it all their own. As we sail swiftly along, & so cause the moon to go now pure through her amber vault & now through masses of shade & now half hid through the plumes of an oak or a pine, each moment, each aspect is sufficient & perfect.
Parts of this passage also appear in Emerson’s essay Nature (Essays, 2nd series).
In his landmark biography of Emerson, Robert Richardson discusses this experience. He notes how it has several typical qualities of transcendent or ecstatic states, including the sense of being outside of time. He cites Laski’s Ecstasy and Underhill’s Mysticism, but unfortunately doesn’t mention Abraham Maslow’s very relevant writings on peak/plateau experiences and ‘Being cognition.’
For Maslow’s part it seems unusual — or in any case unfortunate — that he didn’t refer more often to Emerson, Thoreau and the American Transcendentalists. Partly this may have been because when Maslow wrote in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Transcendentalists were out of vogue. Maslow’s journals also contain mild criticisms of Emerson for being too detached from social issues (a common, but incorrect notion).
Happily, we are seeing a resurgence of interest amongst psychologists in states of transcendence, awe and ecstasy induced by Nature (see for example Bethelmy & Corraliza, 2019 and references therein). That was Maslow’s dream: to accept these experiences as natural, attainable by everyone, psychologically valuable and amenable to scientific study. Nevertheless, due partly to the current neglect of Humanities and Literature in modern universities, most psychologists gain little exposure to Transcendentalism. That’s a shame, because Transcendentalist literature is a treasure trove!
[1] Compare lines in “The Poet II” (Poems, 314f.)
Sources
Bethelmy, Lisbeth C.; Corraliza José A. Transcendence and sublime experience in nature: Awe and inspiring energy. Frontiers in Psychology 10 (2019): 509.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. In: Essays. 2nd Series. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Vol. 3. Ed. Edward Waldo Emerson. Houghton Mifflin, 1903; pp. 172−174.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Vol. 7, 1838−1842. Eds. A. W. Plumstead and Harrison Hayford. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969; pp. 454−455.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Eds. Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes. Vol. 5, 1838−1841. Houghton Mifflin, 1911; pp. 557−559.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Poet. In: Poems. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Vol. 9. Ed. Edward Waldo Emerson. Houghton Mifflin, 1904; pp. 314−315.
Laski, Marghanita. Ecstasy: A Study of Some Secular and Religious Experiences. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962; pp. 5, 45, 49.
Maslow, Abraham H. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. New York: Viking, 1971 (republished: Arkana, 1993).
Richardson, Robert D. Jr. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. University of California, 1995; pp. 352−353.
Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism. New York: Dutton, 1911; 427−448.
The Esoteric Origins of ‘Chutes and Ladders’
Game of Snakes and Ladders (India, 19th century)
C HUTES and Ladders is a popular board game for young children. Players compete to traverse a series of 100 consecutively numbered squares laid out in a 10×10 grid. Each turn a player spins a dial, and moves their token forward the number of squares indicated. Some squares, however, are connected to ladders and chutes. Upon landing on a square at a ladder’s foot, one then move ones piece ahead several squares or rows to the ladder’s terminus. Conversely, landing on a chute square requires the player to move their token back several spaces or rows. The game has a mild moral message, with ladders and chutes corresponding to simple virtues and ‘vices’ relevant to young children. For example, in the square at the foot of one ladder a young student is shown reading a book, with the ladder’s end showing the student wearing a graduation cap and gown.
Snakes and Ladders (UK, ca. 1890)
Chutes and Ladders is a simple modification of the game Snakes and Ladders, which enjoyed success in Great Britain from the 1890s through the 1920s (snakes serving the same function as chutes). Snakes and Ladders, in turn, was imported from a similar dice game played in India for several centuries. The Indian version, sometimes called gyān caupaṛ (Game of Knowledge) had a more explicitly moral (and adult) meaning. It was played throughout India in many versions, including ones adapted to Sufis, Jains and Hindus. The game’s central principle is to gain liberation from bondage of passions and to ascend from lower levels of consciousness to higher levels of spiritual enlightenment.
Cībhāḥ kāsā. Nepal, 18th century
Yet the history of this intriguing game goes back still further — much further. The earliest ancestor was a game played in ancient China (circa 5th century) called shengguan tu (Table of Bureaucratic Promotion). The purpose of this game was to simulate the advancement of a civil servant within the complex administrative bureaucracy of the Chinese state; acquisition of virtues and abandonment of vice — in ways aligned with Confucian philosophy — were understood as central to this.
Xuanfo tu (20th century)
Within a few centuries, a new version of the game emerged with more explicitly religious (Daoist) meanings. By the middle ages, Buddhism had largely supplanted Daoism in China, and a Buddhist version of the game, xuanfo tu (Table of Buddha selection) was developed. The Buddhist game traveled to Tibet and Nepal (there called sa gnon rnam bzhags or ‘ascending the spiritual levels’), and likely to India also, where, presumably, it evolved into the Game of Knowledge.
As shown by the example above, the basic framework of this board game lends itself to many variations and, in some cases, considerable detail. Hence it became not only a means of recreation, but a didactic tool for summarizing moral, spiritual and psychological advancement according to Buddhist teachings.
Modern versions still exist, and according to Ngai (2010; p. 129) there is currently an online version associated with the Pure Land Buddhism sect!
Given the longevity of the game, one wonders if a suitably modernized version might still appeal to philosophically and spiritually minded people in the West.
Schlieter (2012) has aptly noted how this type of board game resembles a Markov chain (named for the Russian mathematician, Andrey Markov). In a Markov chain, a system or object may exist a in any one of a finite number (k) of states. Associated with each state is a set of probabilities of it transitioning to each other state, or remain in the same one. That is, in a Markov chain there is a k×k matrix of transition probabilities, p(i, j), which govern the chances that, given that the current state is j, the next state will be j (for i = 1 … k and j = 1 … k).
Perhaps one reason for the game’s appeal is that it parallels a certain Markov chain-like feature of human consciousness. Like the game, our consciousness can exist in any one of a set of states; and from that state one may transition to any other (or remain the same) with certain probabilities.
If nothing else this is a useful conceptual tool for understanding changes in consciousness. Things like ascetical training, spiritual exercises and rituals/liturgies could be understood a mechanisms for advantageously changing the structure of our transition probabilities. For example, if we’re in the state, “feel hunger,” we could train ourselves to transition to “engage in contemplation” instead of “eat.”
Some Markov chains also have the property of absorbing states. This occurs when the probability of remaining in the same state (as opposed to transitioning to some other) is very high. Absorbing states of consciousness might be negative – like getting stuck in a state of negative thinking. However higher, spiritual states could, in theory, also, say through practice, become absorbing. In that case we’d be less likely to fall from a higher to a lower state of consciousness.
Playing a game like xuanfo tu, therefore may help us better recognize the Markov chain-like nature of our own consciousness and make us more alert to its transition patterns, positive and negative.
Bibliography
McGuire, Beverley Foulks. Playing with karma: a buddhist board game. Material Religion 10.1, 2014; 4−28.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/175183414X13909887177466
Ngai, May-Ying Mary. From Entertainment to Enlightenment: A Study on a Cross-Cultural Religious Board Game with Emphasis on the Table of Buddha Selection Designed by Ouyi Zhixu of the Late Ming Dynasty. Dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2010.
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/24/items/1.0071581
Schmidt-Madsen, Jacob. The Game of Knowledge: Playing at Spiritual Liberation in 18th-and 19th-Century Western India. Dissertation, University of Copenhagen, 2019.
https://www.forskningsdatabasen.dk/en/catalog/2451172010
Schlieter, Jens. Simulating Liberation: The Tibetan Buddhist Game ‘Ascending the [Spiritual] Levels.’ In: Philippe Bornet &, Maya Burger (eds.), Religions in Play: Games, Rituals and Virtual Worlds, Zürich, 2012 (pp. 93−116).
http://www.academia.edu/download/30455787/Schlieter_Simulating_Liberation_.pdf
Topsfield, Andrew. The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders. Artibus Asiae 46:3, 1985, pp. 203−226.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3250203
Topsfield, Andrew. Instant Karma: The Meaning of Snakes and Ladders. In: Andrew Topsfield (ed.), The Art of Play: Board and Card Games of India. Mumbai, 2006; pp. 75−89.
https://books.google.com/books?id=HjyNkQEACAAJ
John Sullivan Dwight: The Religion of Beauty (1840)
TRANSCENDENTALISM is notoriously difficult to define. But what it’s really all about is producing certain states of consciousness, including aesthetic, religious and mystical experiences, longer or shorter in duration.
Perhaps no better example of the Transcendentalist approach to beauty exists than an essay John Sullivan Dwight contributed to the first issue of The Dial. Dwight went on to become a prominent music critic. (He’s even better known, though, for supplying the English lyrics to the French carol O Holy Night.) In this essay, Dwight makes three important points: (1) Beauty reveals ones own soul; (2) it improves individuals and has practical social benefits; and (3) it proves the existence of and awakens natural religion. The essay is not especially well written, overdoing (in emulation of German Romantics) the ‘zealous manifesto’ style of prose. Yet individual sentences and paragraphs are brilliant. Here are some of the best.
Beauty reveals ones soul
The outward scenery of our life, when we feel it to be beautiful, is always commensurate with the grandeur of our inward ideal aspiration; it reflects encouragingly the heart’s highest, brightest dreams; it does not contradict the soul’s convictions of a higher life; it tells us that we are safe in believing the thought, which to us seems noblest.
When the skies and woods reveal their loveliness, then nature seems a glorious picture, of which our own inmost soul is the painter, and our own loves and longings the subject.
Beauty is the revelation of the soul to the senses.
We find the soul’s deep inexpressible thoughts written around us in the skies, the far blue hills, and swelling waters.
Beauty improves individuals and has practical social benefits
The instinct of obedience, of conciliation, of decorum, reverence, and harmony, flows into the soul with beauty.
It disposes to order. It gives birth in the mind to an instinct of propriety. It suggests imperceptibly, it inclines gently, but irresistibly, to the fit action, to the word in season. The beauty which we see and feel plants its seeds in us.
Gazing with delight on nature, our will imperceptibly becomes attuned to the same harmony. The sense of beauty is attended with a certain reverence; we dare not mar what looks so perfect.
This sense, too, has a something like conscience contained in it; we feel bound to do and be ourselves something worthy of the beauty we are permitted to admire.
This feeling, while it makes alive and quickens, yet is eminently conservative, in the best sense.
He, who has it, is always interested on the side of order, and of all dear and hallowed associations.
The presence of beauty, like that of nature, as soon as we feel it at all, overcomes us with respect, and a certain sensitive dread of all violence, mischief, or discord.
Again, the love of beauty awakens higher aspirations in us.
Beauty always suggests the thought of the perfect.
He trusts nature; for he has kissed her loveliness; he knows that she smiles encouragement to him.
The greatest blessing, which could be bestowed on the weary multitude, would be to give them the sense of beauty; to open their eyes for them, and let them see how richly we are here surrounded, what a glorious temple we inhabit, how every part of it is eloquent of God.
I hold, then, that without a cultivation of the sense of beauty, chiefly to be drunken from the open fountains of nature, there can be no healthy and sound moral development.
Beauty awakens and proves the existence of natural religion.
The devout mind is a lover of nature.
The love of nature grows with the growth of the soul. Religion makes man sensible to beauty; and beauty in its turn disposes to religion.
The love of nature ends in the love of God.
It is impossible to feel beauty, and not feel that there is a spirit there. The sensualist, the materialist, the worshipper of chance, is cheated of his doubts, the moment this mystery overtakes him in his walks.
This surrounding presence of beautiful nature keeps the soul buoyed up forever into its element of freedom, where its action is cheerful, healthful, and unwearied … and the call to worship, either by prayer or by self-sacrifice, is music to it.
In all this outward beauty, — these soft swells and curves of the landscape, which seems to be the earth’s smile; — this inexhaustible variety of form and colors and motion, not promiscuous, but woven together in as natural a harmony as the thoughts in a poem; this mysterious hieroglyphic of the flowers; this running alphabet of tangled vine and bending grass studded with golden paints; this all-embracing perspective of distance rounding altogether into one rainbow-colored sphere, so perfect that the senses and the soul roam abroad over it unsated, feeling the pesence and perfection of the whole in each part; this perfect accord of sights, sounds, motions, and fragrance, all tuned to one harmony, out of which run melodies inexhaustible of every mood and measure;—in all this, man first feels that God is without him, as well as within him, that nature too is holy; and can he bear to find himself the sole exception?
Does not the soul begin to dream of its own boundless capacities, when it has felt beauty? Does not immortality then, for the first time, cease to be a name, a doctrine, and become a present experience?
The beautiful, then, is the spiritual aspect of nature. By cherishing a delicate sensibility to it, we make nature preach us a constant lesson of faith; we find all around an illustration of the life of the spirit.
Everything beautiful is emblematic of something spiritual.
Is it not God revealed through the senses? Is not every beautiful thing a divine hint thrown out to us?
The close, unseemly school-house, in which our infancy was cramped, — of how much natural faith did it not rob us!
This should be a part of our religious education.
Source: The Dial (July 1840) pp. 17-22. Read the whole essay here.
Blinding Polyphemus Gently
Arnold Böcklin (Swiss), Odysseus and Polyphemus, 1896
ODYSSEUS’ problems, you’ll recall, began in earnest after he blinded the cyclops, Polyphemus. He might have proceeded straight home without incident, but instead gloated as he sailed away, revealing his name and identity. It was then that Polyphemus, armed with that information, asked his father, Poseidon to take revenge — setting the stage for many perils Odysseus faced.
A common view since antiquity is that the Odyssey has an allegorical and philosophical meaning: a return of the mind to its natural homeland of peace, clarity, right reason and wisdom. The ancient Greeks summed all these things up in one word: sophrosyne, meaning soundness of mind. The events of Odysseus’ journey home symbolize the hazards and milestones in our own psychological process of return — a journey we make daily. As often as we become disturbed and upset, losing composure and mental clarity, we are like Odysseus, cast into a churning sea and must make our way back.
In Polyphemus — an oafish, anti-social giant, concerned with nothing beyond eating, drinking, sleeping and satisfying primitive biological instincts — we easily see a symbol of our most base nature, more or less corresponding to the Freudian id. Polyphemus’ having only one eye means he sees only the realm of sense perception, oblivious to all that’s spiritual, ideal and eternal.
Despite some of his crew being devoured (symbolizing a disruption of our clear rational consciousness by intrusive thoughts and mental agitation caused by ungratified appetites), Odysseus escapes by using his intelligence. Some commentators see in the sharpened, fire-hardened pole with which he blinds Polyphemus a symbol for dialectic — e.g., analyzing urges with sharp, incisive reasoning, instead of instantly giving in to them.
But, as we’ve said, Odysseus pays a price, because Poseidon makes his subsequent journey very difficult. [1] This suggests a rather grim picture of life. Is our only choice to either gratify every appetite, or else suffer for not doing so?
Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus (the first Neoplatonist), thought otherwise. In his short essay, On the Cave of the Nymphs — a landmark in the allegorical interpretation of Homer — he considers a later episode of the Odyssey that, like the Polyphemus story, involves a cave. When Odysseus, with the help of Athena and the splendid Phaecians, arrives at Ithaca, he lands at the Cave of the Nymphs. Homer describes the cave in a few lines (Od. XIII 102–112) densely packed with imagery. Porphyry sees a parallelism between this cave and that of Polyphemus: once again Odysseus leaves a cave, but this time more fortunately. Following earlier advice given by the prophet Tiresias in the underworld, Odysseus walks inland until he finds a “land that knows nothing of the sea,” where he plants an oar from his ship and offers appeasing sacrifice to Poseidon.
Porphyry interprets this to mean that, while we should oppose our base nature (Polyphemus), we should do so wisely, and, one might say, with diplomacy. We don’t want an outright confrontation that will elicit Poseidon’s wrath.
Porphyry explains it thus at the end of Cave of the Nymphs:
16. In this cave [of the Nymphs], therefore, says Homer, all external possessions must be deposited. Here, naked, and assuming a suppliant habit, afflicted in body, casting aside everything superfluous, and being averse to the energies of sense, it is requisite to sit at the foot of the olive and consult with Minerva [Athena] by what means we may most effectually destroy that hostile rout of passions which insidiously lurk in the secret recesses of the soul. (tr. Taylor)
He means that the cave is like the haven of our mind which we return to in contemplation, withdrawing our attention from the world of sense.
Indeed, as it appears to me, it was not without reason that Numenius and his followers thought the person of Ulysses in the Odyssey represented to us a man who passes in a regular manner over the dark and stormy sea of generation [genesis = becoming, a Platonic term for the sensory world] and thus at length arrives at that region where tempests and seas are unknown, and finds a nation
“Who ne’er knew salt, or heard the billows roar.” (Ibid.)
Above Porphyry is explaining the allegorical meaning of the Odyssey as a mental journey, attributing this approach to the earlier Platonist philosopher, Numenius.
17. Again, according to Plato, the deep, the sea, and a tempest are images of a material nature [i.e., our biological nature]. (…) But from Thoosa the Cyclops was born, whom Ulysses deprived of sight. And this deed of Ulysses became the occasion of reminding him of his errors, till he was safely landed in his native country. On this account, too, a seat under the olive is proper to Ulysses, as to one who implores divinity and would appease his natal daemon [the id] with a suppliant branch. For it will not be simply, and in a concise way, possible for anyone to be liberated from this sensible life, who blinds this daemon, and renders his energies inefficacious; but he who dares to do this, will be pursued by the anger of the marine and material gods [gods = inner energies and/or archetypal complexes?], whom it is first requisite to appease by sacrifices, labours, and patient endurance; at one time, indeed, contending with the passions, and at another employing enchantments and deceptions, and by these, transforming himself in an all-various manner; in order that, being at length divested of the torn garments (by which his true person was concealed) he may recover the ruined empire of his soul.
Nor will he even then be liberated from labours; but this will be effected when he has entirely passed over the raging sea, and, though still living, becomes so ignorant of marine and material works (through deep attention to intelligible concerns) as to mistake an oar for a corn-van [or winnowing fan — i.e., to be so far inland that people there don’t know what an oar is]. (Ibid.)
Porphyry explains this principle of intelligent resistance to our ‘inner Polyphemus’ more directly in his book advocating vegetarianism for spiritual aspirants, On Abstinence from Animal Food.
32. But this departure [from sense, imagination, and irrationality] may be effected by violence, and also by persuasion and by reason, through the wasting away, and, as it may be said, oblivion and death of the passions; which, indeed, is the best kind of departure, since it is accomplished without oppressing that from which we are divulsed. (…) And this negligence is produced by an abstinence from those sensible perceptions which excite the passions, and by a persevering attention to intelligibles. And among these passions or perturbations, those which arise from food are to be enumerated. (tr. Taylor)
So he’s recommending a moderate, reasoned approach to handling troublesome appetites and passions, instead of a direct confrontation. To put this in practical terms, instead of going on a crash diet, it’s better to wean oneself gradually from over-eating — by, for example, phasing out delicacies that keep us constantly thinking about the next meal. Have tofu for dinner once in a while, or enjoy a meatless Friday. Let Polyphemus go gradually to sleep, instead of waging war.
A more general lesson from this is how, allegorically understood, the Odyssey is concerned with practical psychological issues in life. The same is, of course, also true with the Iliad — and with Greek myths generally (see, e.g., my page here).
Notes
- A further issue here is the problem of hubris. At first Odysseus is content to call himself “nobody.” Only while sailing off does he tempt the gods by revealing his name and identity. Psychologically, calling himself nobody corresponds to ones ego acting, as it should, on behalf of the entire Self, and exerting a healthy and natural control over the appetites. The latter situation occurs when the ego becomes too strongly identified with opposing appetites.
Bibliography
Clark, Gillian. Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals. London: Duckworth, 2000. Reprinted: London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Lamberton, Robert. Porphyry: On the Cave of the Nymphs. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1983
Taylor, Thomas (tr.). On Abstinence from Animal Food . In: Thomas Taylor (tr.), Select Works of Porphyry, London: Rodd, 1823, (pp. 1−170).
Taylor, Thomas (tr.). On the Cave of the Nymphs in the Thirteenth Book of the Odyssey. In: Thomas Taylor (tr.), Select Works of Porphyry, London: Rodd, 1823, (pp. 171−200). Reprinted: London, John M. Watkins, 1917.
Transcendentalism as Spiritual Consciousness
AMERICAN Transcendentalism (i.e., the movement associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson) is notoriously hard to define. Perhaps the best way to understand the movement is that it centers on recognition of a certain dimension of experience — transcendent awareness — which is very real, but distinctly different from waking consciousness. In Platonic terms, it amounts to an elevation of the mind and awakening of what we might call the higher intelligence.
This shift in consciousness sometimes comes spontaneously; but more often it’s the result of a deliberate choice. It is a skill that can be practiced and improved. We could perhaps develop specific exercises to produce and develop it.
Thomas Starr King here supplies as fine a description of this higher consciousness as perhaps has ever been written. (Note, incidentally, that this is not a cloistered mystic writing, but someone involved in public affairs.)
Several ‘dimensions’ of transcendent cognitive experience are mentioned, including recognition of deeper meanings, appreciation of beauty, and awareness of God’s goodness.
* * *
True Spiritual Communications
EVERY flower, every tree, every plant, every star, exists because it is a receptacle of the Divine vitality. It was organized and is sustained by his thought and his goodness, and we comprehend it, we really see it, when it is translucent with the rays of the Infinite life, and brings us into fellowship of mind or heart with God. The visible material world is the shell of which the spiritual world is the soul. It is the series of printed signs of which the spiritual world constitutes the sense.
When you read the sentences which Burke or Bacon have written, you do not stop to study the letters or shape of the types that cover their pages. The substance you are after is the wisdom and eloquence which they poured from their minds, and which the types record. You get into communion with the spiritual world, to which those inky paragraphs are the portals, as you feel your intellect penetrated, and your passions stirred, with the light and heat that streamed, in their creative mood, from their genius. And the visible universe is the vast array of types, not simply once set up, but continually created and composed by the Infinite Mind, to convey his wisdom and love.
We have the privilege, therefore, of living in the spiritual world now. We need not wait to get into the next stage of existence to begin to enter it. […] We live in the spiritual world, if our souls are awake, precisely as they do, though possibly we may be one remove farther off, by our bodily organization, from the waves of light and love that flow out from heaven.
And we ought to hold firmly to the principle that the spiritual faculty in us is the real organ of communion with the spiritual sphere. The organ through which we know and receive light is the eye. The ear enables us to hold intercourse with music, eloquence, and all uttered thought. The lungs are the channel of our reception from the atmosphere. And the soul, the power by which we become acquainted with Divine truth and respond to the breath of the Infinite Life, is the channel or medium, and the only channel of reception from the spiritual world.
There is hardly any limit to be assigned to the intercourse we can hold with everlasting truth, which is the substance of heaven, even in this world, by the soul.
When you look at a landscape in summer, if you see simply so many trees, acres, cattle, stones, you are wholly in the natural world. You see the outside shapes and colors, just as a sheep or a deer does, when the scene is painted on its eye.
If you study the soil and rocks so as to learn the geological truth of the region, how it was put together through ages of elaboration, by the power of God, and prepared for human habitation, the outside facts are at once a medium of Divine truth to you. A wave of God’s life, an influence from the spiritual world, rolls out of the scene into your intellect, and to that extent you come into communion with the Divine sphere by your mind.
If you see the beauty of the landscape, if the charm and harmony of the colors and the grouping of grove, meadow, hill, and stream, and the blaze of the overhanging blue, flecked with clouds that shed sailing shadows to cool the grass, waken in you a joy that springs from perception of the ineffable art of God, a richer wave from the spiritual world breaks through the scene upon your nature.
If, beyond these two experiences, you see in the same landscape a mystic expression of the Divine goodness, — if the beauty glows with an exhalation of love, “like a finer light in light,” — so that you look on the budding corn and the grazing life, and the peaceful ministry of a thousand forces to human happiness, as Jesus looked upon the bounteous hills that sloped from the shores of Gennesaret, and if, through all the processes which publish that goodness, you see the working of laws that tell you how God’s laws and life play in the experience of the human spirit, as Jesus plucked part of his gospel — the parable of the sower — from the various fortunes of the scattered grain, a still finer surge from the everlasting world floods you from that vision, and though you stand under the visible sun, and are in the body, and within the conditions of mortality, your soul is in communion with God; you look upon one district of this world as an angel looks upon it; your feet are in matter, your soul is in the spiritual sphere.
You will see, too, how this principle applies to all productions of genius. When you read a book, look at a statue, examine a painting, you are on the natural plane, if you simply see the material which the creative mind used to convey its thought and sentiment. You pass up into spiritual reception in proportion as, through the printed eloquence, the imprisoned meaning, the glowing character and imagination, you rise into sympathy with the genius of the writer or artist, and lie open with him to the inspiration that streams out of heaven into the human soul.
The soul is the organ of reception from the substantial world. Spiritual communications appeal to, and are verified by, no other faculties, any more than light can be perceived by the ear or flavors by the eye. It is impossible to obtain communion with the essential quality of the spiritual world in external ways. You can only be carried to the outside of the world of spirits in such ways. It is by something told to the interior faculties, something superior in its grade to anything we can learn by logic and by sight, some thing that makes us more wise in everlasting truth for which the world was made, more spiritual in feeling, that is, more pure, reverent, devout, and joyful, that we verify a message from the heavenly world. (pp. 73−77)
Source: Thomas Starr King, Christianity and Humanity: A Series of Sermons. Edwin P. Whipple (ed.). Boston: Osgood, 1877. True Spiritual Communications (pp. 71− 89).
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