A Week − Thoreau’s Spiritual Odyssey

Mount Greylock (highest point in Massachusetts)

“Bear in mind. Child, and never for an instant forget, that there are higher planes, infinitely higher planes, of life than this thou art now travelling on. Know that the goal is distant, and is upward, and is worthy [of] all your life’s efforts to attain to.” (Journal, vol. II, 497)

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, alas, is too often seen as almost a one-hit-wonder. Walden is revered as a great work of literature. His second most famous work, On Civil Disobedience, is respected, but almost more as a political manifesto than as literature per se. Few read his poems, journals or essays.

Yet there is good reason to regard A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers as a literary masterpiece equal to, if not even surpassing Walden.

It was not received well on its initial publication, and Thoreau re-wrote it twice. Even the third version, published at his own expense, fared poorly: the publisher sent 3/4 of the volumes back to him unsold.

The work was plainly a labor of love for Thoreau. He spent nearly a decade on it. Emerson thought highly of it, but the critics did not. They complained of its unorthodox style — a travel narrative interspersed with various anecdotes, poems and ‘stray’ philosophical thoughts.

In the 20th century a more favorable view emerged. People began to see that everything in A Week was connected. There is a sublime unity, and the theme is spirituality. It is not a literal narrative of a journey up and down a river, but  a parable for the soul’s journey, its immortal destiny. Lawrence Buell devotes a chapter to it, referring to Thoreau’s aim “to immortalize the excursion, raising it, in all its detail, to the level of mythology,” and calling it the “most ambitious literary work the Transcendentalist movement produced” (p. 144).

Thoreau used the story of his trip with his brother John — who died tragically not long after the events — to work through his grief, and arrive at a firm hope in a life beyond this one. Moreover, as artist, poet and prophet, he wished to communicate a deep message to his readers.

Whether A Week is a great work, whether he succeeded like the ancient Greek poets he so admired in producing an immortal work, I leave it up to you to decide. But it is a beautiful and haunting work in any case. The spiritual dimension is superbly revealed by Klaus Ohlhoff in his master’s thesis. I have never seen a thesis more insightful and artistically composed than this. Chapter 2 ought to have been published as a standalone essay, but apparently never was.

Trust me. If you love Thoreau (and many do, of that I am certain), you will appreciate this Ohlhoff’s chapter. I will not spoil it by quoting from it, nor cite or relevant passages from A Week. If you’ve ever read A Week or ever plan to — I would simply urge you to read Ohloff’s study.

References

Adams, Raymond W. Thoreau and Immortality. Studies in Philology, vol. 26, no. 1, 1929, pp. 58–66.

Bishop, Jonathan. The Experience of the Sacred in Thoreau’s Week. ELH, 33, March 1966.

Buell, Lawrence. Literary Transcendentalism: Style and Vision in the American Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973; Chapter 8, Thoreau’s A Week (pp. 208−238).

Ohlhoff, Klaus W. Thoreau’s Quest for Immortality. Diss. Lakehead University, 1979; Chapter 2 (pp. 63–144).

Paul, Sherman. The Shores of Africa: Thoreau’s Inward Exploration. Urbana; University of Illinois Press, 1958.

Thoreau, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. New York: Crowell, 1911.

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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)

Transcendentalism Timelines

HERE are two timeline charts that relate to New England Transcendentalism.The first, above, shows the dates of major figures in the movement.  Not everyone may agree with my choices here.  For example, Walt Whitman, and even more, Emily Dickinson, are not usually considered part of the main Transcendentalist movement.  However my own opinion is that poetry (as Emerson many times emphasized) is so important to the message of Transcendentalism that we can risk erring in the direction of potential over-inclusion of poets.

The second figure, below, summarizes key 18th century European influences on New England Transcendentalism.  As shown, these include German idealism (Kant, Schelling, etc.), German Romanticism (Goethe, De Stael), ‘English’ Transcendentalism (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle [these are not really “18th century” influences]), and Swedenborg.

The first figure shows some interesting things.  One is the high proportion of Unitarian ministers.  Many of these were Christian Unitarians.  This somewhat contradicts the ‘received opinion’ that Transcendentalism was fundamentally non- or even anti-Christian.  The relationship between Transcendentalism and Christianity is a highly nuanced issue that has been insufficiently studied.  Second, we see a definite ‘golden age’ of Transcendentalism between roughly, 1836 and 1855.  This period contains most of the publications emblematic of the movement.  However Emerson remained a popular and active lecturer into the 1870’s (even travelling to California).  Moreover, Amos Bronson Alcott’s Concord School of Philosophy operated up to the last decade of the 19th century.

Another interesting detail is that, although there is a tendency to think of Whitman as a more modern figure than Thoreau, they were born only a year apart, and Leaves of Grass appeared the year after Walden.

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Dial (1840−1844) − Complete Edition

THE seminal New England Transcendentalist periodical Dial, published from 1840 through 1844, is a milestone in the history of American literature, philosophy and intellectual life.  It’s something not only of historical interest, but a living part of American consciousness.  The ideas were to lofty to have much direct impact then, but they await and invite rediscovery by new generations.

To the best of my knowledge, the complete four volumes have never been printed in their entirety, except for a very limited edition in 1902.  Moreover, many of the fine essays and poems do not exist in machine readable form. I have hopefully met the need by taking four scanned volumes available from Google Books, converting them with optical character recognition to machine readable form, placing them in a single, bookmarked pdf file, and adding author information not in the original volumes.  The free pdf ebook can be downloaded here.

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What American Transcendentalism is Not

Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1859

THERE is today in the United States a severe cultural crisis that involves a loss of morale, hope and meaning.  This probably affects most of all young adults, who have their whole lives ahead of them, and yet must face problems like student loan debt, lack of adequate jobs, unaffordable housing,  and completely dysfunctional politics, coupled with an absence of meaningful creativity in literary and artistic sectors of society.

Behind all these problem is a more fundamental one: that the cultural mentality in the West today is one of radical materialism — and materialism, by its very nature, robs life of true meaning.  If radical materialism is the malady, then a return to cultural Idealism is the remedy. No only common sense, but also — as we have often discussed at Satyagraha — the theories and historical research of the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin give us some grounds for optimism that a more Idealistic society may emerge from modern materialism.

One way to promote a return to Idealism is to re-familiarize ourselves with the great tradition of American Transcendentalism.  This has several advantages.  First, Transcendentalism[1] is an indigenous, Americanized Idealism, peculiarly suited to our own unique circumstances, history and potentials as a nation.  Second (and partly for the preceding reason), while it has faded from view, it has merely been submerged rather than entirely eliminated from the collective consciousness — as evidenced by such examples as that, even if nobody bothers to read them, we still name streets after Emerson and Thoreau and their portraits hang in the halls of university English Departments.

Young adults today, then, ought to understand what American Transcendentalism is.  Then they will at least know there is a coherent and achievable alternative to a materialistic culture.  One obstacle, however, is that explaining Transcendentalism (or even defining the term) is notoriously difficult.  Part of the problem is that we are dealing with a cultural mentality, including states of consciousness, which are by their nature ‘intangible’ and therefore inherently difficult to literally define.

However perhaps we can be clever here, and approach the issue indirectly.  That is, let’s try here not to define what Transcendentalism is, but what it isn’t.  That will get us partway to the goal, and in the process can help eliminate certain specific misconceptions that may impede gaining a proper understanding.

Turning, then, to that supremely authoritative source of misinformation, the Google search page, we see that in response to the question “What is American Transcendentalism” it says: “Key transcendentalism [sic] beliefs were that: (1) humans are inherently good but can be corrupted by society and institutions; (2) insight and experience are more important than logic; (3) spirituality should come from the self, not organized religion; and nature is beautiful and should be respected.”

Let’s look at each statement in turn and examine how it is true, false, incomplete, or potentially misleading.

Humans are inherently good but can be corrupted by society and institutions.

The bland statement ‘humans are innately good’ is something more like Rousseau would say. Transcendentalists held much stronger beliefs: that humans are divine, with immortal souls and godlike potentials. We are, as Emerson put it, ‘gods in ruins.’  That is, we fail to live up to our divine potential.  The proper remedy is moral, intellectual and spiritual self-culture. Each individual has a solemn moral duty for such self-cultivation.

To say that human beings’ corruption comes from society and institutions is, again, Rousseauian.  For Transcendentalists, it is we are ourselves who are to blame for our failures.  In a characteristically Platonic fashion (Plato is the dominant philosophical influence on Transcendentalists), the human soul is understood as fallen — not because of external forces, but from insufficient personal virtue and wisdom.   Transcendentalists certainly wished to reform and make more just government and society. But this supposes that a free individual can elevate himself or herself to be an agent of change, despite the opposing influences of current institutions.

Insight and experience and more important than logic.

This is basically true, but incomplete. Transcendentalists saw themselves as reacting to the narrow rationalist mentality associated with John Locke and his followers. This empirical/rationalist worldview became increasingly dominant throughout the 18th and into the 19th century.  It created, in the opinion of Transcendentalists, a mechanical perspective of life — a utilitarian society where money counts more than meaning, the end always justifies the means, and atheism displaces religion in human affairs.

It is also true that Transcendentalists highly valued ‘experience.’  They saw modern man as living life abstractly — one step removed from reality (as Emerson put it, “living second-hand.”)  We respond not to things as they are, about according to rational theories that are, by their nature, limiting and distortive.

Similarly, insight was vital for Transcendentalists. This is an essential feature of Idealism, generally.  Insight pertains to realms of knowledge we have that have no connection with the sensory or material world, but instead concern what we see about our own nature by looking within.

Spirituality should come from the self, not organized religion.

Implicit in this statement — but it needs to be stated explicitly — is that Transcendentalists staunchly affirmed that spirituality ought to be central in our lives.  As to the view of organized religion, Transcendentalists were divided on this point.  Some, like Emerson and Thoreau, had little use for organized religion.  Others, however, maintained affiliations with the Unitarian and, in some cases, Congregational or Episcopal denominations.

The central issue is not organized religion, but dogmatized religion. The essential point Transcendentalists wished to affirm (which is the same affirmation made by mystics of all religious throughout the ages) is that personal spiritual experience matters more than imposed literal doctrine.  A preacher or catechism can insist, “God is Love” — yet that carries far less force than having the direct experience of God as Love.  In the final analysis, doctrine and personal experience are not mutually exclusive.  Doctrine can be useful in order that, as St. Augustine taught, belief may lead to experience.  However what is clear — and is the real issue here — is that an overemphasis on doctrine has the potential to crowd out and lessen the potential for direct religious experience. 

Nature is beautiful and should be respected.

Again, this is a weak and even revisionist version of what Transcendentalists actually believed.  To say that ‘nature is beautiful’ would hardly distinguish them from any other movement or segment of humanity.  What they actually believed — and what does make them relevant today — are stronger propositions: (1) that Nature has a spiritual basis; (2) that it is a manifestation of God, and of God’s Goodness and Love; (3) that it is also an externalization of our own soul; (4) and that Nature is like a book, intended in every detail to teach us spiritual lessons.

Therefore Nature should indeed be ‘respected’ — but not merely in the sense of that modern environmentalists might understand this.  We should most respect Nature precisely because it is a means of understanding (and relating to) God and ourselves.  This necessarily implies a strong commitment to protect the natural environment; indeed, it increases our incentive to do so.

Moreover, we must not only respect Nature, but experience it.  So, for example, while we should preserve forests and wildernesses, part of the reason for doing this is so that we can visit and receive inspiration from them.  To merely preserve and completely isolate from all human contact some natural area, while something a modern environmentalist may consider, would make much less sense to a Transcendentalist.

In sum, the main difficulty here is that any 20th or 21st ‘official’ definition (such as might appear in an online article or university text) of Transcendentalism will necessarily be revisionist.  Materialism is so strongly engrained in the modern cultural mentality that one cannot explain Idealism without sounding superstitious or atavistic.  There is some kind of unwritten consensus that we are not allowed to conduct serious public discussions on the premises that God exists and the human soul is immortal. Yet without these premises Transcendentalism and Platonic Idealism cannot be understood or  appreciated.  American Transcendentalism, then, is a great challenge to modernism: it starkly confronts us with the arbitrariness of the assumptions of materialism and atheism. It shows us that a great generation of thinkers were able to develop from these premises a philosophy of life both meaningful and with far-reaching practical significance.

Another important issue with the simplified description of Transcendentalism we’ve considered here is the omission of any reference to the literary interests of this group.  These were not people who merely had ecstatic nature experiences.  Almost without exception they applied themselves to make significant contributions to literature and education, and to the moral edification of others.  Integral to the Transcendentalist personality was the notion of harnessing the creative inspirations and energies of ‘innate genius’ in productive ways to actively contribute to the positive transformation of society.

In the near future I hope to try again to write a brief post dedicated to positively defining the key beliefs of Transcendentalism, but let this suffice for now.  Ultimately, the main way to understand it is to read main works of Transcendentalist literature.  Some recommended selections may be found in the Bibliography of this earlier article.

Note. 1. Herein for convenience the terms ‘American Transcendentalism’ and ‘Transcendentalism’ are used interchangeably; there are, of course, other versions of transcendentalist or Transcendentalist philosophy.

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Flowers — Stars of the Earth

THIS wonderful eulogium on flowers — arguably the best ever written — was excerpted many times throughout the 19th century, but never with the author’s name. Today well known quotes from it are wrongly attributed to Clara Lucas Balfour and others. A little research has found that the original author is William Pitt Scargill (1787–1836), an English Unitarian minister and writer.  The is published below in its entirety for the first time since 1853.

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A Chapter on Flowers

WHAT is the use of flowers? Why cannot the earth bring forth the fruits that feed us, and the sweet flavours that provoke our appetite, without all this ostentation? What is it to the ponderous cow, that lies ruminating and blinking hour after hour on the earth’s green lap, that myriads of yellow buttercups are all day laughing in the sun’s eye? Wherefore does the violet, harbinger of no fruit, nestle its deep blueness in the dell, and fling its wanton nets of most delicious fragrance, leading the passenger by the nose? And wherefore does the tulip, unedible root, shoot up its annual exhibition of most gaudy colour and uninterpretable beauty? Let the apple-tree put forth her blossom, and the bean invite the vagrant bee by the sweet annunciation of coming fruit and food; — but what is the use of mere flowers — blossoms that lead to nothing but brown, withered, curled-up, vegetable fragments? And why is their reign so short? Why does the gum-cistus drop its bright leaves so regularly at such brief intervals, putting on a clean shirt every day? Who can interpret the exception to the rule of nature’s plan of utility? For whom are flowers made, and for what? Are they mere accidents in a world where nought else is accidental? Is there no manifestation of design in their construction? Verily they are formed with as complete and ingenious a mechanism as the most sensitive and marvellous of living beings. They are provided with wondrous means of preservation and propagation. Their texture unfolds the mystery of its beauty to the deep-searching microscope, mocking the grossness of mortal vision. Shape seems to have exhausted its variety in their conformation; colour hath no shade, or combination, or delicacy of tint, which may not be found in flowers; and every modulation of fragrance is theirs. But cannot man live without them? For whom, and for what, are they formed? Are they formed for themselves alone? Have they a life of their own? Do they enjoy their own perfume, and delight themselves in the gaudiness of their own colours and the gracefulness of their own shapes? Man, from the habitual association of thought, sentiment, and emotion — with eyes, nose, and mouth, and the expression of the many-featured face, cannot conceive of sense or sentiment subsisting without these modifications, or some obvious substitute for them. Is there nothing of expression in their aspect? Have they not eyeless looks and lipless eloquence? See the great golden expanse of the sun-flower winding, on its tortuous stem, from east to west; praising, in the profuseness of its gaudy gratitude, the light in which it lives and glories. See how it drinks in, even to a visible intoxication, the life-giving rays of the cordial sun; while, in the quiet of its own deep enjoyment, it pities the locomotive part of the creation, wandering from place to place in search of that bliss which the flower enjoys in its own bed; fixed by its roots, a happy prisoner, whose chains are its life. Is there no sense or sentiment in the living thing? Or stand beneath the annual canopy that o’ershadows a bed of favourite and favoured tulips, and read in their colours, and their cups, the love they have for their little life. See you not that they are proud of their distinction? On their tall tremulous stems they stand, a11 it were, on tiptoe, to look down on the less favoured flowers that grow miscellaneously rooted in the uncanopied beds of the common garden. Sheltered and shielded are they from the broad eye of day, which might gaze on them too rudely; and the vigour of their life seems to be from the sweet vanity with which they drink in admiration from human eyes, in whose milder light they live. Go forth into the fields and among the green hedges; walk abroad into the meadows, and ramble over heaths; climb the steep mountains, and dive into the deep valleys; scramble among the bristly thickets, or totter among the perpendicular precipices; and what will you find there? F1owers — flowers — flowers! What can they want there? What can they do there? How did they get there? What are they but the manifestation that the Creator of the universe is a more glorious and benevolent Being than political economists, utilitarians,  philosophers, and id genus omne?

Flowers — of all things created most innocently simple  and most superbly complex: playthings for childhood, ornaments of the grave, and companions of the cold corpse in the coffin! Flowers — beloved by the wandering idiot and studied by the deep-thinking man of science! Flowers — that of perishing things are most perishing, yet of all earthly things are the most heavenly! Flowers — that, in the simplicity of their frailty, seem to beg leave to be, and that occupy, with blushing modesty, the clefts, and corners, and spare nooks of earth, shrinking from the many-trodden path, and not encroaching on the walks of man; retiring from the multitudinous city, and only then, when man has deserted the habitation he has raised, silently, and as if long waiting for implied permission, creeping over the grey wall and making ruin beautiful! Flowers — that unceasingly expand to heaven their grateful, and to man, their cheerful looks: partners of human joy, soothers of human sorrow; fit emblems of the victor’s triumphs, of the young bride’s blushes; welcome to crowded balls and graceful upon solitary graves! Flowers — that, by the unchangeableness of their beauty, bring back the past with a delightful and living intensity of recollection! Flowers — over which innocence sheds the tear of joy; and penitence heaves the sigh of regret, thinking of the innocence that has been! Flowers are for the young and for the old; for the grave and for the gay; for the living and for the dead; for all but the guilty, and for them when they are penitent. Flowers are, in the volume of nature, what the expression, “God is love,” is in the volume of revelation. They tell man of the paternal character of the Deity. Servants are fed, clothed, and commanded; but children are instructed by a sweet gentleness; and to them is given, by the good parent, that which delights as well as that which supports. For the servant there is the gravity of approbation or the silence of satisfaction; but for children there is the sweet smile of complacency and the joyful look of love. So, by the beauty which the Creator has dispersed and spread abroad through creation, and by the capacity which he has given to man to enjoy and comprehend that beauty, he has displayed, not merely the compassionateness of his mercy, but the generosity and gracefulness of his goodness.

What a dreary and desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be as a face without a smile — a feast without a welcome. Flowers, by their sylph-like forms and viewless fragrance, are the first instructors to emancipate our thoughts from the grossness of materialism; they make us think of invisible beings; and, by means of so beautiful and graceful a transition, our thoughts of the invisible are thoughts of the good.

Are not flowers the stars of earth, and are not stars the flowers of heaven? Flowers are the teachers of gentle thoughts — promoters of kindly emotion. One cannot look closely at the structure of a flower without loving it. They are emblems and manifestations of God’s love to the creation, and they are the means and ministrations of man’s love to his fellow-creatures;  for they first awaken in the mind a sense of the beautiful and the good. Light is beautiful and good: but on its undivided beauty, and on the glorious intensity of its full strength, man cannot gaze; he can comprehend it best when prismatically separated and dispersed in the many-coloured beauty of flowers; and thus he reads the elements of beauty — the alphabet of visible gracefulness. The very inutility of flowers is their excellence and great beauty; for, by having a delightfulness in their very form and colour, they lead us to thoughts of generosity and moral beauty detached from and superior to all selfishness; so that they are pretty lessons in nature’s book of instruction, teaching man that he liveth not by bread or for bread alone, but that he hath another than an animal life.

It is a pretty species of metaphysics which teaches us that man consists of body, soul, and spirit, thus giving us two parts heavenly for one that is earthly, the intermediate leading us by a gentle ascent to the apprehension and enjoyment of the higher part of our nature; so taste and a love of the beautiful leads us to the aspiring after virtue, and to regarding virtue as something far sublimer than mere calculation of physical enjoyment. Is not the very loveliness of virtue, its disinterestedness, its uncalculating generosity, its confiding freeness, its apprehension of a beauty beyond advantage and above utility — above that utility which ministers merely to the animal existence? In its highest and purest sense, utility is beauty, inasmuch as well-being is more than being, and soul is more than body. Flowers, then, are man’s first spiritual instructors, initiating him into the knowledge, love, and apprehension of something above sensualness and selfishness. Children love flowers, childhood is the age of flowers, of innocence, and beauty and love of beauty. Flowers to them are nature’s smiles, with which they carl converse, and the language of which they can comprehend, and deeply feel, and retain through life; so that when sorrow and a hard lot presses on them heavily in after years, and they are ready to think that all is darkness, there springs up a recollection of an early sentiment of loveliness and recollected beauty, and they are reminded that there is a spirit of beauty in the world, a sentiment of kindness that cannot be easily forgotten, and that will not easily forget. What, then, is the use of flowers? Think of a world without flowers — of a childhood that loves them not-of a soul that has no sense of the beautiful — of a virtue that is driven and not attracted, founded on the meanness of calculation, measuring out its obedience, grudging its generosity, thinking only of its visible and tangible rewards; think of a state of society in which there is no love of beauty, or elegance, or ornament; and then may be seen and felt the utility of ornament, the substance of decoration, the sublimity of beauty, the usefulness of flowers.

~ William Pitt Scargill, 1832.

Bibliography

Dwight, John Sullivan. The Religion of Beauty, Dial, July 1840,  pp. 17-22.

Plotinus. Enneads 1.6 (On Beauty), tr. Stephen McKenna, 1917.

Scargill, William Pitt. A Chapter on Flowers. Amulet, vol. 7, 1832, 151−158.

Uebersax, John (ed.). Florigelium: 100 Best Inspirational Quotes About Flowers and Their Beauty. 2022.

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Frederic H. Hedge on the Inner Transfiguration of Christ

FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE (1805−1890) was a friend of Emerson and one of the original New England Transcendentalists. Of his many writings, his Sermon on the Transfiguration is probably my favorite. One might think that a Transcendentalist like Hedge would see in Christ’s Transfiguration on the Mount a symbol for the human capacity to see the physical world, and especially Nature, in a transfigured way. Such epiphany or theophany experiences in Natural settings is a common theme in Transcendentalist writings. Yet Hedge finds an even more profound interpretation. He sees the Transfiguration as a symbol for those rare movements of special spiritual insight into ourselves. That is, it refers, for him, to transfiguration of inner, not outer vision. Christ becomes manifest, revealed, within ones own mind, heart and soul. These are rare moments of special, clear insight into our own nature, and our relationship with God.

Hedge first notes two prerequisites for these experiences. First, they come only in times of mental repose and tranquility, such as one may experience in intense contemplation. Second, they are more often to be had during seasons of retirement — that is, when we have removed ourselves from the “deafening tumult of social intercourse.”

He then distinguishes three varieties of such experiences in terms of their content.

First, some involve a nearer and clearer manifestation of the basic realities of religion: that God does in fact exist, that our souls are immortal, and that there is a path of moral life, a ‘way of righteousness’ which we ought to pursue.

Second, in some we may receive a “clearer exhibition of our duties, and a more powerful incitement to the faithful discharge of them.” In the light of such experiences, our moral duties no longer seem onerous and burdensome, but easy and pleasant — indeed, the stuff of which our authentic happiness consists.

Third, we may obtain a foretaste of the joy, blessedness and glory that awaits the saved beyond this life.

These experiences, Hedge says, are as fleeting as they are rare, but are necessary to maintain and renew our vigor, and are essential to spiritual and moral progress.

It really is a marvelous sermon, well worth reading.

While we cannot make these experiences happen at will, there are nonetheless things can do to make them more likely occur, such as by regular practice of meditation and contemplation. Perhaps most of all, when such experiences are absent — during desolate times — we should continue to yearn for them “As the deer pants for streams of water” (Ps. 42:1).

Reference

Hedge, Frederic Henry The Transfiguration: A Sermon, Western Messenger, Vol. 5, No. 2, May 1838, pp. 82−88. (pdf version)

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Aesthetic Education

HERE is an excellent speech, Artistic and Moral Beauty, delivered by Megan Beets Dobrodt at a Feb. 16, 2019 conference sponsored by the Schiller Institute.  I recommend watching the video, but the text can also be found in this article.

The basic premise of the speech is that paying more attention aesthetic education and exposure to Great Art will help to produce the positive transformation needed today to keep society from sliding into an abyss.

She first diagnoses the situation of modern society, then offers a solution.

The diagnosis is that:  (1) modern society is in desperate shape; (2) government cannot solve our problem; (3) therefore the solution must come from individuals; (4) but individuals minds are held captive and rendered helpless by, among other things, modern films, music, art, etc., which debase and degrade us, and have as their common denominators banality, bestiality and violence

The solution she finds with reference to the philosophical writings of Friedrich Schiller, most notably his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man:  (1) within every human being there already exists the image of the Ideal Man; (2) Great Art appeals to the inner Ideal Man, helping to awaken and activate it; (3) therefore we should expose ourselves to Great Art; and (4) habituate our minds to creative accomplishment.  A society composed of such empowered individuals can solve the myriad problems we face today.

Implicit in all this is the Platonic notion of the coincidence of the True, the Beautiful and the Morally Good. When we awaken our aesthetic consciousness, we simultaneously awaken wisdom, scientific creativity, and our deepest moral sense.

There are clear connections with what she says and comments we’ve made here recently concerning the theories of Pitirim Sorokin. Sorokin likewise emphasized the connection between altruism, creativity and what he called the supraconscious.

Many today, like Ms. Beets and the Schiller Institute, are helping to remind us of the uplifting and ennobling qualities of Music, Art and Architecture.  Let us, though, not forget to include Literature and Poetry!

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Transcendentalism. Reading.

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

THIS is just a temporary post. In coming weeks, I’ll add material on two subjects: (1) Transcendentalism and (2) self-culture by reading quality books.  Motivating this is my belief is that government and politics are inadequate to meet the challenges faced by society today.  Instead what we need is a raising of collective consciousness.  To some those two words may sound vague, but they actually means something real and definite.  We are at a point in history where, to move forward as a species, we need a new way of understanding ourselves — as individuals, in relation to each other, and in relation to the planet.

To change consciousness may seem a daunting, even impossible task.   But we have good reason for hope: because all human beings hold in their hearts both the hope of a better world, and an understanding of how that better world would be.  Each of us contains the same blueprint for a good society; we merely haven’t yet learned to communicate and cooperate in ways to make that plan a reality.

This is the great task of the generation of young adults today, and of generations to come.  A place to begin is to learn what the last great generation of Idealists had to say on the subject.  Let us stand on the shoulders of giants, and then aim to make further progress.

Shortly I hope to supply a guide and links to relevant writings on American Transcendentalism.  For now, below is a list of related articles on this blog (many contain bibliographies with more material).

p.s. The invariably asked question is “What is Transcendentalism?”  The truth is, Transcendentalism cannot be defined.  Ultimately, it refers to a level of consciousness which is, on the one hand, familiar, but, on the other, difficult to attain in the modern world. It involves the integration of our existence as material beings with simultaneous awareness of transcendent, eternal truths of which we also have innate knowledge. What was called Transcendentalism in the 19th tradition was called Idealism in preceding centuries.  In the West this philosophical tradition goes back to Plato and beyond; and we can find counterparts in Eastern philosophy and religion.

John Uebersax

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❁What is American Transcendentalism? (Includes reading list)

❁Emerson the Platonist

❁Transcendentalism as Spiritual Consciousness

❁Selections from Emerson’s Essay ‘Intellect’ (1841)

❁John Sullivan Dwight: The Religion of Beauty (1840)

❁Abraham Maslow: How to Experience the Unitive Life

❁Beyond the Pyramid. Being-Psychology: Maslow’s Real Contribution

❁The Emersonian ‘Universal Mind’ and Its Vital Importance

❁James Freeman Clarke — Self-Culture by Reading and Books

❁‘The Sacred Marriage’, by Margaret Fuller

❁Culture in Crisis: The Visionary Theories of Pitirim Sorokin

❁Pitirim Sorokin: Techniques for the Altruistic Transformation of Individuals and Society

❁Thoreau and Occupy Wall Street: Life Without Principle

❁The Occupy Movement, Agrarianism, and Land Reform

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The Four Psychological Responses to Great Social Crises

THE sociologist Pitirim Sorokin conducted extensive research on cultural mentalities, including comprehensive historical studies (Sorokin 1957, 1985). He found that major shifts in mentality are often precipitated by the occurrence of multiple crises and catastrophes — wars, plagues, famines, natural disasters, revolutions, etc.  He also noted that the crises developing in the 20th century — which he correctly predicted would worsen — would likely necessitate or precipitate a major change in cultural mentality.  Hopefully, in his view, this would be a shift from radical materialism to a more idealistic, altruistic, transcendent and integrated mentality.

One of his papers (Sorokin, 1951) identified four responses to “mass-suffering and mass-frustration in social calamities.” These apply at both the individual and collective psychological level. In brief terms, the four responses are as follows:

Passivity. Faced with crises they are powerless to oppose or remedy, individuals succumb to a state of passive resignation, depression, and hopelessness. This is probably the most widespread response.

Degradation. Here the individual responds by becoming more aggressive, brutal and selfish. In the case of wars and revolutions, the person ‘identifies with the aggressor.’  The world is accepted as a bellum omnium contra omnes. Virtue is abandoned, and escape and solace are sought in various vices and follies: sex, addiction, avarice, fanaticism, chronic anger, etc. Demoralization leads to self-loathing, and further self-destructive flight into vice and delusion.

Heroism. A few individuals endowed with extraordinary resilience and talent seek to defiantly meet the social challenges with heroic feats of creativity. In the artistic realm, Beethoven serves as an example, and Edison in the scientific/technical arena.

Moral reformation. The most productive response in Sorokin’s opinion, is exemplified by the lives of great saints and reformers who appear throughout history, often in times of crisis and catastrophe. However, while great figures like St. Francis of Assisi and Mohandas Gandhi are rare, the same process of moral reformation they underwent is played out less visibly in the lives many more ‘ordinary saints.’  In each case, the trajectory of moral reformation is basically the same:  first the individual acknowledges the seriousness of their own moral failings, admitting and rejecting the innate selfishness and aggression of lower human nature (repentance; metanoia). Then, by characteristic practices such as asceticism, meditation and prayer, they seek to purify themselves from these failings, and then to grow in altruism and spirituality. During this process, they reject former social roles built on egoistic values and develop new ones based on spiritual values — often going through a period of relative (or sometimes complete) isolation in between.  Finally, with egoism conquered, they direct their energies with clear purpose and absolute focus on altruistic, charitable and creative activities aimed at improving the lives of others.  Part of this altruistic activity may involve helping others to achieve this same moral transformation.

When, perhaps under the stimulus of some exemplary figure like St. Francis or Gandhi, many individuals in society undergo this moral reformation, the mentality of the entire culture shifts from the materialistic and egoistic to the altruistic.

In short, it was Sorokin’s hope and vision (see especially, Sorokin 1948, 1954) that, as the crises of the 20th century continued and worsened, this transformation of culture would occur.  He argued that not only is this possible — as this transformation has occurred in the past — but it may be necessary today for the continuation of the human race.

Yet, even apart from the broader cultural significance, it must be remarked that this form of altruistic and spiritual transformation is something of supreme value for the individual.  Repentance and conversion are not an onerous burdens, but gateways to joy, self-realization, and liberation of the divine potentials — the arrival at our full stature as human beings.  It is within our power, then, as individuals, to cognitive reframe the meaning and significance of the crises of our times.  In crises lay great opportunities.

References

Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Reconstruction of Humanity. Beacon Press, 1948.

Sorokin, Pitirim A. Polarization in frustration and crises. Archiv Für Rechts- Und Sozialphilosophie, vol. 39, no. 2, 1951, pp. 145–163.

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]

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.)

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