From Historic German Transcendentalism, a sequence.. ..We can now offer an expanded definition of Transcendentalism: It derives from the “transcendental” philosophy of Immanuel Kant; its proponents emphasized the divine in nature, the value of the individual and of human intuition, and a spiritual reality that “transcends” sensory experience, while also providing a better guide for life than purely empirical or logical reasoning. The term refers to a cluster of concepts set forth by a number of individuals rather than a formal philosophy. -Professor Ashton Nichols, Emerson, Thoreau, and the Transcendentalist Movement
Our initial working definition of transcendentalism, however, will stress a divine force in each individual, a force that is also linked to nature and has the power to transform lives, as well as social institutions. -Professor Ashton Nichols, Emerson, Thoreau, and the Transcendentalist Movement 20th Century Fairfield, Iowa: Radical American Transcendentalism, The Unified Field Akbar! The Transcendental Meditationist! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : From reading their histories evidently practicing transcendentalists would move around Europe to the protection of more progressive aristocrats. That safety could vary by locality and through time. A challenge in this is that natural mortality [turnover) could quickly change the climate of a region’s leadership with areas quickly shifting between rigidities of the formality of the Roman Church or Protestant churches. Current edition of Journal of Military History Quarterly has published a reproduction of a hand drawn hand colored map that depicts the sub-principalities of the Austro-German parts of Europe of the 1840’s. By the 1840’s the commotion of the ‘social question’ from the industrial technological revolution [dislocation] was well underway with social strife and civil war breaking out between localities. At that point a lot of transcendentalist leaning folks fled Europe to the safety of America. I have grandparents on both sides coming in that time frame from transcendentalist meditationist groups [satsang communities], one side of the family from England and the other side from German spiritual ashram communities fleeing conscription into local armies within the ‘locality’ of civil wars that were raging throughout Europe then. A lot of spiritual peoples came then to America fleeing both social dislocation and religious persecutions of those times. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : Yes, evidently transcendentalism and transcendental meditationist practice goes way back. It seems that about every generation or so mystics by their own experience with it would satsang and teach a meditation. Often time meditationism as spiritual practice gets put under the label of Quietism. In time Quietists evidently were disperse across Europe giving critique to the ‘formalism’ of the established churches and religion. Their essays, pamphlets and books were traded across Europe through generations of ‘separatists’, as they are also often called. Spiritual people in Europe, meditationists, would flow to where there was changing safety within satsang and ashram villages as they could find cover. Eventually as these lines immigrated to America this spirituality is much part of a thread in our collective history. As it comes to us, ours is a remarkably safe period of time now to be a practicing transcendentalist, by comparison. A lot of a story of Europe has been the contending of spiritual people with religionists. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_...@yahoo.com> wrote : Doug, Did these European transcendentalist use a meditation method. Do you know any of them. Is it like TM? If yes, these may be similar to what Angela Mailander learned when she was a child, as she described in the BATGAP interview. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote : The European Transcendental Satsanga, and the forming of the Western ashram-like village: Mysticism and spiritual community growing through individual spiritual experience, to living room 'satsanga' gatherings, to meetings, to intentional community... ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote : Interestingly as it has happened in time, as many of these spiritual communal villages located in America liquidated their communal assets at a point in their own histories their meeting houses often followed a different path from the productive assets of the villages. Subsequent to sale their central artifact of mystical heritage as their village meeting houses have often ended up outside the bounds of what may have become their modern museum interpretation, the meeting houses even coming in to the hands of denominational forms of institutional religion. Such seems a life-cyclical fate of transcendentalism. One of the best ironies now in this 'meeting house' history is the Harmonist brick meeting house in Economy, Pa. now being owned subsequently by a Lutheran church, the church of persecution of these transcendentalists fleeing from Europe. http://www.stjohnsambridge.org/ http://www.stjohnsambridge.org/ . A close second, the old Zoar brick 'meeting house' being presently owned by United Church of Christ goers. Both of these old meeting houses presently sitting outside the bounds of and not necessarily included on tour interpretation of these old communal spiritual villages within the respective State Historical Society museum presentations. Also, the original brick meeting house of the Community of True Inspiration at the hamlet of Ebeneezer in New York (current day West Seneca, NY) is now operated presently as a Catholic Church is another example of transcendentalism spiritually forgotten and overlooked for religious form. From Ebenezer, NY The Community of True Inspiration as a spiritual communal group subsequently settling as the Amana Colonies in Iowa. In present day Amana several of the meeting houses are in the hands of the present day Amana museum collection of buildings for interpretation. # Excerpts from: The German Pietists: Spiritual Mentors of the German Communal Settlements in America Victor Peters Professor of History Moorehead University Moorehead, Minnesota Published in: Communal Societies, The Journal of the Communal Studies Association http://www.communalstudies.org/communal-societies-vol-1-1981 http://www.communalstudies.org/communal-societies-vol-1-1981 Paracelsus, 1493-1541 The dream of a New Jerusalem where there are no rich and poor, where there is no war and violence, and man is "whole" in body, mind, and spirit - the formation of the communal colonies in America was nothing less than an attempt to realize, with God's help, this dream. In Paracelsus we find a harbinger, a religious-social precursor and advocate of this new, God-sanctioned order. His full name was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, but he called himself Paracelsus. Of Suabian-Swiss background, Paracelsus grew up with the rich folklore and folk-wisdom of his homeland. Like his father he became a physician, but he was also a naturalist, a chemist and philosopher. Like the German-American communalists, Paracelsus held that this new order could come about only through "an inner renewal of man." Kaspar von Schwenckfeld, 1489-1561 Schwenckfeld was a contemporary of Martin Luther. His talents and productivity at first impressed Luther, but when Schwenckfeld advocated radical doctrinal changes, Luther turned against him. Schwenckfeld was born in Silesia and died in Ulm. He spent much of his life being hounded from state to state in his native Silesia, in Thuringia, in Hesse, and in Alsace. Although he never founded a church, he had many followers and some of these emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1734, where they did organize as a church. Known as Schwenckfelders they held services in a family setting and did not observe the rites of baptism and communion until the end of the 19th century. Schwenckfeld's beliefs and writings strongly influenced Bohme and the Pietistic movement. He preached Absonderung (separation), a term used by critics of the state church. Contained in this term was the belief that the Separatists were the "true church," while the state church was "Babel." Schwenckfeld also believed very strongly in divine inner inspiration, which superseded even the Bible as a directive in a person's life. He opposed baptism and communion as empty ceremonialism, and taught that simplicity in life as well as in church service was "the best adornment for the spirit." Though Schwenckfeld espoused the cause of education, he opposed speculative philosophy. According to him, man should not seek beyond the Scriptures for the meaning of life. Positive experience and the inner illumination of the spirit would provide the right answers. An examination of the philosophy and religious thinking and practice of the German-American communal societies, in Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Iowa, shows strong and undeniable traces of Schwenckfeld's influence on them. Jakob Bohme, 1575-1624 The laws of nature are God's commandments; he who lives according to them needs no other commandments, for he fulfills God's will. You fight about religion but there is no discord in religion, there are only many talents and through all of them speaks one spirit . . . just as the earth produces many plants and flowers, and she is the mother of all of them, so God's spirit speaks; the true church of Christ needs no commandments. As the earth works and supplies nourishment to the tree that it grows, so the tree works on its branches ceaselessly, so that it will bring forth much and good fruit If a tree does not bring forth good fruit the fault lies often with the cold, heat, mildew, worms and insects, When young he produces little fruit . . . the older it gets, the sweeter is its fruit. The true heaven is everywhere, including the place where you walk and stand; if your spirit grasps the inner being of God and leaves behind the material world, it is in heaven. The reason why they now quarrel and fight, spoil land and people, is only an empty shell without fruit, and only does great harm to the world. No party has a just cause, they all fight in God's name but no one is prepared to do his will. If they were true Christians there would be no war. Jakob Bohme -of Bohme: he "wanted to dissolve the contradictions and the dissonances of life into harmony." "If a tree has faded leaves," he writes, "you know there is lack at the root." Jakob Spener Jakob Spener (1635-1705) Spener as the "Quietist" (Heartfelt Longing for a God Pleasing Convalescence) In this work Spener laments the material distress of the age — plagues, hunger and war — but he is even more concerned with the spiritual misery that exists within the church. "Our poor churches." he writes, and then accuses the clergy of formalistic ceremonialism and arrogance. "If a tree has faded leaves," he writes, "you know there is lack at the root." August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) Francke was concerned with propagating a "personal piety" the inspiration that had given the world the bible, continued to reveal itself through individuals, a belief much like the acceptance of the Werkzeuge (instruments of God) of the Amanas. Francke never lost his tolerance for people who had not undergone a similar experience as he had. Francke saw the poverty and the need around him and began an engagement in religious oriented social work at Halle, which in scale and effectiveness drew attention to it from all parts of Germany.15 In 1694 he began a program of feeding the destitute. It was so successful that donations came in and Francke opened an orphanage in 1695. In 1698 he started a work-food program for students. Orphans and needy students, in return for work could earn room and board and also get an education at Francke's preparatory schools on location. By 1700, thousands of boys and girls, as well as older students, worked and attended school at Halle. [ European spiritual Ashram Village as intentional community...] In order not to have to depend on donations Francke organized economic enterprises that paid for the extensive social program and also provided the necessary economic base for the building program that included schools, dormitories and orphanages. Though Francke retained control over them, they functioned as a Stiftung (Foundation). The operation of the Stiftung, including government and administration, was paternal-democratic and not unlike that of the German communal societies in this country. Among the enterprises Francke organized were: a publishing house, a hospital, diverse farm operations, including vineyards and orchards. Built outside the city limits of Halle, Francke's ambitious and successful operations not only attracted attention, but also drew some criticism by former donors who felt that poor people and orphans had no business to live in what seemed luxurious surroundings. A description of the setting provides some insight into the care and planning that went into Francke's projects: . . .gardens, meadows and lawns provided the occupants of the dormitories with space for recreational walks and play. The rooms in the buildings had high ceilings and ample window space. They were built so that fresh air, light and sun could come in morning, noon, and evening. Great emphasis was placed on the health and sanitary habits of the young. The educational program encompassed the liberal arts, industrial training and professional preparation, religion, and the practical training in communal responsibility and harmony. Francke's work was well known to such men as Rapp and Keil. Not only did the writings of Spener and Francke, the founders of German Pietism, serve as spiritual sustenance to them, but the Halle enterprises were models in the successful operation of communal undertakings. Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769) Described as a "quietistic Pietist" Tersteegen said of his own writing that its purpose was "to awaken, to revive, to strengthen a secret life in Christ." This introspective approach to Christian living struck a responsive chord Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) was directly involved with the founding of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Like the leaders of the German communal societies Zinzendorf had an implicit faith in God and himself. He died with these words: "I have submitted to the will of my Lord, and He is satisfied with me." The picture of Zinzendorf presented here does not do justice to the man. There can be no question of Zinzendorf's altruism and religious zeal and devotion. But he never forgot, and did not let others forget, his high station in life. In many ways this also held true for men like Rapp, Baeumeler and Keil, who retained firm leadership of their respective groups to the end of their lives. Their position in the community, their lifestyle, and their process of decision-making was in marked contrast to that of the Hutterian leaders. Johann Heinrich Jung (1740-1817), better known as Jung-Stilling. The word "Stilling" comes from the (Biblical) "stille," meaning "quiet." Jung-Stilling on one occasion listed his favorite Scriptural passages. These account not only for his name but also for his popularity among Pietists generally and communalists in particular. The passages are: And that ye study to be be quiet (in German, stille), and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, as we command you. Thess. 4:11 . . .that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Tim. 2:2. Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. Pet. 3:3-4. Jung-Stilling's two main leitmotives in life were Naechstenliebe and Selbstverleugnung (love of neighbor and self-denial). These themes were ever present in his literary works. They no doubt often served to reinforce the faith of his Christian readers, including wavering society members who did not always find the task of living in communal togetherness easy. The lives, ideals, and writings of these early German Pietists give an indication where most of the German-American communal societies, especially their leaders, received much of their sustenance, comfort, and encouragement. It was in Pietism that they found their spiritual roots. -VICTOR PETERS, The German Pietists: Spiritual Mentors of the German Communal Settlements in America, The new Jerusalem . . . where thee will not be harmed by pagen, Turk or stranger, for the whole world will be one, and will have no enemies. ~Paracelsus iteration: Communal Societies, The Journal of the Communal Studies Association http://www.communalstudies.org/communal-societies-vol-1-1981 http://www.communalstudies.org/communal-societies-vol-1-1981 # And, Rudolph Steiner 1861-1825 Buck writing, on FFL: The European Satsanga, and the forming of the Western ashram-like village: Mystical Spirituality, from individual spiritual experience to living room satsangas, public meetings, and intentional community... spiritual movements in iteration. om
