Instructor: BRIAN WALKER
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism, Emerson
and New Thought
Kitty Benson
September 20, 2005
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Kitty Benson
Transcendentalism
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Transcendentalism, Emerson and New Thought
“My parents are part of a rather unusual circle in Concord. Are you
familiar with the term ‘transcendentalist’?” asked Jo March.
“But that is German Romantic philosophy! We throw off all our
constraints and come to know ourselves through insight and experience. It’s
gone out of fashion now,” replied Professor Baer, in his heavy German accent.
“Well, not in the March family. It’s just that with all this transcendence
comes much emphasis on perfecting oneself. I am hopelessly flawed.”
(DiNovi, 1994)
Such were the thoughts of the heroine of Little Women, written by Louisa May Alcott in
1868. Miss Alcott was the daughter of one of the leading Transcendentalists of her time,
Bronson Alcott. As it turns out, Little Women, one of my favorite movies, is not only a clear
representation of some of the key ideas of Transcendentalism, but is also an obscured
autobiography of the Alcott Family’s life in New England at the height of the Transcendental
movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson, seen as the leader of this movement, was a close family
friend to the Alcotts and we will see throughout this paper how the beliefs of this “unusual
circle” ultimately influenced the core beliefs of New Thought and Unity.
The Beginnings of Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism was a movement that began in the New England area during the
1830’s. It demonstrated itself through religion, philosophy and literature and because of its
broad range of expression, was very difficult to define. This was compounded by the fact that
those who influenced the movement were a wide variety of educated thinkers and writers who
each had their own unique beliefs intermingled with shared basic premises. These premises were
not original ideas, but a synthesized version of great philosophy and religion of previous
centuries. Some of the early influences came from Confucius, the Tao, Pythagorus, Plato, and
from Hindu, Egyptian and Babylonian cultures.
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More recent and direct were influences which came out of Europe during the era of
Romanticism. The Romantic movement was a response to the harsh beliefs of Calvinism which
said that man’s innate depravity could not be changed or forgiven but only managed through
strict discipline by following Biblical law and church doctrine. In contradiction, the Romantic
writers brought forth the beauty of emotion, spirituality and inspiration as ways to experience
God. As this idea took hold in New England in the 18 th and 19th century, the Unitarians first
embraced it with one slight change…that God could be known and experienced, but only
through direct observation by the physical senses. This philosophy was heavily influenced by
the Enlightenment movement and the English philosopher, John Locke, of the 17 th century.
The Transcendentalists of New England, shared the belief with the Unitarians that man is
like God, carrying elements of the Divine within. But rather than come to an understanding of
the Divine through our senses, the Transcendentalists believed this came through an intuitive,
mysterious, spontaneous knowing from within. They chose to follow more closely the
philosophy of such European Romantic writers as Kant, Hegel and Swedenborg. Immanuel Kant
is credited for making a statement which ultimately gave this movement its name. “I call all
knowledge transcendental which is concerned, not with objects, but with our mode of knowing
objects so far as this is possible a priori [that is, independent of reason].” (Wilson, 2000, Page 7)
Georg Wilhelm Hegel, an Idealist, studied the concept of an absolute idea standing behind
matter. “Hegel affirms that all the objects of creation are in their inmost reality thoughts of
God.” (Braden, 1987, Page 99) Emanuel Swedenborg aligned himself with a similar idea,
known as the doctrine of Correspondence. “Our inner sight, which is a property of our minds,
receives an inflow from the spiritual sun; while our outer sight, which belongs to our bodies,
receives an inflow from the natural sun.” (Dole, 1984, Page 231)
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Probably the most well-known member of the Transcendentalist movement was Ralph
Waldo Emerson. A Harvard graduate, he was taught by instructors who had traveled to Europe
to study the same Romantic literature that later would so heavily influence New England’s
Transcendentalist movement. After a few short years as a Unitarian minister, Emerson became
disturbed by the emphasis on doctrine and form and the literal interpretation of scripture and
subsequently left the church over a conflict of his interpretation of observing the Lord’s Supper.
After absorbing more of the writings of Plato, Goethe, Swedenborg, eastern sacred texts
and Romantic philosophy, Emerson began to distill his own understanding of idealism. As he
became a published author, he came into contact with such likeminded thinkers as Henry
Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, George Ripley and Margaret Fuller. Along with others, this group
began meeting regularly to share their ideas and was soon named the “Transcendental Club.”
Emerson’s influence on the movement included his beliefs that God and man were of one mind.
From his essay, “The Over-Soul,” he writes, “there is no bar or wall in the soul, where man, the
effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual
nature, to the attributes of God.” (Wilson, 2000, Page 66) Emerson also integrated into his work
entitled Nature, a view of Swedenborg’s belief in the doctrine of correspondence. “Different
levels of the world expressed one another and reflected one another so that truth in one sphere
told the truth in another.” (Albanese, 1977, Page xiii) Man and nature were expressions of the
Divine and intuition was our method of understanding the nature of our reality.
Emerson’s focus was on self-culture through constant reform. This was reform not of an
organized movement but of the individual and more of the human spirit than of human
circumstances. These ideals came under criticism as society interpreted them as a means of
sloth. “But their solitary and fastidious manners not only withdraw them from the conversation,
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but from the labors of the world; they are not good citizens, not good members of society.”
(Ericson, 2003, Page 102) Even though Emerson did speak out occasionally on behalf of
antislavery, he was ambivalent toward political and legal action, stemming from the belief that
this tended to get in the way of self-reform. “Transcendentalism stressed the reform of society
through perfection of the individual from within, not through external social means. [Politics’]
contentious nature required the expression of aspects of human character not particularly
compatible with moral and spiritual perfection.” (Wilson, 2000, pp. 17, 21) He also wrote in his
lecture, “The Transcendentalist,” that to participate in society toward a good cause made the holy
unholy by putting it in expression, turning it into an abuse and paltry matter, creating a life
without love, an activity without aim. (Ericson, 2003)
Transcendentalism Influences New Thought
The beginnings of the New Thought movement ran very much in line with the activities
of Transcendentalism. Phineas Quimby, referred to as the founder of New Thought, was
developing his belief system at the same time and in the same region as Emerson was writing
and lecturing on the fundamentals of Transcendentalism. Quimby’s focus was on healing the
body by changing the thoughts of the mind. This was similar to Emerson’s belief that sickness
was equated with mental imperfection. Although Quimby never refers to any of his influences, it
is quite possible that he had been introduced to Emerson’s writings during this time. However,
contradictory to Emerson’s noble belief in passive comtemplation, Quimby chose to put into
practice the fundamentals of his belief. He came to the conclusion that man can be healed by
changing his thoughts and spent the rest of his life working as a healer. “I come into contact
with your enemy, and restore you to health and happiness. This I do partly mentally, and partly
by talking till I correct the wrong impression and establish the Truth, and the Truth is the cure.”
(Braden, 1987, Page 58) His reference to the Truth indicates a dependence on a higher power as
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the ultimate healing cure. Even though he defines the healing process as a Science, he defines
Jesus Christ as the founder of that Science. Ernest Holmes, founder of Religious Science, a New
Thought movement, refers to Quimby as the “scientist of Transcendentalism because he
demonstrated visibly on human organisms the operational validity of Emerson’s hypotheses.”
(Braden, 1987, Page 85)
Warren Felt Evans, one of the first New Thought writers, also lived during the time of
Emerson, in New England. He was a member of a Swedenborgian church and was treated by
Quimby. He was the first to combine the ideas of Emerson with Quimby, indicating the mental
healing movement had a spiritual basis. Beyond Evans, there have been many other New
Thought writers who have been influenced by Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement.
These include Horatio Dresser, Ernest Holmes, Orison Swett Marden, Thomas Troward, and
Charles and Myrtle Fillmore.
These writers, and many others in the New Thought arena, refer often to Emerson,
Swedenborg, and Kant as key influences to the New Thought movement. Charles Fillmore is
quoted as saying “All students of metaphysics should read Emerson.” (Vahle, 2002, Page 124)
Although many of the common threads between Transcendentalism and New Thought have
already been named in this paper, the following are a few key ideas that are shared by Emerson
and Fillmore.
The presence of God within man makes man divine. We come to this knowing and
express that divinity through the guidance of intuition, which is God reaching out into the
material world. Imagination is also a means of summoning this inner Spirit, which
Fillmore supports in his definition of imagination as one of man’s twelve spiritual
powers.
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The material world is a physical expression of the absolute, eternal mind of God.
“Emerson develops the idea of each particle of nature as a microcosm reflecting the
whole, and as such a point of access to the universal.” (Wilson, 2000, Page 93) This also
supports Fillmore’s belief in Divine Ideas as the absolute foundation that stands behind
all that exists.
Jesus is considered a human of the noblest type…one which we all have the ability to
imitate. This applies to all genius expressed throughout time. Emerson wrote in “The
American Scholar”, “Each philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as
by delegate, what one day I can do for myself.” (Wilson, 2000, Page 65) Fillmore echoes
this belief in regards to Jesus, claiming that, “by his words and deeds, Jesus serves as a
source of inspiration to men and women, an exemplar for humankind.” (Vahle, 2002,
Page 2)
Our thoughts create our reality…the mind has power over matter. In “The Natural
History of the Intellect,” Emerson writes, “The measure of mental health is the
disposition to find good everywhere.” (Braden, 1987, Page 36). And later in “Society
and Solitude,” he adds, “Omit the negative propositions. Nerve us with incessant
affirmations…chant the beauty of the good.” (Braden, 1987, Page 37) Fillmore is well
known for depending on denials and affirmations as not only a method of prayer but also
a means of re-educating the subconscious in order to experience the wholeness of God.
One more common theme between Emerson and Fillmore was that neither recommended
leaving one’s current form of worship in order to integrate these new understandings.
Emerson rather believed in “breathing life back into those [rites and forms] already in
existence” (Wilson, 2000, Page 104), while Fillmore stated, “It has never been the desire
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to take people out of the churches, but rather to educate them in the spirit of their
teaching and thus to restore the Christian spirit to the church.” (Vahle, 2002, Page 352)
Transcendentalism only flourished for a short time between the 1830’s and 1860’s. It has
been defined as largely a private revolution, perhaps because “their religious experience did not
spell itself out in the systematic terms of their more linearly-organized contemporaries.”
(Albanese, 1977, Page 173). Although the New Thought movement has exceeded that age span,
it still struggles in gaining any large following in comparison to the mainstream religions. Is it
because it too is ill defined? Or is it perhaps due to the calling of both the Transcendentalists and
the New Thought movement…that “man could be satisfied with nothing short of the absolute
right, the eternally true, the unconditioned excellence.” (Braden 1987, Page 34) I concede that
is a high and arduous calling, but my personal hope is that Transcendentalism was merely ahead
of its time, and that as humankind continues to evolve in the 21 st century we more readily come
to understand and embrace the Truth of our nature.
Kitty Benson
Transcendentalism
References
Albanese, C. (1977). Corresponding motion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Braden, C. (1987). Spirits in rebellion. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press.
DiNovi, D. (Producer). (1994). Little women [Video]. Culver City: Columbia TriStar Home
Video.
Dole, G. (Ed.). (1984). Emanuel Swedenborg – The universal human and soul-body interaction.
Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press.
Ericson, E. (Ed.). (2003). Emerson on transcendentalism. New York: The Continuum
International Publishing Group Inc.
Vahle, N. (2002). The Unity movement. Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.
Wilson, L.P. (2000). CliffsNotes Thoreau, Emerson and transcendentalism. New York: Wiley
Publishing.
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