CHAPTER – III
EMERSON’S SPIRITUALISM
In the previous chapter of the thesis, the various influences and experiences
that shaped the life and works of Ralph Waldo Emerson were discussed. It is found
that his aunt Mary Moody was instrumental in the development of Emerson’s life as
she influenced him a lot. She sharpened his wits and polished his perceptions. It is
also found that Transcendentalism was the chief feature of his literary career. He
was influenced by transcendentalist thoughts and views like it influenced others. In
this chapter, an attempt will be made to define and understand the concept of
spiritualism, in general and what it holds for Emerson in particular. The views, ideas
and concepts that define the scope of Emerson’s spiritualism and its relevance and
presence in his essays will be discussed in the chapter.
There were many important changes and movements in America during the
time of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was an age of the growth of new ideas and skeptic
visions. The changes electrified the artistic and intellectual mindset of New England.
The phenomenon called the American Renaissance during nineteenth century
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changed the attitude of the people. They formed new ideas that defied the doctrines
of the established institutions. Many tried to force their ideas and attitudes on life,
religion, politics, economy and nature. In a sense, it was an age of skepticism and
man lost his hold on his spiritual sensibility. Religion found it hard to create any
sense of spirituality. In such times, Emerson gave his fellow-men a new sense of
spiritualism. Emerson’s spiritualistic concept is purely based on the doctrine of the
soul. Generally, spiritualism is regarded as the belief in the possibility of receiving
messages from the spirits of the dead or the practices based on this belief. It is a
belief that spirits of the dead can be communicated and contacted through
mediums.1 But the “Spiritualism” which is to be discussed in this thesis is concerned
with the idea of the ‘spirit’ or the ‘soul’. The human soul and Emerson’s concept on
this and its connection with God are the main topic to be discussed here. His other
basic which are found in his works especially in his essays will also feature in this
thesis. The present study tries to investigate Emerson’s idea of God based on his
transcendental beliefs.
The great Indian philosopher Sir Aurobindo maintains that Spiritualism is not
to be construed as something anti-physical. In this connection, he writes:
Spiritual energy is not on this earth a thing apart but
reposes and draws upon physical energies.2
Speaking of God, Emerson said that we have faculties to perceive his laws. He also
writes that the motive force of life and of every particular life is moral. Such
writings of Emerson show a queer blend of mysticism and Puritanism. The idea of
the world being an emanation from God comes from Plotinus and Indian mystics.
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From this he was led to accept pantheism, as he said, ‘I believe in the
Omnipresence; that is, that the all is in each particle; and entire nature reappears in
every leaf and moss.’3
The word ‘pantheism’ is a philosophical term and it regards god as wholly
immanent in the world, and tends to identify Him with it. According to pantheism,
all is God and God is all (pan – all; Theos - God); God and the world are identical It
identifies God with the world process.
It denies Transcendence of God, and makes them
entirely immanent in the Spatio temporal world. It
identifies God with everything and everything with
God.
Pantheism
is
called
abstract
monism
in
philosophy.4
But even if Emerson accepted pantheism, he does not at all affirm his whole faith
and belief on it. His faith lies in his transcendental thought that God is to be found in
one’s own heart. Emerson’s transcendental method was intuitive. According to him,
Transcendentalism means a little beyond. It is a little progress at a time. It involves
the hope of making the world better by following the discipline of nature.
Emerson’s spiritual ideas are embedded in his transcendentalist thoughts and
ideas. Many of his spiritual ideas became the doctrines of transcendentalism. His
spiritualistic ideas became a movement. Along with many social reformers and
authors such as Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker and the naturalist, Henry David
Thoreau, they took the movement forward by joining him in his venture. The
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movement called the Transcendentalist movement emerged with Emerson at the
forefront. Emerson was called ‘the sage of Concord’ in his days and is also the
father of American Transcendentalism. He was at the center of what is called the
New England Renaissance which led to the growth of literature in New England. He
was self-inspired and he became a source of inspiration to many others. His book,
Nature, eventually became the bible of Transcendentalism. Joel Myerson writes:
Transcendentalism came about during a major shift in
thought and sensibility in American life...There was a
sense
of
“newness”
Transcendentalists
School.”
were
in
the
often
air,
called
and
the
the
“New
5
Many of his transcendental ideas became a source for his essays. His essays
reflect his spirituality. So, it will be proper to make a study of spiritualism in
Emerson’s essays from a transcendental perspective.
Transcendentalism is a movement that emerged in New England during 1815 and
attained a full-fledged state in 1836. Frederic I. Carpenter in his book, Emerson’s
handbook writes:
Transcendentalism in New England took many different
forms. First, it paid lip-service to the formal philosophy
of Emmanuel Kant, but greatly modified it. Second, it
develop the puritian religion of its own New England
past in new ways. Third it applied this philosophic
idealism and this religious enthusiasm to the practical
reform of American sound institutions. And, finally, it
stimulated a renaissance in American Literature – a
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renaissance whose first exponent was Ralph Waldo
Emerson.6
It is hard to give a proper definition of the term. A transcendentalist believes
in a world that is beyond this world and in the world that is above the senses. It
transcends time and space and it cannot be comprehended easily. Transcendentalists
state that the divine cannot be known and comprehended by reason or enquiry or
rational analysis. They lay emphasis on the intuition and the individual soul in
understanding the divine. Man can know the divine and ultimately become one with
it through the agency of nature. For them, nature speaks to the soul and not to the
reasoning faculty. Therefore, transcendentalists rely on intuition, natural instincts,
feelings and impulses rather than on authority outside themselves or on tradition or
rituals. It believes in the goodness of the individual, the self sufficiency of the
human mind and the creative power of man. The transcendentalists did not begin as
an organized group; each of them read and wrote alone. Several members have
different opinions. The only idea common to them is their rejection of the Unitarian
ideas and concepts.
The Transcendentalists were essentially syncretic,
borrowing from various philosophies, literatures, and
religions whatever they felt was appropriate to their
developing beliefs, and forging these borrowings into a
new system.7
They were distinct and independent individuals who accepted some basic
premises about man’s place in the universe. To them, the Over Soul was a kind of
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cosmic unity between man, God and nature. Transcendentalism made its
manifestation in philosophy, in religion, in society and in literature of New England.
In philosophy, Emerson defines it as idealism in 1842. So, Emerson’s
Transcendentalism is derived from oriental mysticism, from Neoplatonic idealism,
and from a diluted form of Kant’s philosophy as interpreted by Coleridge, Carlyle,
and other amateur philosophers.”8Transcendentalism in America was primarily
religious rather than philosophical and its inspiration is the religious sentiment of
Emerson. In social front, the transcendentalists edited the magazine ‘The Dial’ and
try to bring industrial and social reforms. In literature:
American Transcendentalsim reproduced the literary
characteristics of Romanticism, praising intuition
rather than logic, poetry rather than prose, and nature
rather than the society of man. Moreover it shared the
romantic revolt from the past and the romantic
idealization of the common man.9
The movement was a result of the feeling of dissatisfaction with the prevailing
theological and philosophical ideas. The Great Awakening in 1740 rejected
Calvinist doctrine of innate depravity and depicted God in more compassionate
terms. Kathryn Van Spanckeren states:
The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against
18-century rationalism and a manifestation of the
general humanitarian trend of 19-century thought...The
doctrine of self-reliance and individualism developed
through the belief in the identification of the individual
soul with God.10
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By the early decades of the nineteenth century, the liberals who were against
Calvinism started to establish a stronghold at Boston. A controversy resulted
between the liberals and the orthodox. Henry Ware became Hollis professor of
Divinity at Harvard. The controversy resulted in a split of the original
congregational churches in which the liberals known as Unitarians emerged as a
new denomination. William Ellery Channing, a leading spokesman for the new
generation of liberals, declared the separate existence of the Unitarian movement in
1819. It centred on human capacity for the development of reason and spirituality.
By the 1820s, Unitarianism had a strong foundation in Boston and eastern
Massachusetts and the American Unitarian Association was formed in 1825.
It was Unitarianism that paved the way for the transcendentalists in America.
Unitarianism insists that man is essentially good and that man must trust his own
perceptions of religious truth. This concept paved the way and formed the
foundation of Transcendentalism. Unitarians based their values on morality rather
on spiritualism and believe in the goodness of man. Unitarianism is Christianity
devoid of spirituality. They do not believe in Trinity; the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit. Peter Ackroyd states:
Unitarianism is, in fact, from the perspective of
orthodoxy, an heretical faith principally because it does
not
accept
the
Christian
doctrine
of
the
Incarnation...about the progress and perfectibility of
humankind, is thereby given a quasi-spiritual sanction.11
William Ellery Channing also believes in this view that human beings have the
capacity to make judgements for them. Joel Myerson in his book, A Historical guide
77
to Ralph Waldo Emerson also writes: ‘In “Unitarian Christianity” Channing
defended the human capacity to make reasoned judgments about theology, and to act
as independent moral agents in meeting life’s experiences, thus rejecting the darker
implications of the calvinist doctrine of innate depravity.’12 By 1388, Unitarianism
was challenged by another group of people called the transcendentalists. Emerson,
one of the important reasons of the transcendentalist, began to develop ‘a religion
based on the soul’s powers of intuition in an address at Harvard Divinity School.’13
So, transcendentalism left behind all the forms and traditions of Unitarian church. It
places its reliance on the ‘intuition’ or ‘conscience.’
Transcendentalists challenged the theological concepts of different religions.
Emerson defined Transcendentalism as ‘what is popularly called Transcendentalism
among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842.’14 He gave this definition in
his lecture the “The Transcendentalist.” According to him, there is no
“Transcendentalist party” and no “pure transcendentalist.” In fact it is a wrongly
applied name or description. ‘The Transcendentalists were also moulded by a exotic
amalgam of foreign influences, both ancient and modern.’15 This lecture is important
for showing how Emerson accepted the term which had been applied to his thought
without his choosing it.
In his lecture, “The Transcendentalist”, delivered at Boston in 1842,
Emerson gave stress on his spiritual doctrine. He says:
The Transcendentalists adopts the whole connection of
the spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the
perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of
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light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in
ecstasy...And so he resists all attempts to palm other
rules and measures on the spirit than his own.16
The belief in the presence and power of the soul is the core of Ralph Waldo
Emerson’s religious thought and the vital principle of his entire intellectual
achievement. He writes:
We distinguish the announcements of the soul, its
manifestations of its own nature, by the term
‘Revelations’. These are always attended by the
emotion of the sublime. For this communication is an
influx of the Divine mind into our mind. It is an ebb of
the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the
sea of life. 17
Emerson affirms that all is finally resolvable into a single, unifying divine principle.
Emerson referred to this ultimate reality as ‘that unity that over soul, within which
every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other.’18
Emerson’s concept of the soul developed in the 1820s and 1830s as he fused
the Unitarian theory of self-culture with the spiritual and idealistic doctrines from
several neo-platonic, oriental and European Romantic sources. His interest was also
kindled in the new scientific discoveries of his day. His doctrine of the soul
blossomed in a passionate and visionary expression of the premises of
transcendentalism in key works of the late 1830s and early 1840s. Emerson
gradually:
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Modifies his religious stance during 1840s and 1850s to
accommodate the waning of his experience of ecstatic
vision and to reflect his growing sense of the
importance of moral action as the fundamental end of
religious experience.19
He thus developed a more pragmatic and ethically centered theory of the religious
life in which work and worship, morals and vision, became increasingly
synonymous concepts. His religious sensibility lies deep in the soil of puritan New
England.
Emerson’s view on God and soul find adequate expression in his works. He
found a close relationship between God, Man, nature and individual freedom.
According to him, God was not wholly visible in the structures erected by man. His
presence was most felt in the world of his own creation – in nature. In the essays
also, the main idea of Emerson remains the same. His main emphasis on the concept
of over soul or intuition is present throughout. According to him, we can feel God if
we can differentiate between ‘reason’ and ‘understanding’. If a man looks at the
world with his understanding only, he will tend to believe in the absolute existence
of nature where objects in the physical universe are seen as ultimate. If however,
man looks at the world with his reason, he will see nature permeated with the higher
knowledge of the source and cause of nature. So man must live in a world of
eternity, of the love of Beauty and Goodness.
The Christian tradition in which Emerson was reared held that the world
was inert matter, bereft of spirit. God was distinctly separate from the world, a
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transcendent God who ruled creation from his abode in Heaven. Rejecting this view,
Emerson adopted the principle of divine immanence. He held that pure divinity lies
in the spirit. He writes:
The knowledge that this spirit, which is essentially one,
is in one’s own and in all other bodies, is the wisdom of
one who knows the unity of things. As one diffusive air,
passing through the perforatine of a flute, is
distinguished as the notes of a scale, so the nature of the
Great Spirit is single, though its forms be manifold.20
Emerson does not believe in the traditional customs and beliefs of the church.
According to him, God lies within each and every individual. He believes in the idea
of the God within. He wished for salvation, but not one within a church which still
held the doctrines of the sovereignty of God, original sin, predestination, election
and revelation through the Bible.
Emerson held that God is moral law and that the world is emanated from
God. Self-reliance is a supreme value and the religion of the spirit alone is true. This
is his idea of spiritualism. Emerson’s idea of spiritualism lies in his belief that man
has divinity within him. According to him, the religion of the spirit alone is true.
‘Emerson’s God is an immanent God, an indwelling property of human personhood
and physical nature, not located in some other worldly realm’.21 According to him
God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of
churches and religious22
Emerson argued that ‘the moral sentiment’ which is found in all human
beings, is ‘the essence of all religions’.23 Religion according to him is to be found
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intuitively based on this moral sentiment. It cannot be taken from tradition, the
church or any other external authority. By religion, Emerson ‘means concrete,
personal, religious feelings or experiences’.24 So, intuition is, for Emerson like
religion, a matter of actual, present personal experience. He feels that the intuition
power of man is the most important factor to be with God. Emerson wrote in one of
his journals, ‘The highest revelation is that God is in every man.’25 He wrote this
after he resigned from the second church of Boston. This transcendental doctrine of
the God within super ceded all the other doctrines prevalent during that time.
To Emerson, God is to be found intuitively. The proof of the biblical
miracles was therefore irrelevant to real religious belief. ‘The exaggerated reverence
for the person of Jesus Christ falsified religion’, 26 Emerson argued. According to
Emerson, Jesus should not be regarded as a supernatural being. He should be
regarded as the prophet who realized the divinity within every individual. Emerson
thus radically democratized Jesus’ claim of divinity. He said in this jubilee of
sublime emotion:
I am divine, through me, God acts; through me, speaks.
Would you see God, see me; or see thee, when thou
also thinkest as I now think.27
Emerson considered universal love and divinity of soul as important requisites of
religion. So, to him, each person using the method of transcendental introspection is
a ‘representative man’. He is the spiritual representative of mankind, and he is the
self-chosen one. He follows the universal voice within his own heart, and the voice
is that of God. The divinity of man was the central metaphor of Emerson and the
transcendentalists. In his essay, “The over soul”, Emerson affirms,
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Ineffable is the union man and God in every act of the
soul. The simplest men who in his integrity worship
God become God. 28
Emerson placed human soul above everything else. The betterment of the soul was
the aim of Emerson as he strongly believed in the presence of a soul and inner light
in human beings. Again, if a man can feel his intuition, he will then become a selfreliant man. Self-reliance is also one very important factor of being a transcendental
man.
So having placed the “self” at the centre of the transcendental view of man,
self-reliance becomes synonymous with God–reliance. Thus, the self-reliant or
transcendental man does not indulge in any sort of antinomianism which is
characteristic of the material or animal man. He relies upon the highest intuitions
from the inner voice. This leads to a unique relationship between man and nature. A
further attribute of being self-reliant is that it helps in bringing together the mystic
and the practical in man. In being self-reliant man imitates nature:
Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdom which
cannot help itself. …the vital resources of every animal
and vegetable are demonstrations of the self-sufficing
and therefore self-relying soul.29
In discussing nature as discipline, he makes it clear that nature ultimately
serves as the moral manifestation of God. In understanding nature we also recognize
the unity of being that underlies all moral perception. For Emerson, studying nature
is a way to examine the expressions and workings of the divine. He argued that if
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God, man and nature emanate from the same source, then the natural world and its
inhabitants are microcosms of the macrocosmic divinity. In his book, Nature,
Emerson reveals his belief in the unity of God, man and nature. He places man at the
center of nature. Nature is helpful in the realization of his higher ends and in the
fulfillment of his destiny. At the physical level, it caters to the bodily needs and the
needs of the senses. He considers body as a part of nature and therefore, like it, an
inferior incarnation of God in the unconscious. To him, man is God’s superior
incarnation in the conscious. Nature is the shadow that we, ourselves have cast. It is
even the creation of our mind. When one perceives the underlying principle of
nature, we come to know of our essential self. Through the perception of the exterior
beauty of nature, man became conscious of the spiritual beauty of the Universe. This
does not happen automatically. It occurs only when our senses are properly
sharpened and harmonized with our inner self that we begin to see more than mere
outward beauty. This is the moment when we become aware of the essential being.
Through nature’s beauty, we begin to see ourselves. This is the way in which nature
is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us. The ground of our being is in this
beauty, the underlying principle and once we apprehend this truth we begin really to
exist. Nature is a kind of discipline which appeals to the Understanding and
Reasoning faculties of an individual. Emerson states:
In the woods, we return to reason and faith...Standing
on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air,
and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism
vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing;
I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate
through me; I am part or particle of God.30
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Nature has always been the source for the revelation of divinity for many
human races. Indian religion, for example has great reverence for nature. The
sanctity of nature can be found in many other religions too. Emerson too had this
notion of sanctity in nature and he expressed it in his essays. Kathryn Van
Spanckeren writes:
Still, it is possible to make a few generalizations. Indian
stories, for example, glow with reverence for nature as a
spiritual as well as physical mother. Nature is alive and
endowed with spiritual forces; main characters may be
animals or plants, often totems associated with a tribe,
group, or individual. The closest to Indian sense of
holiness in later American Literature is Ralph Waldo
Emerson’s transcendental “Over-Soul” which pervades
all life.31
Emerson held Indian philosophy in a higher position when it comes to spiritualism.
Vedanta was one of the many thoughts that reached New England in the early
decades of 19th century. It contributed in the formation of his spiritual thinking. He
studied the Laws of Manu, Vishnupurana, the Gita and the KathaUpanishads.
Emerson believed in the transmigration of the soul, the doctrine of fate, Maya and
Karma, and it shows his indebtedness to the oriental philosophy in the development
of his spiritual ideas. Emerson states:
In the history of intellect no more important fact than
the Hindoo [Hindu] theology, teaching that the
beatitude or supreme good is to be attained through
science: namely, by the perception of the real and the
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unreal, setting aside matter, and qualities, and
affections or emotions and persons and actions, as
Maias [Mayas] or illusions, and thus arriving at the
contemplation of the one eternal Life and Cause, and a
perpetual approach and assimilation to Him, thus
escaping new births and transmigration.32
It is a means of knowing the divine, an inspiration in our soul.Emerson
defines spirit as an apparition to God. Through the spirit, the eternal soul
communicates with the individual. Spiritualism to him is consciousness of God, not
the concept of God given by religions, but based upon the intuition, the individual
spirit. Since, the spirit is a manifestation of God; it illuminates and transcends all
facts of life. In Emerson’s words:
Of that ineffable essence which we call Spirit, he that
thinks most, will sayleast. We can foresee God in the
coarse, and, as it were, distant phenomena of matter... It
is the organ through which the universal spirit speaks to
the individual, and strives to lead back the individual to
it.33
It is to say that the spirit is the medium through which one can understand the
divine. He sees nature charged with spirituality. There is a divinity in this world. So,
he places his importance on the role of the individual and intuition in the process of
understanding the divine.
For Emerson, the voice of God is present in every man and not in just some
elected one. He made people realized that salvation was available potentially to
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every man and not just the chosen few. So, salvation was open to any man who
recognized the power of the world soul imminent and implicit in his own soul.
Emerson not only transferred the locus of power in religion from outside man i.e.
the church and tradition to within him i.e. the God within. ‘I count it, said Emerson,
the great object of my life to explore natures of God.’
34
Thus he completes the
progression from Calvinism, through Unitarianism, to Transcendentalism.
Emerson’s treatment of the salvation of man is not expressed in the usual language
like Sin, depravity, saving grace but in philosophical language. He used the term of
‘Reason’ and ‘understanding’ to explain his point. According to him, reason
introduces us to light, that light which is associated with Plotinus’s emanations from
the one. On the other hand, understanding introduces us to the darkness of the
material world.
For Emerson, the regime of spirit is a very important factor in his concept of
spiritualism. He believed ‘Completely, implicitly and viscerally in the reality and
primacy of the spirit.’
35
According to Emerson the regime of sprit is the only
ground on which connection, affiliation, and meaning be operated reasonably,
Emerson emphasized in his essays the importance of human spirit or human soul.
According to Emerson, the modern feeling of un-connectedness or alienation has its
source in a personal disloyalty to the regime of spirit. Through the help of this
‘spirit’ men can feel the divine in him. In his book nature, he wrote:
Spirit is the creator, Spirit halt life in itself. And men in
all ages and countries, embodies it in his language, as
the Father. 36
87
For Emerson, the world originates from this spirit. The world is the subordinate
creation of this spirit and this spirit is above everything. This ‘Spirit’ which is also
called as the ‘Soul’ by Emerson gives the body vitality, sensitivity and the power of
being rational. He asserted the doctrine of the soul and this doctrine is, for him, the
source of religious sentiment. He contrasted the failures of historical Christianity
against this doctrine of the soul. According to this doctrine, God incarnates himself
in every man. The soul knows no person, only souls, and the over soul speak to soul,
not persons. All men have soul but the possibility of perceiving the soul, come to
man only as an ‘intuition’. No instruction can be obtained from others to realize the
laws of the soul, we can get only provocation from others, and we must feel the
indwelling Divine spirit intuitively. According to Emerson, we must use our own
conviction or intuition, and can become a self-reliant person. So, we must follow our
own self and trust our own self. In The Divinity School address, he said:
Obey thyself, that which shows God in me, fortifies me.
That which shows God out of me makes me a wart and
a wen.37
This assertion of Emerson on the self eventually leads to his famous doctrine of selfreliance.
For Emerson, Prayer should be used as a contemplation of the facts of life
rather than a means to get some private ends. If man can feel God within them, he
will not pray or beg to God. He will see prayer in all actions. So, we must not
indulge in false prayers. In the essay, “Self-Reliance” he wrote:
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Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the
highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and
jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works
good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end, is
meaner and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature
and consciousness. 38
As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see
prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the
prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard
throughout nature, though for cheaper ends.
Emerson’s spiritualism is based on his keen observation of nature and man.
His way of understanding the divine and becoming one with him lies in his
spiritualism. Freedom of the individual is important according to him. It is the most
precious inheritance. Man has various faculties and must be given free scope to
develop to the fullest extent. The soul must have a free play. Emerson says that
when the soul breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through
his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love. Genius, virtue and
love are manifestation of God. So, when the intellect connects with the soul, when
the soul connects with his will and when the soul flows through his affection, we
receive the divine and can understand him. For Emerson, life is an extension of his
aesthetic experience.
To Emerson, beauty and truth is one and the same thing. He says that beauty
is the over-soul within which every man’s particular being is contained. Once we
89
realize it, we not only see the surface, we see that the soul is immanent. Through the
triangular relationship of man and nature and of man and God, the position of man is
explained and ascertained. The foundation of man is not in matter, but in spirit.
Because of the soul’s participation in the divine substance, there is no limit to the
possibilities in man’s life. Emerson calls it as the infinitude of the private man and
preached it his whole life. He wrote:
In all my lectures I have taught one doctrine namely,
the infinitude of the private man. 39
Man’s essential self is capable of transcending the finitude of existence and of
becoming one with the infinite. Ineffable bliss is the union of man and God. One
great miracle is the daily rebirth of God in the individual soul. The purpose of man’s
life is therefore is to recognize his own essential self and the cosmic unity. It is the
constitution of man to speak and strive in order to realize this unity in life.
Freedom of the individual is important to Emerson in order to develop a
spiritual sense. It is man’s most precious inheritance. Man has various faculties; they
must be given free scope to develop to the fullest extent. The soul must have a free
play in the realization of the divine. In his lecture the American Scholar Emerson
asserts this freedom.This freedom which he also calls self-trust. He writes:
In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free
should the scholar be free and brave. Free even to the
definition of freedom, without any hindrance that does
not arise out of his constitution. Brave; for fear is a
thing which a scholar by his very function puts behind
him. 40
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The integrity of the individual’s personality must not be affected by systems,
institutions or society. Nothing is more marked than the power by which individuals
are safeguarded from other individuals.
Emerson gives three properties of natural beauty. Nature first of all restores
and gives simple pleasure to a man. We must submit ourselves to nature’s beauty
and must allow it to react to us spontaneously. Nature also works together with the
spiritual element in men to enhance the nobility of virtuous and heroic human
actions stimulate the human intellect. Lastly the beauty of nature can help in
understanding the divine order of the universe. Emerson wrote in the chapter III
“Beauty” of Nature.
The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not
for barren contemplation, but for new creation. 41
Like all the prophets, Emerson was also concerned about the relation of spirit and
human behaviour, about the relation of right seeing and right living. He sees the
people worshiping false gods and labouring under a compensatory punishment for
their general disloyalty to the regime of spirit. In his works, Emerson also
emphasized the primacy of the ‘Here’ and ‘Now’. His fundamental quarrel is with
the authority of institutions and dogmas over their insistence on the past rather than
on the individual’s own intuitions. Men must live in the present and must not be
influenced by past facts and happenings. In his essay, History included in the first
series of Essays, he wrote:
We are always coming up with the emphatic facts of
history in our private experience, and verifying them
here.42
91
In almost all his essays Emerson basic concepts are about The centrality of man and
nature, his emphasis on individual’s own ‘intuition’ or ‘spirit’ and his insistence on
the present. If the regime of ‘Spirit’ is the basic concept of Emerson’s spiritualism,
then nature to him is the symbol of realm of spirit. So, man must remain in close
affinity with nature to feel the God within us. In almost all his essays, Emerson’s
theme remains the same. His concept of spiritualism based on his transcendental
beliefs can be seen in almost all his works. His poems also deals with his concept of
spiritualism based on his Transcendental beliefs. His transcendental beliefs and his
spiritualistic ideas can be seen in his collections of essays about six great people
called Representative Man, The Conduct of Life, a collection of essays published in
1841 also deals with the same concepts which he discussed in his earlier works. In
Representative Man, there is the same openness and flexibility which we saw in his
earlier challenges to institutions and conventional traditions. The writings of
Emerson in 1850s were mainly concerned on the philosophy of fluxions and
nobility. We can see the defiant and self-reliant man of his earlier works absent in
his later writings. Instead we can see a calmer but equally assured voice chanting the
same ultimate optimism and faith of the early works.
In his later writings, Emerson began to shift his concern from describing the
individual, the self-reliant Transcendental hero capable of forging his own world to
defining the inevitable, shaping influence on human life by forces over which Man
has little or no hope. Donald Yanella writes about this change in Emerson:
The self-reliant person confronting the purveyors of
absolutes has receded; even the poet, the arch-
92
individualist, that ultimate seer, seems to have dissolved
as Emerson wraps himself in mantle of skepticism.43
Emerson’s concepts of achieving success in his later writings are dramatically
different from the sort of ‘intuitive soaring’ or ‘transcendence’ that he emphasized
in the early period. In these works, we can clearly see that his celebration of the
‘Now’ has receded. His faith in the individual’s reasonable prospects and selfreliance gave way to an abiding sense of humanity’s limitations. But in spite of all
this, he remained a member of the party of Hope with his essential Optimism and
faith in Mankind and its future. His concept of Spiritualism based on his
transcendental beliefs remains the same in all his works. His concept of God based
on the concept of the ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ is present in all his works. Mathew Arnold’s
assessment holds true for readers of Emerson. He wrote:
He is (and remains) the friend and aider of those who
would live in the Spirit.44
His concept of spiritualism based on the concept of soul and spirit can be seen in
almost all his essays of the first series. His basic concepts of self-reliance, his views
on evil and virtue, and the importance he gave to the individual or self are all present
in every essay. The four essays “Love’’, “Friendship’’, “Prudence’’, and “Heroism’’
of the first series are deeper probes into individualism which is probably the most
important upshot of Emerson’s Transcendental vision. His emphasis on the primacy
of the self can be seen in the essay “Heroism’’:
Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the
soul at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance
93
of falsehood and wrong, and the power to bear all that
can be inflicted by evil agents. 45
In his other essays “compensation’’ and “spiritual laws”, his concept of
Transcendentalism is present imminently. In the essay “spiritual Laws” he wrote
that the universe is moral. And in so far as Man is able to brush aside the crazy quilt
of any culture’s versions of absolute realities, he shall be in touch with nature and
the spiritual reality which suffers it. He wrote in the essay:
O my brothers, God exists. There is a soul at the centre
of nature, and over the will of every man, so that none
of us can wrong the universe. It has so infuse its strong
enchantment into nature, which we prosper. When we
accept its advice, and when we struggle to wound its
creatures, our hands are glued to our sides, or they beat
our own breasts. 46
The essay, “Circles”, is one of Emerson’s most beautiful and elegant prose works of
the first series. It is an eloquent presentation of transcendental thought. It discusses
the flux, evolution, relativism and renewal. Emerson also asserts the centrality of the
self which he discusses in the earlier essays and addresses. Emerson’s insistence on
the present and future can be seen in this essay also. In the concluding part of the
essay, Emerson’s transcendental beliefs can be seen vividly. According to him there
is no absolute, nothing is secure but life, transition and energizing Spirit. The final
two essays in the First series “Intellect” and “Art” is about the ultimate sources of
mans insight and expressions. These essays also insist on the vitality of the present
and future. It also emphasized on the necessity for self-reliance. Emerson in the
94
essay “Intellect” pleads for spontaneity which he also discusses in the other essays
like “self-reliance”. Emerson condemned any form of imitations and plea for
creativity in the essay of “Art”.
The ideas that Emerson explores in the second series of Essays are
amplifications of the themes that he had sounded in Nature his earlier prose works
and his poetry. Most of the essays of this series are rich in rhetorical power. They
are tightly constructed and vigorous in their insight and assertions. In this series, the
bold and vigorous assertions of his transcendental faith are washed over by the
waves of experience. In the essay ‘Experience’ we can see a muted and almost
world-weary Emerson instead of the celebrating optimist of the earlier work. But the
emphasis on the Self which Emerson maintained in the first series can be seen in this
essay also. Men’s relationship to other and to his society is the major concern of the
four essays “Manners”, “Gifts”, “Politics” and “New England Reformers”. “Nature”
a short essay in this collection ponders on the central transcendental themes of
man’s relation with nature. The individual freedom is always paramount for
Emerson in all his essays. In the essay ‘New England Reformers’ he offers an
almost lyrical celebration of individual. According to him, Man is the more worthy
and the only object of regeneration. Emerson also condemns the calvinistic notions
of man’s depravity. His faith in the individual, the centre of his transcendental
optimism is seen when he wrote:
And as a man is equal to the church, and equal to the
state, so he is equal to every other man.47
95
So, Emerson’s Transcendental beliefs is the very basis of his spiritualism. His
concept of spiritualism based on the ‘Spirit’ and ‘Soul’ is present in almost all his
essays and works. His concept of divinity which lies within every individual is
present in all his essays and works. The relationship between Man, God and Nature
is present throughout his essays. According to Emerson, nature ultimately serves as
the moral manifestation of God. Emerson’s assertion of the individual’s freedom
and centrality of Man is seen in his works.
Some of the characteristics of Emerson’s spiritualism are brought out in his
essay, “Self-Reliance.” It is an important essay of Emerson published in 1841. It
represents one of the spiritual sides of Emerson. Emerson belief in self-reliance
follows as a logical result of his doctrine of the over-soul. According to this
doctrine, every man has something to do with the divine present in nature and is
capable of establishing a direct relationship with the universal spirit. In this way,
every man is capable of perceiving the highest truth. Every man therefore ought to
rely upon his spiritual perceptions, he ought to be self-reliant. Emerson is an
individualist. But, he was not different to society or to reality. A good society is
composed of good individuals. So, the primary obligation of the individual is to
perfect his own life. Emerson believed that social salvation could be achieved only
through the salvation of the individuals who compose society.
Self-Reliance is a manifestation of both his transcendentalism and
individualism. It also expresses his views on history, on prayer, on travel, on
property, on conformity and consistency. Transcendentalism implies faith in the
over-soul. The over-soul is the ultimate reality from which all life is derived and by
96
which the universe is unified. It is because divinity exists in all form of life. Each
living creatures and each object of nature is a microcosm embracing all the laws and
meaning of existence. The individual soul of each man is therefore in essence
identical with the soul of the universe. In this way, Emerson’s essay on self-reliance
gains importance as the expression of his transcendental belief.
Emerson believes that the soul gives positive commands. The over-soul
being ethical, these commands are ethical. Thus, self-reliance for Emerson means
the religion of the spirit, the religion in which one is guided by the over-soul. A
transcendental universal self is present in every individual. In this light, self-reliance
can be treated as individualism. Emerson’s individualism is not dogmatism. It means
that each individual should be true to his individual self.
Emerson was an American sage, a seer, a prophet who believed absolutely
what he said. He dealt almost entirely in metaphysical questions, the relation of the
visible world to the soul of the individual, the reality of the spiritual element in
nature, the sacred character of moral obligation, and the power of ideas. His
philosophy cannot be combined into a system. He held that happiness in labour,
righteousness, and veracity essential for his spirituality. The cheerfulness he
preached was always qualified by an awareness of the real world’s inquiry.
Neo-Platonism, German Idealism, English Romanticism served as symbols
and evidences rather than sources for his thinking. The core of his thinking came
from the life around him which he breathed as naturally as he breathed the New
97
England air of Concord. His principal ideas were set by the tone and atmosphere of
the time and place where he lived. Robert C. Gordon states:
While in Nature he had advanced the more modest
conclusion
that
human
spiritual
development
contributed directly to social improvement, during the
1840s he went much further, asserting that individual
spiritual progress was vital to evolutionary progress.
Emerson made this metaphysical leap through his
brilliant fusion of neo-Platonism, science, Hegel, and
India’s philosophy of samsara.48
In the essay “Self-reliance,” Emerson states that envy which is a result of
ignorance and imitation is suicidal. Thus, it can be seen observed that the spirituality
in Emerson’s essays are based on individualism and free will of the spirit and
intuition. Emerson emphasizes the importance of individualism unbound by
different traditional religions as a base for understanding his spirituality. He states
that the divine can be known through the keen observation of nature and that the
spirit should not be bound by rituals in order to receive the divine grace. One must
not live in the past, but must live in the present. Only then can a person lead a real
life.
One of the main themes in his essay, “The Over-Soul,” is the nature of the
over-soul and also contains a number of ideas that defines his spirituality. The chief
of such ideas are the nature of genius, the nature of revelation, insight and selfreliance.The over-soul constitutes the essence of all. The soul in communion with
the Over-Soul perceives and reveals truth. This is a religious experience and it
expresses itself in ecstasy. When we speak of a mystic’s trance or the rapture of a
98
mystic, we refer to the mingling of the individual soul with the universal soul or the
Over-Soul. This mingling represents the highest progress that the soul can make.
The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth.
Thus, Emerson’s spiritualism is based on the keen observation of nature and
all concepts of his spirituality are projection of his attitude towards nature. In the
words of Robert C Gordon, Emerson’s transcendentalism was concerned with the
freedom from the rigidity of religion. The freedom from the doctrines and dogmas
of religion form the basis of his concept of spiritualism. Emerson’s spiritualism
based on his transcendental beliefs in the words of Gordon:
His new faith freed him from the ascription of divinity to
Christ alone, and insisted upon the immanence of
divinity in every one. That God was within rendered
unnecessary any mediator between humanity and God.
The human problem was simply to make actual what
existed universally as perfect potential—identity with
Absolute Spirit.49
Much of Emerson’s spiritual concepts are embedded in his work Nature and his
essays in particular. His essays are platforms from where he launched his
spiritualism.
In the next chapter, the concepts of spiritualism that are present in the essays
of Emerson will be brought out and discussed in detail. So, Nature and five
important essays that are part of his first series of essays namely “History”, “SelfReliance”, “Compensation”, “Spiritual Laws” and “The Over-Soul” will be
discussed and analysed in detail from a spiritual perspective.
99
NOTES
1
Spiritualism, 27/09/2009. <http://skeptiwiki.org/indiaphp.html>.
2
Sri Aurobinda, On Nationalism, First Series (From the section: politics and
spirituality). Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1965) 29.
3
Joel Porte, ed., Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures (New York: Viking
Press, 1983) 47.
4
J.N. Sinha, Introduction to Philosophy (Kolkata: New Central book Agency,
2006) 251.
5
Joel Myerson, ed., Transcendentalism: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University
Press,2000) XXVII.
6
Joel Myerson, ed., Transcendentalism: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University
Press,2000). XXV.
7
Frederick Ives Carpenter, Emerson Handbook (New York: Hendricks House
1953) 125.
8
Frederick Ives Carpenter, Emerson Handbook (New York: Hendricks House
1953) 125.
9
Frederick Ives Carpenter, Emerson Handbook (New York: Hendricks House
1953) 135.
10
Kathryn van Spankeren: An Outline American Literature (US: United States
Department of State, 1994) 26.
11
Peter Ackroyd,T.S. Eliot (London: Cardinal, 1948) 17.
12
Joel Myerson, ed., A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York:
Oxford University Press) 154.
13
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo
Emerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999) 17.
14
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 93.
100
15
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo
Emerson Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999) 19.
16
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 95-96.
17
Alfred R. Ferguson, ed, et al. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
5Vols to date (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971-) 2,166.
18
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 163.
19
Joel Myerson ed, A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York:
Oxford University Press,2000) 151-152,
20
Edward Waldo Emerson, The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
12Vols (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1903 – 04) 4, 50.
21
Lawerence Buell, Emerson (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 2003)162.
22
Alfred R. Ferguson, ed, et al. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
5Vols to date (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971-) 4, 204.
23
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo
Emerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999) 103.
24
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo
Emerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999) 103.
25
William H. Gilman, ed, et al. The Journal and Miscellaneous Notebook of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 16 Vols (Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1960 - 82) 4,
84.
26
Joel Myerson, ed, A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York:
Oxford University) 161.
27
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company 2001) 96.
101
28
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds,Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 172.
29
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures (New York:
The Library of
America, 1983) 10.
30
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures (New York:
The Library of
America, 1983) 10.
31
Kathryn van Spanckeren, An Outline American Literature (US: United States
Department of State, 1994) 3.
32
Robert C. Gordon, Emerson and the Light of India: An Intellectual History
(New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1993) XXI.
33
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures (New York:
The Library of
America, 1983) 40.
34
Lewis Leary, Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Interpretive Essay (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1980) 95.
35
Joel Myerson, ed., A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson. (New York:
Oxford University) 157.
36
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 36.
37
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 74.
38
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 132.
39
Lewis Leary, Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Interpretive Essay (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1980) 25.
40
Lewis Leary, Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Interpretive Essay (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1980) 34.
102
41
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 64.
42
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 108.
43
Donald Yanella, Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston Twayne Publishers, 1982) 103.
44
Milton R. Konvitz, ed., The Recognition of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Ann Aebor:
The University of Michigan Press, 1972) 72.
45
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures (New York: The Library of
America, 1983) 375.
46
Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds, Emerson’s Prose and Poetry (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2001) 153.
47
Edward Waldo Emerson, The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
12Vols (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1903 – 04) 3, 280.
48
Robert C. Gordon, Emerson and the Light of India: An Intellectual History
(New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1993)143.
49
Robert C. Gordon, Emerson and the Light of India: An Intellectual History
(New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1993) 81.