Henry David Thoreau: a Transpersonal View

HENRY DAVID THOREAU: A TRANSPERSONAL VIEW Michael Keller Muncie, Indiana Henry David Thoreau was born July 12, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts and spent nearly all his days there until his death on May 6, 1862. He lived a relatively retired life and supported himself by working in his [ather's small business, by performing odd jobs, by surveying, and by occasional lectures and published essays. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837and in the fall of the same year developed a friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thereafter he was associated with a group of American thinkers and writers, the Transcendentalists, who acknowledged Emerson as mentor. Though not well known in his own time, Thoreau flOW enjoys one of the highest artistic reputations of any of the Transcendentalist writers. He is also recognized as an accomplished and knowledgeable naturalist. Thoreau's Walden (1960), his best known work, records his two year living-experiment at Walden Pond His vast Journal (1962), covers the period 1837-1861 and is the most valuable document for students interested in his character and tempera ment. It is cited here by volume and page. Reactions to Thoreau, in his time, ranged from seeing him as a nay-saying, cold, solitary eccentric to an impression of him as an amiable and gentle spiritual guide. Some of this controversy biographical continues to the present day. In his Journal (V, 4), Thoreau introduction describes himself as both a "natural philosopher" and a "mys tic." This latter aspect is the subject of the present essay (see Keller, 1977), which is based primarily on his life up to the publication of Walden in 1854.His mystical experience is ex amined in terms of Evelyn Underhill's (1965) three-stage view of psychospiritual development-Illumination, Dark Night, Uni tive Life. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1977, Vol. 9, No.1 43 ILL UMIN ATlONS In a letter to Harrison Blake on February 27, 1853, Thoreau wrote: J have had but one spiritual birth (excuse the word.) and now whether it rains or snows, whether I laugh arcry, fall farther below or approach nearer to my standard, whether Pierce or Scott is eiected.e-not a new scintillation oflight flashes on me, but ever and anon, though with longer intervals, the same surprising & ever lasting new light dawns to me, with only such variations as in the coming of the natural day, with which indeed, it is often coinci dent (1958, pp. 296-97). Thoreau is referring here to his various illumination experi ences. His reference to "one spiritual birth" seems to point to an "awakening" experience early in life, such as is common in the lives of other mystics. "Awakening" is a powerful initial illumination experience or experiences which suddenly intro duce the subject to the realm of spiritual realities, and start him off on a course of self-purification so that he may finally live completely within the Reality he has perceived. Thoreau describes his early illumination experiences in a quite early detailed way in a July 16, 1851Journal passage. Just before the illumination excerpt from this passage quoted below, Thoreau refers to experiences these experiences, in one instance, as "the experiences of my boyhood," and in another, as experiences that occurred "in youth." This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. To have such sweet impressions made on us, such ecstasies begotten of the breezes! I can remember how 1 was astonished. I said to myself,-I said to atlters,-'There comes into my mind such an indescribable, infinite, all-absorbing, divine, heavenly pleasure, a sense of elevation and expansion, and {I]have had nought to do with it. I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers. This is a pleasure, a joy, an existence which I have not procured myself. I speak as a witness on the stand, and tell what I have perceived.' The morning and the evening were sweet to me, and I led a life aloof from society of men. I wondered if a mortal had ever known what I knew. I looked in books for some recog nition of a kindred experience, but, strange to say, I found none. Indeed, I was slow to discover that other men had had this experi ence, for it had been possible to read books and to associate with men on other grounds. The maker of me was improving me. When I detected this interference I was profoundly moved. For years I marched as to a music in comparison with which the military music of the streets is noise and discord. 1 was daily intoxicated, and yet no man could call me intemperate. With all your science 44 The Journal of TranspersonalPsychology, 1977, Vol. 9, No.1 can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul? (II, 307) A number of elements mark Thoreau's early experience as genuinely illuminative. In the long passage quoted above, Thoreau's references to music should not necessarily be passed off as merely "poetic." They occur in many other of his mysti cal accounts, and they recall the statements of other mystics about their illuminations. In an account of an illuminative experience quoted by James (1902, 1961), the subject notes that along with other elements in his consciousness at the time, he experienced that "'the woods were vocal with heavenly music' .. (p. 204). Thoreau's noting how "astonished" he was by his experiences is also important, since it suggests that he felt they had a different character from the experiences of normal consciousness, that is, that they were "altered states of consciousness" (Tart, 1971). His sensations of "elevation elevation and expansion" also tally with other mystical accounts. James and quotes an account of illumination from a Swiss,who says in the expansion beginning of his account, " 'All at once I experienced a feeling of being raised above myself' " (p. 76). This sense of elevation is sometimes so powerful that the subject may feel he un dergoes actual physical levitation (Underhill, 1910, 1965, pp. 186,376). A sense of expansion is also a common accompani ment of illumination. James (p. 206) quotes another case: " 'Suddenly there seemed to be a something sweeping into me and inflating my entire being-ssuch a sensation as I had never experienced before.' " Thoreau's sense that he was "dealt with by superior powers," that he "had nought to do with it," is significant too. He felt that his will was not involved in his experiences; he was not improving himself, but "the maker of me was improving me"; when he detected this, it seemed an "interference" to him, i.e.,as something that wasdone to him by a power outside of him. His use of the word "interference" may also indicate some slight resistance. Underhill says that this sense of things is common to mystics in their illuminations: We find in all the mystics this strong sense of a mysterious spiritual life-a Reality-over against man, seeking him and compelling him to Its will. It isnot for him, they think, to say that he will or will not aspire to the transcendental world. Hence sometimes ... [an] inversion of man's long quest of God. The self resists the pull of spiritual gravitation, flees from the touch of Eternity; and the Eternal seeks it, tracks it ruthlessly down (p. 136). Finally, Thoreau's reference to his experiences as "indescrib able, infinite;" and "divine," and his characterizing them as "light" coming into the soul, recall the way that other mystics frequently describe their illuminative experiences. Henry David Thoreau:A Transpersonal View 45 Meditative States Thoreau's Journal records of contemporary illuminative ex periences, as opposed to passages of recollected past expe riences, begin in 1838. On August 13 of that year, Thoreau recorded an experience that he had quite frequently and that he could apparently occasion at will: If with closed ears and eyes I consult consciousness for It moment, immediately are all walls and barriers dissipated, earth rolls from under me, and J float, by the impetus derived from the earth and the system, a subjective, heavily laden thought, in the midst of an unknown and infinite sea, or else heave and swell like a vast ocean of thought, without rock or headland, where are all riddles solved, allstraight lines making there their two ends to meet, eternity and space gamboling familiarly through my depths. [ am from the beginning, knowing no end, no aim. No sun illumines me, for I dissolve all lesser lights in my own intenser and steadier light. I am a restful kernel in the magazine of the universe. (I, 53-54) Thoreau frequently put himself in this state of consciousness for its power to resolve, or at least to render unimportant, what metaphysical he felt as vain metaphysical speculations about the nature of speculation reality. Just after the above account, he says, "Men are con or stantly clinging in my ears their fair theories and plausible intuitive solutions of the universe, but ever there is no help, and 1return discovery again to my shoreless, islandless ocean, and fathom unceas ingly for a bottom that will hold an anchor, that it may not drag" (1,54). Thoreau evidently felt himself to be engaging in that process of incommunicable intuitive discovery of which Chogyam Trungpa (1974) speaks: "Finally that vague feeling of discovery becomes very clear, so that almost no doubt re mains" (p. 54). Certainly the ability of Thoreau to occasion this experience at will reveals that he had a considerable facility in the specific process that Trungpa was referring to, that is, a power of meditation.

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