A Little Beyond: Transcendentalism ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
October 1, 2023
The movement called Transcendentalism, began to emerge in the 1830’s, during a time of intellectual ferment, in a new nation full of new ideas, founded in revolution. It was a heady, exciting time. The intellectuals of New England, primarily Unitarian ministers and their friends, jumped wholeheartedly into this movement, and it permanently affected American culture and civic life. It was sometimes called the “New Thought”, and described as being ‘a little beyond’. Beyond what, one asks? Beyond the pale? Beyond credulity? It’s not clear.
It is really, really hard to reduce Transcendentalism to a sound bite. We think of it today as a philosophical movement, largely seen through the lens of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, as they held salons or tramped around Walden Pond in Concord. But the movement itself was very loosely organized, and while it was often referred to as a ‘club of the like-minded’, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke once noted that they called themselves that because no two thought alike. (in American Transcendentalism, Philip A. Gura, p.5.)
Because it was hard to explain and to understand, people often responded to it with humor and even ridicule. The Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote of a visit from Unitarian minister Orestes Brownson, one of the founders of the utopian community at Brook Farm, describing Brownson as “a (Unitarian) minister who has left the pulpit to reform the world by cultivating onions.” (Ibid., p.xiii)
Carlyle was certainly a skeptic. When hearing that Margaret Fuller had proclaimed, “I accept the universe!” Carlyle responded, “By God, she had better.”
Perhaps no one had more fun with the Transcendentalists than Louisa May Alcott, and perhaps no one had more reason. In 1869 Louisa sent in a satirical column to the Springfield Republican newspaper, entitled “Latest News from Concord.” She reported on the establishment of a new hotel, named the Sphinx’s Head, catering to tourists who wanted to visit Concord and observe the Transcendentalist luminaries.
Jeremy: “The accommodations themselves were special, with Alcott’s rustic furniture, the beds made of Thoreau’s pine boughs, and the sacred fires fed from the Emersonian woodpile. Moreover, the thoughtful proprietors would provide telescopes for those who wished to ‘watch the soarings of the Oversoul, when visible.’… Most important to those eager to catch a glimpse of the community’s famous residents, the hotel also would provide a daily bulletin to announce ‘the most favorable hours for beholding the various lions’ who still roamed Concord’s landscape…
Emerson will walk at 4 p.m.
Alcott will converse from 8 am til 11 pm.
Channing may be seen with the naked eye at sunset.” (Ibid., pp. 3-4)
It’s no wonder, really, that people think of Transcendentalists as Concord-centered, and the movement as much smaller than it really was. The writings of Emerson and Thoreau dominated. But what they did was to throw a stone into a pond – Walden Pond, as it were – and the ripples expanded from that spot in many different ways and many directions, that would not be traced back to the center.
What can we say to understand and describe the many Transcendentalists? Can we generalize?
I would begin by saying that in many ways they acted as prophets; not content with society as it was, always looking for ways to improve life, to live differently and better, and to speak and act for justice and equity, even if it meant growing onions. So, in many different ways, they were reformers; even revolutionaries. They began by trying to reform religion, particularly Christianity, and within that, Unitarianism. Of course, at the time, Unitarians had only been organized for about 10-15 years, but that did not stop Emerson and others from referring to it as ‘corpse-cold’, with its emphasis on scholarship and dissecting the Bible, and in need of a new, more mystical and emotional understanding. To this day, we can get tangled up in arguing whether to emphasize the head, or the heart.
Emerson and James Freeman Clarke helped to introduce Eastern religions into American thought. And the concept of the Oversoul emerged: a source, perhaps a universal spirit, that is present within every being.
If this was true, then a person didn’t need to attend church to access this power. You can imagine what a horrifying thought that was for the established churches. But Emerson, and of course, Thoreau, found that the universal spirit was more readily accessible in the natural world. Emerson developed this philosophy in his famous essay, “Nature:”
Jeremy: “In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. 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 Eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”
Transcendentalists pursued reform in society as well as in religion. They were ‘like-minded’ in their rejection of intolerance. This left them free to expand out from that spot where the stone was flung into the pond, and to pursue their goals for a better life. They formed Utopian communities: Brook Farm in West Roxbury, and Fruitlands in Harvard, to name two. At Fruitlands, founded by Bronson Alcott, no one could wear cotton or wool, or use any animal product whatsoever. One adherent reportedly ate nothing but uncooked dried beans. Dinner was often bread and fruit. Fruitlands disbanded shortly before they froze and starved to death, and as I mentioned earlier, it’s possible that Louisa May Alcott might have had some unresolved resentments about the life she was forced to live there. At Fruitlands the co-founders, Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane, intended to dissolve the family unit and live as what they called a ‘Consociate Family.’ Apparently Mrs. Alcott strenuously objected.
Women played an important role in the Transcendentalist movement. Margaret Fuller, who edited their publication, The Dial, and held structured conversations for women, and Elizabeth Peabody, who anchored the club in a variety of ways, are the most famous, but other women such as Ellen Sturgis and Caroline Healey Dall were also active: frequent visitors to Concord, who contributed their own writings.
But as the Transcendentalist movement matured in the 1840’s and 1850’s, it began to form two main strands. Emerson is closely associated with the more spiritual strand: the emphasis on natural religion, on individualism and self-knowledge. But at the same time, many of the Transcendentalists were working hard to reform society. Some grew onions. And given the pre-Civil War era, some of its members became increasingly involved in the new nation’s fight over enslavement.
In 1850 the country was plunged into turmoil by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, which stated that escaped slaves would be returned to their owners, even if they were captured in a free state. This law helped galvanize the Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, who became one of the best-known anti-slavery activists in the country. When a fugitive enslaved person, Thomas Sims, was arrested, Parker called for public action against the law.
Jeremy: “Resist, then, by peaceful means,” he urged, “not with evil but with good. Hold the men infamous that execute this law, give them your pity, but never give them your trust, not til they repent…I do not know how soon it will end; I do not care how soon the Union goes to pieces. I believe in justice and the law of God,” he continued, and that “ultimately the right will prevail.” (Ibid., p. 251.)
Two years later, another escaped slave, Anthony Burns, was captured in Boston. This time, a mob attacked the courthouse to try to free Burns. One of them was a Unitarian minister from Worcester, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who took the lead in battering down the courthouse doors. The attempt failed, and Higginson was among those put on trial for resisting the execution of the law. Parker was also eventually arrested for instigating the attack on the jail. His lawyer was able to have the charges dismissed, and the district attorney warned Parker, “You have crept through a knot-hole this time.” Parker replied, “I will knock a bigger hole next time.”
Parker and Higginson were also involved in the fight over Kansas, and whether it should enter the Union as a free or a slave state. Parker addressed the issue publicly. At one lecture of the American Anti-Slavery Society, William Lloyd Garrison introduced Parker as “a very excellent fanatic, a very good infidel, and a first-rate traitor.” (Ibid., p. 255.) Parker and some of his parishioners were already involved in delivering rifles to Kansas.
Enter John Brown, who with his family had moved to Kansas to support the anti-slavery movement. Brown came to Massachusetts to raise money and was introduced to a number of Transcendentalists, including Emerson and Thoreau, as well as Parker and Higginson. These last two ultimately became part of the group known as the ‘Secret Six’, who raised funds and supplied weapons for John Brown’s raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia. History tells us that the raid failed, and the supporters scattered in fear of prosecution. Parker by then was in the final stages of the tuberculosis that would end his life, and had left the country, first for the Caribbean, and later for Italy, in an effort to save his life. He died in Florence in 1860, out of the reach of the US authorities, at the age of 50.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, like all of the Secret Six, managed to avoid prosecution. When the Civil War began, he enlisted and served as a captain in a regiment of Massachusetts volunteers. And then, in 1862, the Union army began to recruit formerly enslaved men into a new regiment in South Carolina. Higginson was asked to lead them. The offer, he wrote, “took his breath away.”
Jeremy: “As (Higginson) later said, ‘I had been abolitionist too long and had known and loved John Brown too well, not to feel a thrill of joy at last on finding myself in the position where he only wished to be.’ His success in guiding a thousand truly disadvantaged former slaves into ‘a state of training and morale equal to that of any white regiment of similar experience’ became the theme of articles he published in the Atlantic Monthly…He also led them into danger, foraging and temporarily capturing the town of Jacksonville, Florida. On one occasion his black soldiers clearly saved his life.” (Conflagration, John A. Buehrens, pp. 2014-215.)
As an aside, Higginson left the Unitarian ministry and became the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. In that role, he discovered a reclusive poet from Western Massachusetts named Emily Dickinson. He was a champion of women’s rights. When he died, in 1911, an honor guard of black soldiers attended, and his coffin was draped in the flag of his South Carolina regiment.
The historians do not credit Transcendentalism for the activism of Theodore Parker and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. But their stories show the broad reach of movement, and how their reformers’ zeal spurred them to pursue a vision of a United States that valued equality and justice. This is an important thread of our history and beliefs, that informs us to this day.
At the beginning, I talked about the challenges of defining Transcendentalism. The key is in the word ‘reformers’. Whether they tackled Christianity, and Harvard Divinity School, and criticized local ministers; whether they spoke for women’s rights and the rights of enslaved people; whether they lived in seclusion in a tiny cabin, or founded a utopian community; or whether they incited civil disobedience and took up arms, they were seeking a new way, a new world, a world that was just a little bit beyond the world they were living in.
And that is our legacy as Unitarian Universalists; to keep seeking for ways to move our society further beyond where it is today. Would you call yourself a Transcendentalist? There are a few important points to consider in answering that question:
– whether you sense that holiness is present throughout the world, within all, and around all;
– whether you believe in your own experience and your own intuition;
– whether you feel that what takes place in this world, in this life, is what is important, not what happens in an afterlife;
– whether you believe that, if holiness is present in all, that people should work to ensure justice and fairness for all.
– And this: if you believe that the natural world is holy, that all of us should work toward a healthy and safe creation: a safe home for all creatures.
It sounds a lot like our UU principles, doesn’t it?
May you sense the holy in all that you see and feel and do, and may you cherish this life that we are leading on this most wonderful planet.
Blessed Be.
Amen.
