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Transcendentalism: The New Religion A. K. Rodriguez Transcendentalism: The
New Religion According to The American Heritage Dictionary, the definition of
religion is “a belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers
regarded as Creator or governor of the universe; a personalized system grounded
in such belief; or a cause or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious
devotion” (TAHD, 696). The American Heritage Dictionary provides a lexicon
description of the word religion; however, the world provides a pragmatic
description of religion. Religion has been the foundation of man’s search for
spiritual identity, for defining good and evil, and for instituting universal
harmony and balance. Since the beginning of time, the world’s social state,
cultural milieu, and political atmosphere has been the impetus for the
establishment of new religious institutions and new religious doctrine. As
culture, society and politics contributed more and more to the tension and
debauchery of the world and man, man sought desperately for an alternative.
Higher law and religion became the remedy to man’s struggle.
So, the dream of
making the world a better place has been embraced by every religious movement in
history, and it has served as the primary civilizing influence on the planet.
From Taoism to Buddhism, from Judaism to Christianity and from the Magna Carta
to the Declaration of Independence, religious philosophy has institutionalized
fundamental laws of life, and wisdom and spiritual values with the objective of
discerning the true essence of man and discern man’s relationship to the
universe. By the lexicon and empirical definition of religion, it can be
ascertained that Transcendentalism was more than a philosophy, more than a
literary movement, and more than an intellectual inquiry. Transcendentalism was
a religion – a radical religion that utilized nature as its sanctified house of
worship, glorified God as its deity, had disciples and prophets known as
Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Alcott and Whitman, and claimed its personal “Bible”
or documented wisdom known as the lyceum, “The Dial” and other published essays.
Most significantly; however, Transcendentalism was a new religion with its own
moral commandments of higher law, its own concept of the divine. Like Buddhists,
Catholics, and Hindus, Transcendentalists were a religious faction exercising a
spiritual persuasion.
Transcendentalists were a sect that believed in a radical
form of Christianity. According to A Religious History of the American People,
Transcendentalism was born from the enthrallment of the Unitarian Church: The
Unitarians believed in God’s goodness and loving kindness in man’s likeness to
and ability to comprehend God, and in the human capacity for spiritual, moral
and intellectual improvement (Alhstrom, 401). Dr. William Ellery Channing,
founder of the American Unitarianism believed that human’s spiritual nature is
God’s spiritual nature amplified and untainted to time without end. He said, “In
ourselves are the elements of the Divine” (Alhstrom, 401). Because of this,
Channing and the tenets of his “new” dogma in the Unitarian persuasion
perpetuated throughout New England as colonists were escaping the wrath of
Calvinism – a religion where predestination breathed, inherent depravity of man
was supposed, and apprehensive supplication to an angry God was constant. As
Unitarianism gained more popularity in America, so did an awareness for social
reform and self-education. As the doctrine of social reform and self-education
purportedly brought man closer to God’s perfection, and a philosophy of humanism
began to emerge, an impact was produced.
An intellectual sentiment began to
infuse, and the Transcendental movement commenced. Although, the
transcendentalists did not capitulate absolutely to the tenets of Unitarian
doctrine, and would boldly refute that Transcendentalism had developed into a
suffocating religious order of ritualized traditions, Transcendentalism, by
meaning had indeed become a religious persuasion – a radical religious
assemblage of disciples who were interested in conveying a moral message and
transforming the world and human lives. This radical theology would connect
human beings to a philosophy that would spiritually empower human beings by
making them the instruments and leaders of the church. They would be governed by
the hierarchy of God, and their spirituality would be defined my intuition and
molded by the beauty of nature. Their church would be the wilderness; God would
be their preacher; their dogma would be truth and righteousness; their followers
would be the spirit and conscience of every virtuous man, and their goal would
be conformity to moral law, disregard for materialism and deluding progress,
aversion for power and expediency, to seek individualism and freedom from
conventionality, and fuse with nature and God. The first compelling contention
that promotes Transcendentalism as a religion is the Transcendental “belief in
and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator or governor
of the universe” (TAHD, 696).
In every essay or composition by Emerson or
Thoreau, there is an acknowledgement of a Supreme Being, a Creator or divine
authority. However, the divine authority that Transcendentalists refer to is not
separate from man. The divine presence manifests itself in nature, in the soul
of man, in the mentality of man, and consequently in the actions of man.
According to Transcendental belief, every human being has the capacity to
possess the heavenly manifestation of God, therefore all of God’s goodness,
wisdom, truth and power. In “The Divinity School Address”, Emerson acknowledges
a Supreme Being, God, and attempts to persuade future ministers of Christianity
that man is not inherently disengaged from God – man is God. Emerson writes: One
man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in
man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. 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’ (“The Divinity School Address, 1117). Emerson also acknowledges a
Supreme Being that unites with man in “Nature”. He discusses the impact of the
God’s unity with man. He says, again, that the unity produces goodness, truth,
and most importantly a direct relationship with the Creator, God.
As a plant
upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is nourished by
unfailing fountains, and draws as his need, inexhaustible power. Who can set
bounds to the possibilities of man? Once inspire the infinite, by being admitted
to behold the absolute natures of justice and truth, and we learn that man has
access to the entire mind of the Creator in the finite. This view, which
admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and power lie, and points to virtue as
to “The Golden Key, When opes the palace of eternity,” carries upon its face the
highest certificate of truth, because it animates me to create my own world
through the purification of the soul (“Nature”, 1096) Emerson distinguishes his
direct union with the Creator, and professes to have His powers, His wisdom, and
the “key to eternity”. This may sound blasphemous and absurd to many established
and traditional religions; however, the religion of Transcendentalism
establishes a radical precedence by acknowledging a God that is internal and not
external. Transcendentalists believed that man did not need to become
enlightened and empowered by the truths of God by an external influence – a
preacher, a pulpit or a place with a religious appellation. Transcendentalists
believed that man could search within his own mind, his own heart, and his own
soul to discover the powers of the Creator. This was the strength and the
scandal of the Transcendental religion.
Emerson writes: Thus; in the soul of man
there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good
deed, is instantly ennobled himself. He who does a mean deed, is by the action
itself contracted. He who puts off impurity, thereby puts on impurity. If a man
is at heart just, then in so far, is he God; the safety of God, the immortality
of God, the majesty of God, do enter into the man with justice. (“The Divinity
School Address”, 1115) In 1838, James Freeman Clark wrote an essay in the
Western Messenger questioning the new religion’s radical beliefs as they were
presented by Emerson in the prior statement to the Cambridge Theological School
regarding God and man. Clark wrote: Matters stood thus, when he was invited to
make an address to the parting class of the Cambridge Theological School. He
readily accepted this offer, and the result was that they heard an address quite
different, we judge, from whatever fell into the ears of a theological class
before… Instead of inculcating the importance of church-going, and shewing how
they ought to persuade everybody to go to church, he seemed to think it better
to stay at home than to listen to a formal lifeless preacher (NCLC, Vol. 1,
275-276). Although Clark and the other critics were swept away by the “beauty,
sincerity and magnanimity of the general current of the Address”, it was
undoubtedly perilous, controversial and bordering on impudence.
However,
Emerson’s heretical speech was raising philosophical issue with clergymen and
established religion. He was also challenging its present methods of ministering
truth, and possibly recruiting new followers of the Transcendental philosophy.
Were ministers addressing the complexities of the human condition and answering
the profound questions about existence? Was current religious doctrine
spiritually fulfilling and educating man on how to have a true and direct
relationship with God? Could Transcendentalism become the panacea for the
existing weaknesses of spirituality? The second intimation that
Transcendentalism was a new religion was that it possessed “a personalized
system grounded in a belief in God, and had a cause that was pursued with zeal
and a conscientious devotion”.
Not universally accepted like the psalms, the
beatitudes, or Moses’ Ten Commandments, the transcendental directives were
becoming popular and being internalized and moralized by intellectual prophets
like Fuller, and Emerson, and practiced by Thoreau and Alcott. Similar to
Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism, the dogma of Transcendentalism was
documented by enthusiasts in journals, poetry, essays and books,
intellectualized in academic circles like the Lyceum, and later published and
relived in “The Dial”, the Transcendental magazine. Consequently, the rapid
dissemination of Transcendental philosophy and the religious education of
Transcendentalism ignited a movement of followers of the “revolutionary
religion” and created an organization of Transcendental adherents with
Transcendental causes that were pursued with devotion.
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