Spiritual Critiques

copyrighted 2009

The last American explanation places Transcendentalism, Spiritualism and Theosophy in a larger tradition that the American religion scholar Sydney Ahlstrom called harmonial religion. “Harmonial religion,” Ahlstrom says, “encompasses those forms of piety and belief in which spiritual composure, physical health, and even economic well-being are understood to flow from a person’s rapport with the cosmos.”(1) This tradition emphasizes harmony with the spiritual forces, rather than contrition or repentance, as the important factor in regenerated life. This Harmonial tradition includes Christian Science, New Thought, positive thinking, osteopathy, early chiropractic medicine, as well as the thinkers Andrew Jackson Davis and William James.(2) Robert C. Fuller extended Ahlstrom’s concept of harmonial religion and said the New Age movement was another manifestation of this American tradition because it emphasizes being in harmony with the spiritual forces.(3)

This explanation has some positive features. American religious thought does have a tradition which emphasizes harmony with the spiritual powers and, in its American context, the New Age can be seen as a continuation of this tradition. The problem with this explanation is that it only places the harmonial tradition in American context and neglects its larger context in Western intellectual and cultural history. This harmonial tradition itself, as well as the New Age movement, is not merely an American phenomenon, but part of a much larger Western cultural and historical tradition. Thus, many of the people who influenced the American harmonial tradition, such as Swedenborg and Mesmer, are not Americans, but Europeans. Furthermore, Swedenborg and Mesmer are part of a long, harmonial tradition in Europe that is still influential in Europe and Latin America. For example, Swedenborg inspired both homeopathy and William Blake, while Mesmerism inspired the Romantics and the later depth psychologists. Thus it is necessary to consider this harmonial tradition not in terms of American religious history, but consider it as part of the much larger sweep of Western intellectual and cultural history.

copyrighted 2009.

This essay was written by Joseph Waligore. He dedicated his life to following the will of the Universe when he was 20. Seven months later he received a message from his Higher Self or inner connection to the divine to quit Dartmouth College. Through following a deep intuition in a dream and after many synchronistic experiences, he met his soulmate and married her. He and his wife followed their spiritual intuitions in their daily lives, including receiving messages to have children. For twelve years he stayed at home and raised his three children while his wife worked. Then, his wife told him he needed to make some money, so he got a Ph. D. in philosophy from Syracuse University. He currently has a part-time job teaching philosophy and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. More information about him can be found at his MySpace profile. He also has a website with information about his own spiritual journey and his spiritual philosophy.

FOOTNOTES

1. Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 1019.
2. Robert C. Fuller, Alternative Medicine and American Religious Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 51 & pp. 66-90; & Ahlstrom, pp. 1019-36.
3. Fuller, p. 8.