Concord has a rich
philosophical
tradition,
related
in
large
part
to
those who are called the
Transcendentalists. One can take courses and hear lectures here
in Concord (and all over America) about various 19th Century
personalities, such as Emerson, Alcott, Fuller, Thoreau and so
forth. In the Town of Concord are many historical sites,
including Orchard House where the Alcotts lived, and next to that house
is the building in which the original Concord School of Philosophy met
from 1879 to 1888, the year Alcott died. The proceedings of
the School, as well as related material, can be found at the
Concord Town Library.
Since the 19th Century, other philosophical points of view became part
of American Culture, and the Concord School seems now to be just a
wonderful
memory of another time and another place. Consider, however,
that there is a Genius of Spirit connected to the School, which lies
inside
human beings, and waits our seeking once more the vibrant thread of
thought once fostered there. The Alcott version of the School may
have been
just the first iteration of something larger and still seeking
incarnation into and out of human minds and souls and cultures and
societies. For details read my essay:
Transcendentalism
Comes
of
Age.
With loving affection for the original, a New School is now being
founded in Concord, to be centered at
River House
(pictures) on Lee Drive, next to the Assabet River. Even now Tom
Blanding, a deep Thoreau scholar, gives seminars there every other
Sunday. More is to be offered, as
will be illuminated below.
The impetus for the New Concord School of Philosophy has been coming to
me after frequent travels
through much of America, as well as previous stays of many years in New
England. The first time I came to Concord was in 1987, to
join Stuart Weeks' The Center for American Studies at Concord, which
now
has offices at the Emerson Umbrella. Twenty-one years later, in
the Fall of 2008, I returned to Concord to stay.
From the beginning of my Concord experiences it bothered me that the
only way we could think
about Transcendentalism was as something in the Past, but not something
vital and alive in our Present or having an important Future. In
fact, I gave a brief presentation on this situation, at the Orchard
House
School of Philosophy, on the occasion of Emerson's 200th
birthday,
May 25th, 2003: "
a
small meditation on the spiritual path pioneered by Ralph Waldo
Emerson, including a report of some practical applications".
Since my retirement from active employment, I have
been able to concentrate on writing and thinking, completing several
books. Since moving back to Concord two years ago I have
begun producing video works for YouTube (over 200 to date).
I have had a website for many years that is now called:
Shapes
in the Fire; and five years ago I created an internet book
store:
Joel Wendt's Theory
of
Everything Emporium; and most recently (in 2010) a channel on
YouTube:
the
foolish
philosopher.
I now want to offer courses and support for conversations at River
House, under the name:
The New
Concord School of Philosophy. Below are the
first two themes we will be discussing. Some compensation would
be
appropriate (affordable donations), although no individual will be
turned away for
want of
funds.
First Course: Surviving the Coming
Tsunami of History
- Western Civilization is dying into
a new becoming, and this macro social event
is the underlying causal element of
most of what we obseve via the increases in social chaos everywhere -
Given the temper of the times, in terms of the failing economy, and our
current gridlocked and strife-ridden public life, this main course
material will concern our shared human social and political existence,
which has been a principle study of mine for five decades. While
the
course will have considerable content, a secondary essential purpose
will be to
open students to the possibilities latent in their own thinking.
This is part of the old saying about the difference between providing
someone, who is hungry, not only with fish, but also teaching them how
to
fish. The hunger I perceive is the difficulty many have with
understanding the rapid changes in social existence which, now with the
unending troubling financial woes, touch us all.
What concepts
we need in order to better understand these social processes will be
a major part of the content (
fish
for the hungry). Directly related to this, and as part of it, I
will also teach
how to activate
latent potentials in thinking so as to find our own way to the needed
intuitions (how to
fish).
Second Course: Christian Meditation
- Living Thinking in Action -
(I am the Way, the Truth and the Life)
From the very beginning of Christ's
teachings there were two streams of wisdom. One (of the
Shepherds) was to lead to a secure Faith, and the other (of the Kings)
was to lead to individual Gnosis (individual
direct knowledge of God). In our present, these two modes
of
Christian practice are slowly growing together, not in any
official way, but simply through
the deepening of individual spiritual striving rooted in, and inspired
by, the Gospels as well as other modes of religious and spiritual
expression. The union of Faith and Gnosis is a natural
evolutionary process happening in individual hearts and
minds. The
purpose of this second course is to aid the individual in coming awake
to something already ongoing in their own life of Soul. Those
familiar with various forms of Buddhist meditation, for example, will
find no dissonance here, but
rather a further deepening of the path they are already on.
*
*
*
In general the courses will be of ten
weeks duration, meeting every week. Christian Meditation will
meet
on Sunday evenings, and Surviving the Coming Tsunami of History will
meet on Thursday evenings. The first meetings this year (2011)
will begin in early May. For those who want to socialize first,
we will have an early come greeting period (snacks supplied) beginning
at 7:00 p.m. The talks
and conversations will commence at 7:30 and end around 9:30. No
one need attend
all in the series, and everyone can come as their needs dictate.
Each lecture/conversation will stand alone, although as the courses go
forward, a certain shared vocabulary will naturally emerge, and
latecomers should bear this in mind. Questions on the past
material will nevertheless be welcomed, as going over certain ideas
more than once is very helpful for all.
The ten lecture themes for each course are as follows (these are not
sharp divisions and material in one will often blend into and
pre-figure the material in others):
Surviving the
Coming Tsunami of History:
May 5th, talk #1 the living spiritual nature of history - its
insides and its outsides;
May 12th, #2 the evolution of consciousness and the
emergence of natural science;
May 19th, #3 overcoming materialism - especially the
enchantment of the idea of Natural Selection;
May 26th, #4 American history as an
expression of the future yearning for freedom of spirit;
June 2nd, #5 the
relationship between the individual biography and the Stage Setting
(world structural developments);
June 9th, #6 the centrality of the complexities of
political life and the nature of the striving human heart;
June 16th, #7 the need
for a Second American Revolution - a conflict over ideas and meaning;
June 23rd, #8
the limits of dissent, and the need for celebration and theater in
public life;
June 30, #9 conscious political change and its relationship to
social existence;
July 7th, #10 the End of Western Civilization (dominion over)
and the Coming Social Future via the Return of the Divine Feminine
(communion with).
Christian
Meditation:
May 1st, talk #1 the Shepherds and the Kings (two streams of
Christian Life), as expressed in: moral grace, freedom and love;
May 8th, #2 East and West - the
significance of macro cultural differences in humanity's spiritual
life;
May 15th, #3 the husbandry of the life of the mind - the Word in
thought
and in speech;
May 22nd, #4 the Gospels, esp. the Sermon on the Mount;
May 29th, #5 prayer
- a practicum;
June 5th, #6 the complexities of the true reality of the Spirit;
June 12th, #7 the real nature of the idea of the Second Coming;
June 19th, #8 Rudolf Steiner
as the John the Baptist Figure of the true Second Coming;
June 26th, #9) prayer and
meditation - another practicum;
July 3rd, #10 Living Thinking and the Second
Eucharist (Holy Breath, see
Acts) in the Ethereal.
Other courses will be developed according to particular interests of
participants, as these will naturally arise out of the main course
materials and their related conversations. Guest lecturers will
on occasion be offered. All lectures will be (within reason)
brief, and
lead to
conversation, which, as will be seen above in the essay on
Transcendentalism
Comes
of
Age, to be a primary reason for the New Concord School
of Philosophy. Much will be gained by talking to each other -
the lectures are but to inspire the life of those conversations.
Books, as background for these courses, can be read for free on my
website, or purchased at my
bookstore, which include, but are not
limited to, these books on social life and politics:
Uncommon
Sense:
the
Degeneration,
and
the Redemption, of Political Life in
America; and a collection of essays,
On the Nature of Public
Life:
the Soul of a People, the
Spirit of a Nation, and the Sacrifices
of its Leaders. The
growing and developing stream of the Shepherds is outlined in:
The Way of the Fool:
the conscious development of our human
character and the future of Christianity, both to be born out of the
natural union of Faith and Gnosis; and
New Wine: foundational essays out of a Science of the Spirit, in
support of the coming living metamorphosis of Christianity - both comprising part of
my work on Christianity. Details of the Kings' stream of wisdom
are to be found in:
American
Anthroposophy - an
introduction:
a celebration of
the American Soul's unique ability to contribute to the future of
Anthroposophy, and to the future of world culture; and, Dangerous
Anthroposophy:
a
collection of critical essays about the
anthroposophical
society and movement, as well as early works developing a new
(spiritual) science of the social. And, my
latest
book is:
The Art of
God: an actual theory of Everything A
challenge
to
the
Theory
of
Evolution and the Big Bang, by offering A
Theory of God and its details as a fully accurate and realistic Theory
of Everything.
Those having an interest in coming to a lecture/conversation
should contact Linda LaTores (the owner of River House) at:
978-369-7974 [
It helps if we
know you are coming, but not necessary]. If you want me to
make a
presentation at your church or other social gathering, call me at
916-671-5727 (a Vonage number), leave a message as needed and
I'll call you back. 916 is a Sacramento area code, and this would
be long distance to anyone in Concord, but with Vonage I can call you
back (anywhere in the USA) at no cost
.