Transcendentalism and Gnosticism.

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They seem similar:

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism :

From http://www.ushistory.org/us/26f.asp



From http://www.transcendentalists.com/what.htm :



From http://www.emersoncentral.com/transcendentalist.htm :



I am feeling closer to Emerson although I always liked Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.

Anyone consider themselves a transcendentalist or is at least interested in the subject? While reading about it, I notice how it resembles gnosticism. People were attempting to connect with the divine, not through the corrupt orthodoxy, but by using the divine fire within their souls.

Sweet prose; nothing more.

My dad studied the transcendentalists in depth.

When you really dig into their writings, there are a lot of inside jokes, and convenient omissions.

RWE was in fact total pants at carpentry.

HDT neglects to mention that he went back into town every Wednesday to have his mother do his laundry.

I had a friend who was a transcendentalist. She was a member of the Thoreau Society -http://www.thoreausociety.org

The overall idea being there's personal pride in striving to do things yourself, plus, for example, if you are actively participating in the construction of your own house; and I know most people cannot do the entire thing themselves, although that was more feasible in Emerson's day and before, building a simple log cabin or digging out a soddy, by participating in picking out the land, contractors, design, building materials, your house will be done your specifications.

Transcendentalists ask what can be garnered from self participation instead of just letting others do it for you?

I had a hand sized edition of Walden and used to read it to family but haven't studied much Transcendentalism until today. I wanted to take a deeper look for Transcendent Tuesdays, today being the first one but I want to make it something that happens every Tuesday from now on.

I have felt this connection to nature, love the oceans, the Grand Canyon, which I spent a week camping at, during the last week of October when the lows were around 19 degrees fahrenheit but the days were lovely. I managed to last seven days but it was so cold at night, I had to sleep in the car instead of the tent and it was still really cold but I toughed it out because there was lots to do during the day and at that altitude, I felt warm when the sun was out but that first full day a cold front came through with wind, clouds, and I was so close to throwing in the towel and going home but I still had about a thousand miles between me and there and wanted to get some sleep first and once it warmed up, it became tolerable but the nights stayed the same temperature the entire time. I brought plenty of fire logs even though they had a little store in the Grand Canyon Park that sold them, along with about fifty mules, a few elks, an assortment of squirrels and plenty of ravens. They also had coffee.

I have this interest in hiking the Appalachian Trail in summer but need to find a way to get there first.

Which one of them was it that went to Brook Farm and ended up stating "By mid-day the better part of the man is shoveled onto the dung heap"?

Thoreau? That guy didn't know beans.

Farms - blah. Thoreau is about camping, hiking and woods.

Yes, but still having your mother do the laundry.

Mom doing it but not church or government.

One of the few places that's truly transcendent these days is Alaska but it's so cold and there's not a lot of indoor plumbing plus you have to do things like hunt. Farming would be difficult.

It might be a stretch to extrapolate his disdain for slavery and war and belief that "That government is best which governs least" as an endorsement of what we recognize as libertarian views today.

They went to ivy league schools and were tired of the ivy league attitude. They saw church and government as corrupt and from what we can tell, they are. The answer to this was to go hide away in the woods where you talked to animals and stared at ponds all day or whatever works for you. I went to the Grand Canyon. Problem is, it's difficult to have that transcendental experience in a parking lot so it's best to go during off season times but then it's very uncomfortable, as in, it's too cold. Campgrounds in the Grand Canyon Park can resemble parking lots during peak times. I cannot transcend in a parking lot. People always want to bring their five or six suvs with them when they go camping.

Have you read Walden?

Here's the first few lines of chapter 6, "Visitors":

I used to read the pocket sized edition, this really small Walden paperback book, to family years ago but it eventually got lost and I forgot most of it so it's been a while since I've read any of it. I get what it's about, Grizzly Adams type guy living with the animals and nature as opposed to crowded cities.

Ehh, sort of.

The two years at walden pond were Thoreau's most productive years.

Emerson agreed to let him live there if he clear some land and replant trees.

In the first year at the pond, he:

Built a house

Cleared two and a half acres of land (without earth-moving equipment)

Replanted those acres with: potatoes, corn, peas, turnips and approximately 20,000 bean plants totaling approximately 7 miles of bean rows.

Produced two drafts of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"

Wrote a lecture about Thomas Carlyle

Wrote a lecture titled "A History of Myself"

Did odd jobs for money including ‘surveying, carpentry and day-labor of various other kinds' -- including building a fence for Emerson. By his own estimation, he worked for money about 1 day a week.

He roughed it just a little. And he had frequent visitors, approaching daily visitors. He wasn't that far from town, and quite close to Emerson's house.

Various people lived with him at various times, including the occasional fugitive slave and at one point a friend slept on his floor for 2 weeks.

There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor in Thoreau's writing. And no shortage of private jokes for his close friends. You can't read any of it too literally.