Quest Magazine

A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion

Catherine L. Albanese
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007. Cloth $40.00, Paper $22.50, 628 pages.

Written by the chair of the religious studies department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the work will doubtless remain a standard in the field of American religious history for many years to come. In the past, American religious history has often been seen as either the history of the various denominations or as a series of evangelical waves beginning with the first Great Awakening in the mid-eighteenth century. Albanese joins several other recent scholars (I think particularly of Leigh Eric Schmidt's Restless Souls and Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney's Hidden Wisdom) in looking at the American scene with very different eyes, charting the importance of what she calls "metaphysical religion" for the history of America.

Although Albanese offers a four-point definition of what she means by metaphysical religion, it turns out that the term includes virtually everything that is neither denominational nor evangelical. Thus, beginning with European religious roots and proceeding historically through American history, she deals with (among many other topics) Hermetic philosophy and alchemical traditions, the "cunning" people of seventeenth-century England and America, Native American religion, African obeah cults, the Shakers and other communal sects, Transcendentalism, mesmerism, spiritualism, faith healers, Christian Science, New Thought, the influence of Asian religions, and of course Theosophy.

Throughout, A Republic of Mind and Spirit exhibits an amazingly close reading of letters, diaries, and other texts. The work is a monument to prodigious scholarship, often bringing to light the importance of long-forgotten writers and movements. At the same time, the book is eminently readable and captivating in style. This reader had no temptation to skim or to skip a section. The history of so-called metaphysical religion in America is fascinating.

Nevertheless, some problems emerge as one proceeds. First of all, the term "metaphysical religion" is so broad that one sometimes wonders whether there is much connection at all among the various persons and movements examined. Do Norman Vincent Peale and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky really belong to the same general movement? If so, why not include Paul Tillich, a Lutheran theologian who was certainly interested in metaphysical ideas?

Secondly, it is far more difficult than this work implies to separate American religion from what was happening in Europe. For instance, Hegel's philosophy certainly influenced many American thinkers, including Mary Baker Eddy, but his name appears only once in the text. Carl Jung's psychology is also barely mentioned, even though he strongly influenced a variety of American thinkers as well. European occult figures such as Éliphas Lévi, A.E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, P. D. Ouspensky, and G. I. Gurdjieff were far more important for the development of American "metaphysics" than the author suggests. In other words, Europe influenced America not just at the beginning but continually.

Third, there are some strange omissions from the discussion. For instance, although the philosopher Paul Carus rates a short discussion, the author says almost nothing about D. T. Suzuki, who worked for Carus and who, almost single-handedly, popularized Zen in America. Perhaps Albanese does not regard Zen as "metaphysical," but given her very broad definition of that term, that seems difficult to imagine. Moreover, although she mentions Jiddu Krishnamurti, she never explores his very interesting philosophical position. Sufis are, by and large, overlooked, while American Taoists are treated rather cavalierly.

Fourth, Albanese discusses the New Age movement without explaining the precession of the equinoxes and why this time is believed to be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. She also believes that New Age movement is dying. Perhaps it is, but if one surfs the Web or consults, for instance, the offerings of the Open Center in New York, it hardly seems moribund at all.

Finally, many Theosophists may be upset by Albanese's treatment of their movement. She devotes all of her attention to William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley and their Theosophical Society (now headquartered in Pasadena, California) and says virtually nothing about the Theosophical Society in America, the society founded by Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott.

Overall, however, the author treats most traditions with an even hand, offering description without critique. Her aim is to right the balance of emphasis in the study of American religious history, and that she does with both erudition and grace. I recommend the book enthusiastically.

Jay G. Williams

This reviewer has served as chairman of the department of religion at Hamilton College. Formerly a Presbyterian minister, now a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, he is author of the Quest Books publications Judaism and Yeshua Buddha.

My Journey in Mystic China: Old Pu's Travel Diary

John Blofeld
Translated by Daniel Reid. Forewords by Huang Li-Sung and Chungliang Al Huang. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2008. xxxv + 247 pages, hardcover, $24.95.

A good travel memoir gives the reader a vivid and entertaining sense of the places visited and the people seen. A great travel memoir does more. It evokes in the reader the spirit of the civilization it describes.

John Blofeld's posthumous book My Journey in Mystic China: Old Pu's Travel Diary falls into the second category. Readers may remember Blofeld (1913¬-87) as the author of many authoritative works on the East, including The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, The Chinese Art of Tea, and a translation of the I Ching. This book is not Blofeld's first memoir—others include City of Lingering Splendour: A Frank Account of Old Peking's Exotic Pleasures and Wheel of Life: The Autobiography of a Western Buddhist—but it does have the distinction of being the only book he wrote in Chinese. Originally published in 1990, it is appearing in English for the first time in this edition.

Blofeld, a Cambridge-educated Englishman, grew up with a mysterious and unshakable fascination with China. In 1932, he dropped out of university and went to that remote country, remaining until 1948, when the imminent victory of the communists impelled him to leave. My Travels in Mystic China chronicles that period in his life. The title is somewhat misleading in that the book does not place any particular focus on the mystical aspects of the China Blofeld visits. Its original Chinese title, Old Pu's Travel Diary: The Memoirs of an Englishman in China, is more accurate. (Pu is Blofeld's Chinese surname.)

Nevertheless, this book is a fascinating description not only of Blofeld's life in China (including his experience with "black rice," i.e., opium; the alluring "flower girls" or courtesans; and even an abortive engagement with a Chinese woman) but of the elaborate and beautiful civilization whose demise he chronicles. If there is a central theme to this book, it is Blofeld's encounter with traditional China and his acute awareness of its passing. Blofeld's years there coincide with some of the worst in the nation's history—the civil war between the nationalists and the communists as well as the Japanese invasion, with its countless atrocities—so in the memoir he ceaselessly laments that many of its glories are soon to perish. At the end of the book he writes, "Prior to the Tang, Sung, and Ming dynasties, although China was influenced for more than a hundred years by various foreign cultures, in the end it always restored the glory of its own indigenous heritage. But within my own lifetime, these ancient winds stopped blowing and would never again fan my face, and it seemed certain that the former glory of Chinese civilization could never be revived."

Although this memoir places more emphasis on China's people and traditions than on its mystical dimensions, we are provided with glimpses of the latter as well. In his travels Blofeld is often hosted by Buddhist and Taoist hermitages, with their quaint and serene atmosphere. One section describes Blofeld's sighting of the mysterious "bodhisattva lights" one night during a visit to Mount Wutai, on the border of Mongolia. "These extraordinary globe-shaped entities approached from faraway and disappeared again into the distance, continuously radiating golden beams of light." Fifty years later, he adds, "I still find it very difficult to explain that phenomenon!" Another striking anecdote is a mystical experience while visiting with "Old Taoist Dzeng," a master in Peking (as Blofeld and his translator still spell the city's name). "All of a sudden, he, I, and everything in the space between us, while still retaining their external appearance, seemed to condense into an inseparable singularity, as though we had suddenly dissolved into one amorphous singularity....When Old Dzeng fixed his penetrating gaze on me, I definitely and very clearly perceived the inseparable and boundless nature of all phenomena."

For such memorable anecdotes as these and for Blofeld's insight into Chinese culture and customs, this book is definitely worth reading. But its greatest value lies in the fact that its pages evoke a sense of the wisdom and calm serenity that characterized Chinese civilization at its greatest.

Richard Smoley

The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of the Spirit: A Return to the Intelligence of the Heart

Joseph Chilton Pearce
Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 2007. 257 pages, hardcover, $22.95.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, the well-known author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, The Biology of Transcendence, and several other works, has written another provocative book, this time about the evolution of the brain, personal development, and what has corrupted our society. Sources for his thought range from the poet William Blake and Baba Muktananda (Pearce’s own guru) to Rudolf Steiner, Elaine Pagels, and Jean Piaget. His aim is to free the power of the heart—which for him is both a physical and a spiritual reality—from the confines of religion, culture, and, perhaps most importantly, bad mothering.

Pearce is an opponent of birth in hospitals, bottle feeding, religion as it has developed, and, it would appear, culture in general. Much of what he says is based upon various psychological studies that are mentioned but not examined in depth. This raises a major problem, for this reviewer has a strong suspicion that mainline psychologists would not be happy with the studies Pearce cites or with the conclusions he draws from them. In fact, mainline psychology is part of the scientism Pearce severely criticizes. So the reader is really asked to accept his findings largely because they “sound good” and not because they are proven in any conventional sense.

Pearce believes that one of the major problems with our culture is that children are often not breast-fed and do not receive the careful, face-to-face attention that mothers need to provide. Sending children off to daycare will not do. At the same time, he seems to favor “free love” for teenagers so that they can find their “soul mates.” But if a young girl becomes pregnant, it is difficult to see how she would be able to provide the nurturing care and love that mothers, according to his teaching, are supposed to offer. In fact, free love may very well end in child neglect, the very problem he seeks to solve.

Pearce is very critical of what he calls culture, but he never clearly defines what he means by the term. Indeed the very center of culture is language, which embodies that culture’s attitudes and prejudices. Nevertheless, he uses language to write this book. Publishing, then, is a very cultural act. What he really seems to be against is a culture (and religion) that judges some people as evil. Even here, however, his view of mothering condemns women who do not breast-feed and do not, perhaps cannot, provide the nurturing he thinks so important. So, in fact, his attempt to improve society proves to be really no better than other “cultural” attempts to do the same.

This does not mean, however, that this book is of no value. It is a challenge to our established culture and may provide many moments of insight. It is doubtful, however, that Pearce’s philosophy will change things. Culture has a way of accepting the “Eureka!” moment he so savors and turning it into another form of cultural control. If his views of nurturing were turned into law, they would become repressive indeed.

Jay G. Williams

The reviewer has served as chairman of the department of religion at Hamilton College. He is the author of Judaism and Yeshua Buddha, both published by Quest Books.

What is Hinduism? Modern Adventures into a Profound Global Faith

by the editors of Hinduism Today
Kapaa, Hawaii: Himalayan Academy, 2007. 392 pages, paper, $39.95.

Many introductory books about Hinduism are available in English. Most of those for sale in the United States are written from a Western point of view and at least pretend to be objective. This volume is very different. Compiled from articles published in the newsmagazine Hinduism Today, the work offers a view of Hinduism as it is known to Hindus themselves. It is positive, enthusiastic, and even mildly “evangelical.” At the same time, the authors can be quite critical of customs, such as untouchability, that have doomed many people to a life beyond the fringe of Indian society. Overall, however, the text is warmly pro-Hindu and provides an interesting and informative view about how one-sixth of the world’s population thinks and lives.

Each chapter originally appeared separately and therefore can be read independently. At the same time, these various chapters are organized topically, which provides the book with a modicum of order. The basic topics are: “The Nature of Hinduism,” “Hindu Metaphysics,” “How Hindus Worship,” “Spiritual Practice,” “Family Life and Culture,” and “Hindu Ethics.” the book may be read from cover to cover, or one can read a later chapter without having read everything that preceded it.

One very positive feature of this book is its many photographs and illustrations. Scarcely a page goes by without some reproduction of a piece of artwork, a temple photograph, or some other illustrative material. There are many pictures of Hindus practicing their faith. The reader is surrounded throughout by visions of Indians and India. In fact one is tempted just to leaf through the book just to look at the pictures.

Sometimes the Western reader may want to take exception to what is said. Is it really a fact, for instance, that Hinduism is twice as old as Judaism? Even that seeming mistake, however, reveals a great deal about the Hindu vision of reality. What one learns in these pages is not purely objective (Is there really such a thing anyway?) but shows how Hindus themselves understand and interpret life.

My own response to this book, then, is very positive. It is informative, readable, and beautifully put together. It would certainly make good reading for an undergraduate course in religion or simply for anyone interested in that age-old spiritual tradition we have come to call Hinduism.

Jay G. Williams

The reviewer has served as chairman of the department of religion at Hamilton College. He is the author of Judaism and Yeshua Buddha, both published by Quest Books.