Some of his most striking word choices are simply crackpot-science technical terms, the precise meaning of which has been forgotten, e.g., the word “electric” in I Sing the Body Electric refers to Mesmeric animal magnetism. Walt Whitman, who was (and meant to be) the archetypal American, embraced every kook ideology available, from Phrenology to Spiritism. To be frank, Americans find spiritual and philosophical fads irresistible, always have. Suzuki, became the foremost popularizer of Zen in America.Īmerica has always been a welcoming refuge and tolerant home for new and peculiar religions. Most momentously present was Soyen Shoku, a Japanese Zen master, whose disciple, D. This idealistic prototype of all succeeding global interfaith dialogues included luminaries on the order of Swami Vivekananda (for Hinduism) and Mary Baker Eddy the founder of Christian Science. Brown, an Illinois judge and ardent Swedenborgian. In 1893, Chicago held the first World’s Fair, which included a World Parliament of Religions, the brainchild of Charles C. How it was that Allen ended up buying into, then pushing, with a proselyte’s zeal, a sanitized, simplified and considerably less than candid version of Buddhism, is worth a short excursus. Even in its most austere Theravada form, Buddhism is still a Hindu heresy with a metaphysical back-story which is richly mythological. These highly practiced exporters of their faith easily arrived at the best way to present their creed to secularized westerners. Buddhism has been a proselytizing religion for a millennium and a half. Allen’s Buddhism didn’t register with me as religious, since he himself presented it as a non-theistic philosophy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |