“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “We of the craft are all crazy.” ― Lord Byron A CRASH COURSE IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: LESSON 6 As we discussed in earlier lessons for a time during the 18th Century it seems that […]
Tag Archives: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
March
18
The Heart of the Mystic
posted by Jeff Carreira
A mystic is one who sees the deeper reality that lies hidden beneath our ordinary experience of reality. The mystic looks deeply into the nature of things by letting go of conventional wisdom and allowing their awareness to roam beyond the safety of the familiar. The mystic has tasted something that lies under the surface […]
December
15
The Emancipation of Imagination
posted by Jeff Carreira
In 1817 the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge described “the willing suspension of disbelief” as an act of “poetic faith” through which a reader’s accepts fanciful aspects of a fictional work. Without this willingness the reader cannot surrender into any story that contain extraordinary circumstances or characters. Those of us who believe that human beings […]
October
29
Romanticism and the Human Soul
posted by Jeff Carreira
Most of us know Samuel Taylor Coleridge as the English Romantic poet and author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. We may not be aware that he was also an important English theologian who significantly influenced the New England Transcendentalist movement in America. Coleridge and Ralph Waldo Emerson were both trained as Unitarian ministers […]
October
10
Are we stuff that got smart? Or smarts that grew stuff?
posted by Jeff Carreira
One of the most confounding philosophical questions is the one about who we are, and how we got here. Are we intelligent matter – stuff that got smart – or are we incarnate spirit – smarts that grew stuff? This question is inherent in the experience of being human. We experience bodies and we experience […]
The Heart of the Mystic
posted by Jeff Carreira
A mystic is one who sees the deeper reality that lies hidden beneath our ordinary experience of reality. The mystic looks deeply into the nature of things by letting go of conventional wisdom and allowing their awareness to roam beyond the safety of the familiar. The mystic has tasted something that lies under the surface […]
The Soul Evolves
posted by Jeff Carreira
The human soul is not the procession of any single individual; it is the ground of awareness that is the essence of the entire human experience. It is a field of pure knowing. At least that is what Ralph Waldo Emerson learned from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Emerson used the term the Over-Soul to express this […]
A Field of Pure Knowing
posted by Jeff Carreira
What is the human soul? Is it some phantom-like part of us or is it a living dimension of the universe from which all life flows? The later is what Samuel Taylor Coleridge taught and his brilliant description of this living soul was so powerful that it ignited a vision that entranced the American Transcendentalists […]
Breaking the Bonds of Language
posted by Jeff Carreira
Have you ever tried to have an original thought – or worse – had a truly original thought that you tried to put into language? That is when you realize that you are trapped in a prison constructed of words and sentences and syntax and grammar. You know something, in the recesses of your perceptual […]
The Bible, Poetry and Mental Sensations
posted by Jeff Carreira
By the early part of the nineteenth century the Age of Reason had made it increasingly difficult for progressive religious thinkers to accept a literal interpretation of the Bible. It was clear that many passages of that sacred text could no longer be accepted at face value. There was a rush of interest in biblical criticism […]
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